Incoming!!

Yaaagh, head for the hills! Go, save yourselves! We're all doomed!

This ranting has been provoked by the news I heard on the radio this
morning that a mile-wide asteroid has been spotted that is on a course
which could possibly cause it to impact with Earth. Such an impact would
have devastating effects, from seismic disturbances to tidal waves to
dust blotting out the sun. You'd better move quick, 'cos it's due to
impact in.... 2028. Oh. OK. But it's still scary. I seem to recall a
film called "The Icarus Project" or suchlike, about how an asteroid was
knocked off course with nukes, and of course there was the dire
"Asteroid" mini-series on TV a while back.

Do any of you bright people out there have any other ideas as to how we
could prevent such a cataclysmic event? Or how the subject has been
dealt with in science fiction (stay on topic!)?

Later,

Steve :-)
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(oO)
/||\

Previously, Steve wrote...

...a mile-wide asteroid has been spotted that is on a course
And obviously it wouldn't be much good for the people living where it
actually hit...!
Come on, we're young - we will live forever! (Won't we? Oh no, I'm
getting old!) Still, it's not a pleasant thing to know if we're going
to be bringing children into the world. (Makes me glad to be terminally
single...)
And Meteor... which had Russians and Yanks teaming their nuclear
missiles up to blast the thing apart, and, while that was going on,
smaller chunks causing devastation around the world - one, conveniently,
landing on the city where the meteor-monitoring base was!

And then there's the Arthur C.Paedophile (allegedly) book, Rendezvous
with Rama, featuring a rogue asteroid warning system which became
necessary when, in Arthur's (not quite exact) words, "there was no more
room on Earth for celestial target practise" (ie. humans everywhere on
the surface).

And When Worlds Collide, which had the Fireball XL5 spaceship in it
(well, it took off on rails!).

Was "Asteroid" the one which was presented as a series of newscasts?
Yes, blast it with missiles! Or get the starship Enterprise to project
a warp field around it to change the gravitational constant of the
universe and thus send it into a perfectly circular orbit! (Or
something...) Actually, judging from recent comments, we could just
build a Disney-corporation theme park there, thus causing it to flee
back whence it came.

Remember a couple of decades ago (dunno the date), a really *huge* chunk
of rock just about grazed the atmosphere, but (thank the Lord) didn't
hit the surface! Just think, if Earth had had a fraction less mass, it
might have travelled a bit faster in its orbit and received a direct
hit! However, if we were moving faster, we'd be a harder target...
giant rocket engines, anyone?

Or perhaps we need a celestial goal keeper of some kind (hopefully not a
Grobbelar-class asteroid deflector, which might be bribed by a "short
alien" to throw Mankind's continued existence...).

Finally, if anyone has read Relevations, you'll know why we absolutely
must *not* call this asteroid Wormwood...

Dave Chilard

Well, it's probably more likely to impact in the ocean (after all, most
of the Earth's surface is ocean), but the huge waves wouldn't be fun for
people living on the coast or in low-lying areas.
Not quite everywhere (remember, much of the earth is covered in ocean),
but everywhere that an asteroid impact would cause huge loss of life, be
it from actually being at the impact site or getting swamped by tidal
waves.
I think it had the heroes using an aeroplane-mounted laser (intended for
frying satellites) to blow up the asteroid, despite the fact they were
flying in a hurricane or something similarly daft at the time. Of
course, hundreds of smaller, yet still devastating, difficult-to-track
lumps of rock are *much* better than one huge one. Oh yes. So instead of
one enormous impact, we get hundreds of smaller ones spread across the
globe. Share it around, that sort of thing.
Almost as silly as the solution in Asteroid - of which more below.
Now, now.
Yeah, this "We're going to be wiped out by a huge meteor strike" thing
does surface in the news now and again. People were comparing this one
to the Shoemaker-Levy cometary debris that pounded Jupiter a while back
(which is not really the same thing). According to some statistics,
cataclysmic meteor strikes occur every few thousand years, and we're
overdue for one.
If you've seen Starship Troopers you'll know the aliens used a similar
tactic. "What are they gonna do, throw rocks at us?" Well, now you come
to mention it...
Woo-hoo, a dose of millenialism anyone? :-)

Later,

Steve :-)
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(oO)
/||\

Dismukes S said:
The waves are only a fraction of the problem.

