Posted 8/5/1999 10:18:36 AM, revised 8/5/1999 3:57:56 PM

        NoFlyby Newsletter No. 18
        Action Site to Stop Cassini Earth Flyby
        P.O. Box 1999, Wendell Depot, MA 01380 USA
        http://www.nonviolence.org/noflyby

        August 4, 1999

        1) Prepare for the worst - work for the best

        2) Edgar Mitchell and Consciousness

        3) DU and lowlevel radiation

        4) Global Network Against Weapons
           and Nuclear Power in Space

        5) Cassini Day Vigil, August 11, 1999

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        1) Prepare for the worst - work for the best


        NoFlyby has been asked to respond to questions regarding what
individuals can do to prepare for a Cassini Earth flyby accident. Our
primary focus is on prevention. We ask you to encourage NASA to use the
Correction Trajectory Maneuver scheduled for August 11, 1999, to aim Cassini
as far away from Earth as possible. Please write and call NASA. Contact
information is at NoFlyby's Action Page:
http://www.nonviolence.org/noflyby/action/index.htm .
In a report presented to President Clinton, July 1997, an interagency review
panel's Cassini Safety Evaluation Report claimed that "tens of thousands" of
fatalities may occur -- that the Plutonium containers, (contrary to NASA's
claims in their Environmental Impact Statements), were not designed to
safeguard the Plutonium on board Cassini at the expected speeds of the
Cassini Earth flyby.

        Besides prevention, the other alternative is to filter the air we
breathe for the next thousand years. Since that is unlikely, we have other
modest suggestions: maintain a healthy vegan diet with a good amount of
antioxidant vitamins, eat wakabe seaweed (which is in miso soup) and try
other aids for a healthy immune system, such as meditation, prayer,
echinacea and find whatever works for you.

        Dr. Kai Petzke, who wrote a paper on Cassini,
(http://www.nonviolence.org/noflyby/ref/kai.htm) recommends "..getting a
gas mask - you know the ones, that soldiers have to wear in case of atomic,
biological or chemical warfare. If Cassini's plutonium boxes break in lower
atmosphere, there will be a rather high plutonium concentration, which
will be washed out from atmosphere in a month or two. Other hints: Get
storable food, turn off any ventilation or air conditioning, open the
windows only rarely to let fresh air in. Whenever you happen to walk in
the rain, wash yourself VERY carefully afterwards, throw away clothes
exposed to the rain. Rain washes out small particles from the air very
effectively. If the burn up happens in stratosphere (above atmosphere),
it is much much harder to prevent, because things will comedown much
slower.

        Those at greatest risk are at the southern hemisphere, since NASA is
aiming the closest approach point over the Eastern South Pacific. The
spacecraft may be visible from small islands, such as Pitcairn Island or
Easter Island. The altitude for the closest point planned by NASA is at
about 1173 km (729 miles). The flyby is scheduled to arrive on August 18,
1999 at 3:28 A.M. GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), which is on August 17, 1999 at
8:28 P.M. PDT.

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        2) Edgar Mitchell and Consciousness


SCIENCE and SPIRITUALITY
A Match Made in Heaven
by Chris Butterfield

Science and spirituality: one is based on reality and form, the other on
feeling and sense. They seem like complete opposites, yet those in the
theological field keep trying to mash them together like two magnets with
similar polarities. As a kid, you never could push them together, could you?

Well, there is a man who is trying. He is from the moon, well versed in
human theological thinking, and attempting to scientifically dissect the
human mind. Sounds fictitious, but the man spoken of is in fact real. His
name is Dr. Edgar Mitchell, the sixth NASA astronaut to prance upon the moon
during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971, founder of the Institute for Noetic
Sciences, and author of The Way of the Explorer. Mitchell has participated
in experiments, and researched and funded research into the nature of
consciousness as it relates to cosmology
and causality. He is in search of a scientific definition for human
consciousness. He, along with a handful of other scientists, has almost
found it.

The full article can be found at:
http://www.newtimes.org/99-08-mitchell.html

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        3) DU and lowlevel radiation

The good part of this disturbing news story that follows, is that this
information is finally getting into the mainstream press.. albeit, slowly,
but the evidence is getting more and more obvious on the significant harm
caused by low level radiation. More on DU and its link to Cassini is linked
from NoFlyby's table of contents: "Landmines at the cellular level" (under
important references), which goes to http://www.pgs.ca/pages/nl/lmcells.htm


By John O'Callaghan

Depleted uranium shells leave lethal legacy -panel

LONDON (Reuters) - Depleted uranium shells leave a legacy of birth defects
and death, scientists told a conference in London Friday, warning that the
radioactive ammunition will cause the same health problems in Kosovo as it
has in Iraq.

