Space, Time, Cassini

By ERIC FRANCIS

Image right: Waves in Saturn's A ring, taken from Cassini (NASA-JPL)

I DON'T NORMALLY go to work at 10 p.m. -- work being a cafe called the Wet Fish in West Hampstead where I write most of my columns and watch London go by for hours on end. But last night I did, because a magazine I write for in New York (Upstate House) is moving offices, and word came down from the chief to move things along early this month. So I went and I worked as long as I could; but being its first anniversary, the cafe decided to close early, and at about 11:15 p.m. I packed up my stuff and stepped out onto West End Lane, where I was immediately met by the vision of the nearly-Full Moon rising, just over the buildings, with the street snaking out in front of it.

At that moment a man was walking past and I said, "Hey, check out the Moon." He stopped and turned around and took a look. "Just past full," he said. "About to be full," I said, and offered him a peek at the Full Moon chart, which was still in my hands. He turned out to be an astronomer (from the East Coast) and retired astronomy teacher, not much into astrology, however, but we've yet to have a serious discussion. He also turned out to specialise in eclipses, and had written a book on the subject for the Aug. 11, 1999 event that people here still refer to as "the eclipse" (because everyone saw it). I'll plug his book below; I've had a look and it's a really good scientific run-down on the subject, including diagrams I've been itching to include with my column for years.

The Aug. 11 eclipse was the infamous Grand Cross / Total Solar Eclipse that shook the world in the summer (and fall) of 1999, and was something of a launching point for Planet Waves because I made a huge issue out of it. The issue wasn't the eclipse itself as much as it was the visit of the Cassini Space Probe the following week. Cassini was scheduled to make a near-Earth flyby to "slingshot" the probe off the Earth's gravity field and propel it to Saturn, gaining a lot of speed without consuming additional fuel. This, in turn, was a big deal because Cassini's onboard systems are powered by a battery made of an astonishing 72 pounds of plutonium (called an RTG or radioisotope thermal generator). Astonishing, given that inhaling 1 microgram is all that's necessary to cause lung cancer.

Cassini was launched from Earth on Oct. 15, 1997. Its first destination was Venus, where it made a few orbits to pick up speed, and was then sent back to the Earth to make its August 1999 slingshot manoeuvre, catapulting it off to Saturn.

Had the rocket scientists slipped -- and they do, occasionally -- Cassini could have plunged into the Earth's atmosphere and spread enough plutonium throughout the planet to give 36 billion people lung cancer (that's about five times apiece for each of us). The probe has no heat shields and would have burned up like a meteor, diffusing its contents throughout the biosphere. The launch of the probe was aboard a Titan IV rocket vehicle that has had a lot of problems in the past (about 1 in 20 blows up), so there were actually two opportunities for that plutonium to be released (on Earth; the plutonium will wind up somewhere, probably in the atmosphere of Saturn).

Meantime, a man named Karl Grossman, a journalism professor from the State University of New York and one of my personal heroes, had been making a huge deal about this long before I'd ever heard of it, and had done many exposes on the nuclear space program. The program, Grossman documented in a book called The Wrong Stuff, includes missions using plutonium powered batteries, as well as highly advanced weapons systems capable of killing thousands of people with lasers from space.

All of this falls under the authority of the United States Space Command, which falls under the Air Force. Space, Grossman has shown, is a well-concealed military zone.

Fortunately, Grossman's awareness campaign appears to have convinced mission controllers to increase the distance of the flyby from about 400 miles to about 700 miles, which is reassuring given that the craft was to pass extremely close to Earth at 42,300 miles per hour and at that speed even 700 miles is a close shave. Fortunately, the flyby worked fine. I was thrilled it had been planned for after the eclipse rather than before. I am sure they consulted their astrologers (but obviously not the same ones who work for the current Bush White House).

And now, after its creators risked the life of humanity, Cassini has arrived at Saturn, was slipped by its pilots through an opening in the rings, and was confirmed to be in a stable orbit at 9:12 p.m. PDT Wednesday night. This is the first time a spacecraft has orbited Saturn. All previous missions were flybys. For the next four years, this incredibly sophisticated craft will be the star of the international space program. Let's put it this way. It better be worth it; let's get the show on the road, boys.

No, seriously, I think it will be quite impressive. We're going to learn a lot about Saturn -- and, as it works out, we're also going to learn a lot about Saturn.

Cassini arrives at its destination in a moment of near-anarchy on Earth. Propelled by the childish actions of the United States and United Kingdom, chaos prevails in the Middle East and promises to spread violence to many more places around the world. The U.S. elections are set up for the biggest mess in history, be it due to electoral fraud, ignorance, terrorism, fear or some combination of the above. And hundreds of billions of dollars are being siphoned off of collective resources to rain war and devastation on people and fill the accounts of multinational corporations. This, at a time when we need to be devoting our energy and resources to the environmental problems that oil and wars for oil are only going to make worse.

As scientific instruments send back images from Saturn that would astonish a dog, plus data that will be used for centuries, Saturn becomes one of the most active planets on the world scene in terms of the astrology it creates. We are going to see a LOT about how this planet, now in Cancer, works. For one thing, Saturn is now passing over the natal Sun of George W. Bush, as well as the natal Sun of the United States chart for July 4th, 1776. It may seem interesting that the acting president's birthday (on July 6) falls so close to (one version of) the national anniversary, but this tells us both charts are subject to many of the same transits.

In the case of the acting president's chart, Saturn is also making a square (90-degree meeting) to five of his planets in Libra: Neptune, Chiron, the Moon, Juno and Jupiter -- the last four of these, at this precise moment. To say the utmost minimum, this is a turning point in his life. Saturn's role, in times of chaos, is to set limits and lay out definitions, and it would appear that some limits are about to be set and terms about to be defined.

In perhaps the most significant Saturn news of the season, the Lord of the Rings makes its next opposition to Chiron on Aug. 15. (The first recent one was Sept. 23, 2003 and there will be a total of seven in the current round that goes through June 2006. This is because Saturn and Chiron are moving at similar relative speeds right now.) Aug. 15 is a day to watch.

Appropriately, Chiron in Capricorn is rising in the Cassini orbit chart, which I've cast for the Mission Control Centre in Pasadena, CA at 9:12 p.m. PDT on Wednesday. Saturn, which rules the chart as the ascendant ruler, is in the 6th house of scientific endeavours; the Sun is conjunct Pallas Athene, the asteroid of politics, and is also in that house, as is Mercury. Many planets in Cancer are ruled by the Moon (planets that occupy a sign are said to be ruled by that sign's ruler).

The Moon -- the same one I saw rising last night, talking to astronomer J.P. McEvoy on West End Lane -- makes its appearance in Sagittarius in the 11th house -- the most public house, representing the world community -- situated less than one degree past Pluto! To me this is a reminder of all that Plutonium aboard the space probe and how near it came to the Earth (one of the rulers of the sign Sagittarius).

This was a week of pivotal events and interesting charts. There was the handover of the deed from former Iraq viceroy L. Paul Bremer to the CIA-backed Iraqi leader; Saddam Hussein ceased to be a prisoner of war and now faces the hangman's noose, along with 11 of his former colleagues; and Venus stationed to direct motion in the thick of it all, a key moment in the developing story of the Venus transit of the Sun on June 8.

And the season -- which includes two national political conventions in the United States and the return of the Olympics to Athens, of all places -- has just begun. We will keep you posted. ++