A lot of scientists believe that it was an asteroid about the size of
a london bus that wiped out the dinosaurs. A london bus is quite a lot
less than a mile wide.
That's probably the most likely solution. It's pretty easy to make a
nuke that'll devastate areas many miles wide. It ought to be easy to
disintegrate something that's a mere ONE mile wide, as long as you can
get your nuclear device to explode on target. Hitting something that's
plummetting through space at thousands of miles an hour is going to be
a lot harder than hitting something that's stationary on the ground,
but I'm sure by 2028 we'll have the technology.
Smaller chunks stand FAR FAR more chance of burning up before they get
anywhere near the ground. Take 2 lumps of coal, burn one, and time how
long it takes. now grind the other up into a find powder and burn
that, and compare the time taken. (hint, this is what they do to burn
lots of coal very fast in power stations)

---

Nick Waterman. Network Consultant / Sysadmin - LEOnet
Beating tomorrow's technology into submission.
nick-sig@ Team *AMIGA*!
Oh, wow! Look at the moon!

Previously, Nick Waterman said:
Bear in mind that this thing is a mile wide. That's a lot of rock. Now,
the first few missiles could probably knock lumps off, or split it up,
but those lumps would still probably be large enough to cause a fair bit
of damage. And instead of one rock to smash down to manageable size,
you've got loads of slightly smaller rocks you need to track and break
up even more. Adam previously said that it's been theorised a meteor the
size of a double-decker bus wiped out the dinosaurs. How many
double-decker buses can you fit into an approximate sphere a mile wide?
All of those bits would have to be sufficiently broken down or deflected
if we were to avoid a similar fate to the dinosaurs. I think it would be
more sensible to knock the whole thing away from us, rather than smash
it up.

Later,

Steve :-)
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(oO)
/||\

<HACK>

I think it would be
Which, oddly enough is the point I tried to make before I was threatened
with bricks landing on my head.

Andrew

Steve said:

[Break it up, and you've lots of small stuff]
Not me gov. Probably Andrew.

Last I heard, it was a rock substantially larger than the UK that
was believed to have impacted somewhere around Central America
and smeared itself up as far as the great lakes. If you hold
a map with the heights up at the right angle, you can see the
distorted circle type thing with the triangle on top shape
traditional associated with impacts. (Distorted by tectonic (sp?)
plate movements it's presumed).

One of the more interesting theories, I've seen, involved the concept
that due to the Earths shape (sat on football) and structure, (solid
centre, squishy middle, tough shell) it could absorb a good deal of
the energy of such impacts, by rolling in the vertical plane. Ie
the north and south poles swap.

This theory is rather cool, as it explains things like why the magnetic
poles switch direction periodically in geological history, and why there
is a temple in South America, with a detailed star map of the Northern
Hemisphere painted on it's ceiling.

The downside of the theory, is that it did happen, the seas would
jump out of their basins and run around on the land for a bit.
Which would cause a fair amount of devastion and we'd all get a
little wet.

The upside of the theory, is that you'd need a meteor a darn site
larger than a double decker bus to total the species.

Later,

---

Adam Hattrell, Support, Cimio Ltd. adam@

Nor me, I believe it was Nick.
Last I heard (and this is the current theory), it was a rock about
5-10km across impacting in the southern Carribbean that did it for the
Dinosaurs.
A rock as large as the UK would do a great deal more damage than you
might imagine. Large parts of central North America would in fact be
liquified (heat from impact melts rocks which then solidify again as
basalts or equivalent). Considering the fact that the oldest known rocks
on earth come from this area (about 4 billion years old in fact) that
just about refutes that theory.
People thought that about Switzerland (sp?) (it's surrounded by
mountains) until some bright spark pointed out that it is bounded on two
sides by currently active plate collision zones which were more than
capable of producing that structure.
This is believed to be why Venus and Neptune are inclined at such
strange angles to their orbits. Eatrh's inclination is 23.5 degrees,
Neptune is ~98 degrees, and Venus is ~170 degrees (it's the only planet
that rotates the wrong way).
You can see quite a lot of the Northern hemisphere stars from Australia,
so the South Americans would have had no problem. From here (Egham) you
can see a lot of the Southern hemisphere stars. From Majorca, you can
see almost as far as the South Celestial pole. There is no real mystery
to that.
There would also be evidence for this if it had happened in the past, as
yet none has been discovered.
Who said anything about a double decker bus? The one that sparked off
this thread is over a mile wide.

