UNDERGROUND

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators - the chunks of plutonium in the lead boxes - was a ‘non-issue’. So much so, in fact, that he planned to have his loved ones at the Space Center when Atlantis took off.

Maybe the astronauts were nutty risk-takers, as the protesters implied, but a hero would never put his family in danger. Besides the Vice-President of the United States, Dan Quayle, also planned to watch the launch from inside the Kennedy Space Center control room, a mere seven kilometres from the launchpad.

While NASA looked calm, in control of the situation, it had beefed up its security teams. It had about 200 security guards watching the launch site. NASA just wasn’t taking any chances. The agency’s scientists had waited too long for this moment. Galileo’s parade would not be rained on by a bunch of peaceniks.

The launch was already running late as it was - almost seven years late. Congress gave the Galileo project its stamp of approval way back in 1977 and the probe, which had been budgeted to cost about $400 million, was scheduled to be launched in 1982. However, things began going wrong almost from the start.

In 1979, NASA pushed the flight out to 1984 because of shuttle development problems. Galileo was now scheduled to be a ‘split launch’, which meant that NASA would use two different shuttle trips to get the mothership and the probe into space. By 1981, with costs spiralling upwards, NASA made major changes to the project. It stopped work on Galileo’s planned three-stage booster system in favour of a different system and pushed out the launch deadline yet again, this time to 1985. After a federal Budget cut fight in 1981 to save Galileo’s booster development program, NASA moved the launch yet again, to May 1986. The 1986 Challenger disaster, however, saw NASA change Galileo’s booster system for safety reasons, resulting in yet more delays.

The best option seemed to be a two-stage, solid-fuel IUS system. There was only one problem. That system could get