Cassini Mission Draws Protest
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Led by grandmothers and a bagpiper, anti-nuclear activists chanting “Stop Cassini, don’t be a weenie!” marched to the entrance of Cape Canaveral Air Station, where a plutonium-powered spacecraft is to lift off next week. An estimated 500 protesters walked to the chained front gate. Twenty-seven protesters were charged with trespassing. The $3.4-billion Cassini probe to Saturn is scheduled to lift off Oct. 13 and will be powered by 72 pounds of highly radioactive plutonium, the most rocketed into space.
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