Andrew

Well it was some time ago, I could well have mis-remembered the size.
As I recall the carribbean is still somewhere near Central America.
Of course my geography was always poor...
The point of the mystery of the South American temple, is that it's
a fairly detailed starmap, drawn as it would be if you were actually
in the northern hemisphere. Whilst there are plenty of possible
explainations (off the top of my head, Vikings, rather nasty maths,
copied from something further up North, publicity hoax by the locals)
it is a rather curious thing to do, don't you think?
Well the book I started reading on the subject was fairly hefty, so
I assume he had some evidence to support the theory, but sadly, it
was a friends and I never finished it. The mathematical model of
the earth and the collision was far more interesting anyway.
I can't remember the name of the book either, which is a shame,
as I would like to finish it.
Well I think you said it was Nick...

Later,

---

Adam Hattrell, Support, Cimio Ltd. adam@

Previously, Andrew Wren (and diverse others) wrote...
Hey Andrew, remember our lectures on Thursday? No, maybe that's a
stupid question... but I'll refresh your memory of that particular
mind-numbing experience: we learned that the dinosaurs, along with many
other life-forms which went extinct 65 million years ago, didn't die out
quick enough for it to have been a meteorite impact that killed them!
They were already in decline at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary.
However, a whacking great meteorite impact certainly isn't going to
encourage declining species to go forth and multiply...
Maybe that's when it hit, and the scientists just dated it wrong (thus
attributing it to the extinction of the dinosaurs)?
For the uninitiated, he means there are two big chunks of the Earth's
crust either side pushing inwards. (Well, it's easier to understand
than the UNIX thing...)
I thought Uranus (the planet, before anyone gets any ideas!!) was the
one on its side, its axis pointing more or less towards the Sun...
Excuse me? What about all those marine inundations we're always reading
about in stratigraphy? Okay, they aren't world-shatteringly big, but
they could indicate perhaps the Earth being knocked around a bit.
Perhaps by a steady stream of sand and grit formed by the crushing-up of
a meteoritic brick...? (So, if we blow this asteroid up, we'll be
knocked off course slowly and more safely?!)
Someone said it was an asteroid the size of a double-decked bus wot
wiped out the dinosaurs. Presumably, he means the dinosaurs waited ages
for a meteorite and then many thousands came along at once...

Dave Chilard
Official IFIS Scapegoat

Previously, Dave "Don't call me Chilard!" Chilard said:
It could be an asteroid, or alternatively Revelations could refer to a
nuclear war (see http://www.deoxy.org/thetruth.htm to see why). The
problem with this sort of apocalyptic prophecy is they are so *vague*,
they could refer to anything.
Incidentally, did you know that the Ukrainian word for the bitter herb
'wormwood' is "Chernobyl"? Spooky.
Later,

Steve :-)
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(oO)
/||\ Repent! Repent! The End is nigh!

What was the name of that film where there were two planets on a
collision course for Earth and the first one hit while the USA set up a
colony on the second?

On Thu, 12 Mar 1998, Dismukes S wrote:
Aaaaargh! They were right!

Can't remember who exactly, but some lost civilization had a calendar
which predicted their own downfall (poor sods) and predicted another
culture-rocking event in... oooh, 2028. I think it was actually 2027, but
what's a year between friends?

If anyone can help my failing memory, it would be appreciated. The
calendar in question used a gear system, if it helps. And I seem to
remember the artwork of their culture looked a little bit inka-esque. (I
think it was one of those 'lost in the jungle' cultures)

Anyway, scary stuff eh?