``One single particle of depleted uranium lodged in the lymph node can
devastate the entire immune system,'' Dr. Roger Coghill, an experimental
biologist, told the conference on links between depleted uranium (DU) and
cancers in Iraq.

``We know that some one million DU bullets were fired (during the Gulf War)
and many still lie in the Gulf desert, causing clearly serious cancers and
birth defects. The connection between the two is biologically extremely
plausible,'' he said.

Part of the problem with the debate over the effects of depleted uranium is
a lack of hard, scientific data. What little does exist is seized upon by
one side to disprove the other.

Some critics say chemical weapons used by Iraqi forces in the 1980-88 war
with Iran are the real reason for the health problems in southern Iraq.

Declassified U.S. documents show that U.S. forces fired about 944,000 rounds
of the cigar-sized DU ammunition in Iraq and Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War.

Depleted uranium is favored as a tank- and bunker-buster because its extreme
density allows it to punch through armor and concrete.

Professor Mona Kammas, a member of Iraq's Committee of Pollution Impact by
Aggressive Bombing, displayed photographs of deformed babies and said an
increase in birth defects in parts of Iraq was caused by depleted uranium.

``When we studied the nearest to the depleted uranium sources, the more
abnormalities we got,'' she later told Reuters. ``This material is
radioactive and hazardous to man, animals and plants.''

Thousands of Iraqi military personnel and civilians were affected by the
after-effects of the shells, Kammas said.

Coghill, who runs his own research center in Gwent, Wales, said smoke and
dust from the impact of the rounds can carry radioactive particles hundreds
of yards into the air and several hundred miles downwind.

The use of DU shells in Kosovo, fired mostly from U.S. A-10 ``tank-busting''
planes, was endangering the health of returning refugees, peacekeepers, aid
workers and the people of neighboring countries, he said.

``We think that in the Kosovo conflict, as a result of (immune-related
disorders), there will be some 10,000 deaths from cancer,'' he added.

Kammas said Western governments had not discussed the problem because they
do want their soldiers to know of the hazards, adding it was up to the
United States to clean up Iraq.

Some of the other scientists and doctors, while not drawing a parallel
between the cancers and DU ammunition, blamed years of international
sanctions against Iraq as a major contributor to health problems.

To draw attention to the health situation in Iraq, British Labor MP George
Galloway said he and members of the charity Mariam Appeal would drive from
London to Baghdad in a converted double-decker bus this autumn.

11:41 07-30-99
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.  All rights reserved.

NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving this information for research and educational purposes.

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        4) Global Network Against Weapons
           and Nuclear Power in Space

        The following is from an email to the abolition 2000 caucus group by
the coordinator of GlobeNet, Bruce Gagnon. NoFlyby encourages you to send
Bruce your snail/email addresses and join GlobeNet to unite behind the ban
of space-based weapons.

        "It is quite clear that the U.S. is committed to creating an arms
race in space and one key element in the successful creation of such an arms
race is to force others (Russia and China) to have to respond to our hostile
moves with their own efforts to keep up. This will lead to a spiral that
will allow the U.S. to then come back to the American people, Congress and
the media with the claims that "See we must have our space dominance because
our 'enemies' are increasing (or at least not reducing) their nuclear arsenals."

        The whole thing is a set-up. And it is good to remember that the
military is talking about the day coming soon when "some country" will knock
out one of our satellites that will enable the U.S. to justify deploying
anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons in space. Essentially another Gulf of Tonkin
incident. There is so much money to be made by the weaponization of space
that the aerospace industry will do anything necessary to move the arms race
into space."

Bruce K. Gagnon 
Coordinator
Global Network
PO Box 90083, Gainesville, Fl 32607
Web site:  http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk/
(352) 337-9274

For the NoFlyby News Release on the Cassini-Military Connection:
                "The FORCE Behind Cassini"
see: http://www.nonviolence.org/noflyby/alerts/18n.htm

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        5) Cassini Day Vigil, August 11, 1999

        A new positive initiative and website on the Cassini predicament

        http://www.cassinidayvigil.com/index.htm

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Please, also, contact media, write letters to the editor, help bring
awareness to end the threat of nuclear space programs. NoFlyby has a limited
number of "Nukes in Space 2: Unacceptable Risks" by EnviroVideo available.
If you want to donate a copy to your public library, and write a letter to
the editor announcing this, send us postage and we will send you the video
for free, ($3 in the U.S. for priority mail and at least $10 for airmail).

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