Ben

Previously, Pringlespanion said:
I *think* it was the Mayans who had a calendar based on cycles made up
of sheafs of about 52 years. And yes, the final sheaf of years is due to
run out about that time. Spoooooky.

Later,

Steve :-)
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(oO)
/||\

On Thu, 12 Mar 1998, Dismukes S wrote:
That's it. So, did they forsee the end of mankind? Or will we find a way
around this problem? If we do, it's not gonna be missiles, unless we do a
lot of work on them. Apparently they can't be controlled when they get too
far outt of the atmosphere... And we'd have to hit the thing when it was
still a long way away, give it a chance to change course for long enough
to avoid earth, and for any fragments to disperse. If we're lucky.

Still, even if we screw it up totally and all of mankind perishes horribly
in freezing/ boiling/ crushing/ choking/ radioactive (possibly) death,
life goes on, eh?

Ben.

*------------------------------------------------------*
| Tomorrow never comes. That's because she's going out |
| with A Week on Thursday. He always comes too soon. |
*------------------------------------------------------*

O _____________
/ \ /3
o / X BAD \ / 3
< Fish X 3
. \__ TRIP / \ 3
/____________/ \3

Previously, Pringlespanion wrote....
Maybe they just ran out of paper?
Maybe by then we'll have worked out how to use the moon as a shield, we
could place it in between us and the asteroid?
Indeed - some other species will dominate the Earth after we've left and
hopefully they (unlike us) develop intelligence *P).

Chris

---

chris@ #include <stddisclaimer.h> http://www.instituteofcorrection.org.uk/

"So this is really me? A no-style gimbo with teeth druids could use as a
place of worship" - Duaine Dibley (Red Dwarf - "Back to Reality")

On Thu, 12 Mar 1998, Chris Turner wrote:
I think they used it all when they shit their pants when their end came.
Yeah! Let's strap a big rocket to the moon! And watch this (fast moving)
asteroid knock it's orbit out of line... Daily tidal waves anyone? Or
perhaps, by the snooker effect, we'd just have multiplied out problem
by... God knows. (And astronomers, astrophysicists and anyone with the
relevent information.)
Hey, who'se to say we're a 'bad' species? Or a 'good' one for that matter.
Everything we do is echoed in the animal kingdom, and vice versa. For we
are animals. And any other animal to reach this hazily defined thing we
call sentience will suffer many of the same flaws that we do. And many of
the same strengths. We shouldn't pat ourselves on the back, like the
Americans, or call ourselves worthless, like the English. We just are.
Cope with it.

Ben.

*------------------------------------------------------*
| Tomorrow never comes. That's because she's going out |
| with A Week on Thursday. He always comes too soon. |
*------------------------------------------------------*

O _____________
/ \ /3
o / X BAD \ / 3
< Fish X 3
. \__ TRIP / \ 3
/____________/ \3

Your making the classic mistake of assuming we have to destroy the
meteor, rather than just knock it slightly off course. Being as
we've got so much warning, it should be fairly trivial to hit it
with another lump of rock and knock it the fraction of a degree
needed to make sure that it misses the earth by a few thousand miles.

If it's twenty years away, its a friggin long distance away. (or moving
so slow that it's not worth worrying about). Lob half a dozen lumps
of granite at it (shotgun effect) and you can bet that it won't come
anywhere near us. In ten years time you get to see what happens when
they hit and decide whether you need to send any more off.

It's a fairly worth while experiment anyway, from the point of view
of celestial billiards.

Of course my favourite method is to put a big rail gun around the
equator of the moon, with solar collectors to power it. You can
then easily spin up lumps of iron to the correct speed and release
them on the correct trajectory (assuming the meteors in the plane
of the solar system, which it should be).

Later,

---

Adam Hattrell, Support, Cimio Ltd. adam@

Good idea, but you would have to mind you don't hit any 6' talking mice
with those lumps of iron...

Andrew

On Thu, 12 Mar 1998, Adam Hattrell wrote:
I refer you to the segment of my paragraph which reads 'chance to CHANGE
COURSE' you fool. The point I was trying to make was that the further away
the meteor is, the less the course needs to change. If it's reached a
near-atmosphere orbit sufficient for remote controlled ICBMs to hit it
accurately, it'll need more than a fraction of a degree change. Jeez, you
think I'm stupid or something?
Where are we gonna hurl this lump o' rock from, then? Giant catapult on
the moon?
Hang on... we're at 1998, it arrives in 2028... now let's do some sums.
I'll make it easy for you all out there.

Add 2 to both values. You get 2000 and 2030.

Now, take 2000 away from both values...

You get 0 and 30.

So, it's 30-0 years away, or 30 if you can't work that out.
A 1 mile meteor is never moving too slow to worry about. Speed is
relative, remember? We're moving at a vast speed compared to the sun... if
the meteor hits, say at 0.01m/s, (relative to what, I don't know. The sun
perhaps?) our orbital speed will be taken into account - and come to
think of it, you don't seem to appreciate the gravity... No, I'm not even
going to finish that sentence.
I don't want to be potted in any black hole, thank you vety much.

Worth while? I've never heard anyone asking any organisation for funding
to research into celestial billiards... I think whatever you're on, you
should get off it.
Why? Just to make the maths easier? It could be coming from any angle it
likes. It just has to hit us.

Hey, just give this gun the ability to change firing angle perpendicular
to the plane of the solar system. A trivial problem compared to getting
this thing built on the hostile environment of the moon in 30 years...

Please don't make the classic mistake of thinking I'm stupid.

Ben.


*------------------------------------------------------*
| Tomorrow never comes. That's because she's going out |
| with A Week on Thursday. He always comes too soon. |
*------------------------------------------------------*

O _____________
/ \ /3
o / X BAD \ / 3
< Fish X 3
. \__ TRIP / \ 3
/____________/ \3

Previously, Adam Hattrell said:
I think the way this works is that it isn't heading on a straight line
towards Earth from the depths of space, but is currently in orbit around
the sun, and that orbit is likely to intersect Earth's orbit at some
point in the future. I think it's due to pass within 6 million miles of
Earth in late 2002. So the problem isn't knocking it off course, but
deflecting its orbit sufficiently that it is more likely to miss. If we
chuck something at it each time it comes near enough (it passes behind
the sun and is only visible every 2 years or so), then the cumulative
effect should be enough.

Later,

Steve :-)
_
_-
(oO)
/||\

Hurrah! someone with some common sense. Reading the article I gave the
address for :
http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/newsid_64000/64871.stm) helps
put the whole thing in perspective. (It could miss by over 200000
miles...)
Another point that seems to have been missed is that it has been in this
orbit for presumably quite some time and not hit us yet. It probably
never will.

Andrew

In article <E0yD8NS-0000LA-00@>, Adam Hattrell <adam@> wrote:
I think you'd find that this would be impossible politically. Those lumps
of rock could be directed at the Earth, and they would do a *lot* of damage.

The concept is described in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert
Heinlein, or "Footfall", by Larry Niven and Gerry Pournelle, as well as
elsewhere.



Simon

---
"This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind" -Ecclesiastes 4:16

simon@ | Not affiliated to any religion
simon@ | Not affiliated to any politics
H (+44/0)1784 431998 | Not affiliated to any ideology
W (+44/0)1784 434568 (GMT/BST) | What does that make me?

"I have been asked to point out, as if you couldn't guess, that my rantings
are not the opinions of One Chip Solutions. So now you know, don't you..?"

Simon recently wrote:
[Looking innocent]

Really? How could I have missed that...

Shouldn't be too big a problem. Put it under UN control and all
of a sudden you no longer have the need for the US to act as the
world policeman.

"Sadam Hussein, by an overwhelming majority (with 2 abstentions)
the UN security council has voted to obliterate your summer palace.
You have about a day and a half to evacuate the area..."

:-)

Save millions of pounds a year, and everyone could disable their
Nuclear arsenals. Not to mention providing us with a meteor
shield.

Later,

---

Adam Hattrell, Support, Cimio Ltd. adam@

Previously, Adam Hatrell wrote, of a lunar anti-asteroid rail gun
(?!)...
No, I'm not saying anything (!!) - I just remember the line in a Dr.Who
story (Tom Baker's first one) where the Brigadier proudly states that
the only country which could be trusted with the world's nuclear launch
codes was England. "Of course," the Doc replies; "I mean, the rest were
all foreigners!"

I thought the League of Nations was the world policeman! Or am I a
little out of date here... ;-{ (Wouldn't NATO do it happily? No, I
don't know, that's why I'm asking!)
No, he'd put a human shield up - that's the kind of guy he is! However,
prior to the project, we could just stop any citizens of Allied
countries from going on holiday there. What's he gonna do then? Throw
Scuds at our iron missile? Shout it down?!? Nyah-hah-haaa, we have him
beaten! (Would we, perchance, base the control centre in an undersea
volcano in the Caribbean, or on a remote island, or something of that
ilk?)

Incidentally, you may wonder why we call him "Saddam", as we normally
call world leaders by their second name... it's because Iraqis have
their family names first!
How would it *save* money?!? How would we put it up there (not even
counting all the fuss countries not included in the programme will put
up), and where would we get the iron from? (Remember - by recycling
your food tins and drinking cans, *you* can help the anti-asteroid rail
gun project!)

Actually, if it's just Saddam's palace you want destroyed, you wouldn't
need a very large missile... or would you? When I did a project on
meteorites for my Physics A-level, I learned that most meteorites (ie.
surviving the atmosphere) have been slowed down so much by air
resistance that they literally just drop vertically like stones, rather
than plunging downwards at high speed.

There's something vaguely like this in Rendezvous with Rama, isn't
there? (I forget the exact details, but it's how they spot this big
metallic cylinder coming towards the Earth...)

Dave Chilard

Why is every body getting so worked up about this asteroid now?
We've know about it for years. Did anyone see the documentary called
"Doomsday asteroid", or something. It was all about the man who
discovered it and how the governments of the world weren't taking it
seriously. It was scary stuff. The show also talked about how
ineffective our weapons would be, and that we may have to develop an
anti-matter bomb to keep our planet safe. Anyway, enough for now.

James Hanley.

'Tis true, I saw this one too, but if you remember, they were not
talking about any particular asteroid, just the possibility that one may
arrive and that we would be powerless to stop it. Now, someone has
spotted a likely candidate, so people are paying more attention.
Anti-matter bomb??? SAFE????? I suggest you see a psychiatrist.

Andrew

On Mon, 16 Mar 1998, Wren A wrote:
I can't remember where, but I heard once that antimatter as an explosive
was a big letdown. For some reason that sounded acceptable at the time
which I can't remember, when they finally made a single atom of
anti-hydrogen and zapped it into a vanilla hydrogen atom, the explosion
was slowed down by... something. Did anybody else hear this, or am I
making it up in my head?

Ben

*------------------------------------------------------*
| Tomorrow never comes. That's because she's going out |
| with A Week on Thursday. He always comes too soon. |
*------------------------------------------------------*

O _____________
/ \ /3
o / X BAD \ / 3
< Fish X 3
. \__ TRIP / \ 3
/____________/ \3

Previously:
Perhaps a more appropriate response would be "Anti-matter bomb???
POSSIBLE????? I suggest you see a physicist." It's bloody hard to make
antimatter anywhere other than those huge atom-smashers at CERN and
suchlike, and even then only in minute quantities that are very
short-lived. Getting hold of antimatter (which is in itself a bad move -
can you say "annihilation"?) is not really going to be feasible for
quite a while yet, at least in sufficient quantities to deflect or
destroy a large asteroid.

Later,

Steve :-)
_
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(oO)
/||\

Too true, remember a few months back when it was announced that CERN had
made anti-matter atoms? It was announced as the fuel for the future etc
(aka the vaguely interesting science story that week). What everyone
seemed to miss was that they had only made FOUR ATOMS of the stuff. This
had taken the largest macine on the planet pushed to the absolute limit.
For four atoms. Hardly the fuel of the future.

Andrew

Previously, Andrew the Doubting Thomas wrote...
Yes, but it proves anti-matter exists and can be made! From here
onwards, things can only get easier! (When they say it's the "fuel of
the future", they probably mean "the distant future, if humanity
survives that long")

Presumably, though, they would just "make" it on Earth and use it to
supply outgoing spaceships with a very long but conveniently small (as
in pocket-sized) fuel supply. After all, we have to put in at least as
much as we will get out - you can't just whip up anti-matter from
nowhere!

The original Star Trek goes on about dilithium, mentioning a "lithium
cracking station" - does this make any sense, please? One of the books
even said that dilithium (or trilithium?) is readily available on Earth,
but is mistaken for quartz! (It was a send-up type book called "How
Much For Just The Planet?")

Dave

On Mon, 16 Mar 1998, Chilard D wrote:
No. But it's sci-fi. It doesn't have to...
At last! I read that book ages ago, but forgot the name... If it is the
same one. If it's the one with the shuttlecraft coated on the inside with
Vulcan pink mint milkshake, and the Klingons trying to find battle
situations a tuxedo would be appropriate for, it's a darn fine read. Or at
least, it was for me when I was about 17...
Anyone know the author? (As far as I remember, it was an official Star
Trek novel, if that helps.)

Ben

*------------------------------------------------------*
| Tomorrow never comes. That's because she's going out |
| with A Week on Thursday. He always comes too soon. |
*------------------------------------------------------*

O _____________
/ \ /3
o / X BAD \ / 3
< Fish X 3
. \__ TRIP / \ 3
/____________/ \3

Previously, Ben wrote...
The original ST tried to base itself upon realistic science, so was
there an idea in the sixties about lithium?
I'll ask my school chum back home next time I talk to him (he lent me
the book, being more of a Trekkie than me...) It has Scotty and Chekov
playing golf in a minefield, and every so often people start singing for
no apparent reason to the tunes of songs I don't even know... (and yes,
it was an official ST novel - proper title font, number on spine, etc.,
so that means it must actually have occurred in the ST universe... oh
dear, how embarrassing for them!)

Vulcan pink mint milkshake?!? (If I can even pronounce it properly
without saying "pint mink"!) I don't remember that bit... but it was a
very long time ago that I read it (pre-1996)! I was 16 or 17 when I
read it, and I found it a bit, um, well, uninvolving... (what's that you
say? "Heretic"? Guilty, m'lud!)

Dave

Too true, but how are you going to store it? Try putting it in a
conventional fuel tank and it will annihilate with the walls. The only
way of confining it at the moment is to keep it in a toroidal
(doughnut-shaped) magnetic field. This is a liitle inconvenient as it
requires several tons of iron to form the magnets needed for
confinement. The whole thing is a little bit too bulky to be honest.
Also, no-one is too sure about the long-term effects of exposure to
magnetic fields of this intensity.

But by then, as we all know, technology will have advanced enough to
miniaturise the whole thing to the size of a tennis ball, and that pigs
will have evolved wings.

Andrew

You are somewhat the League of Nations was founded after WWI and
collapsed into disuse about the time WWII started. After that they
formed the UN. No NATO only has power within NATO countries.
Jon

This of course has nothing to do with SF, so Simon will probably moan...

Previously, Pringlespanion said:
The end of Humanity. All higher lifeforms scythed away. Nothing left but
cockroaches and traffic wardens. :-)

Later,

Steve :-)
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In article <D0A9B8B85FACD11188DC0000C0F06ACF047F57@>, Dismukes S <S.Dismukes@> wrote:
Both the Mayans and the Aztecs had such calendars, although not necessarily
52 years. The Aztec cycle ran out in 1530, just in time for Cortez to
arrive. It didn't help that they were expecting all sorts of spooky shit to
happen, and hoping to be saved by the god Quetzalcoatl, who came from the
oceans from the East to bring civilisation and learning. When he returned,
they hoped, he would save them all. Unfortunately for them, Quetzalcoatl
was supposed to have been fair of skin and face - which compared to them
Cortez was. The Aztec king (Moctezuma) all but surrendered in the face of
the news that the God had returned.

The moral of the story - if you believe that the calendar change will cause
the End of Civilisation, you may make it true.


The Aztec and Mayan calendars are significant parts of loads of SF and
fantasy, including (shameless plug coming) my Tudor Pirates cycle.



Simon

---
"This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind" -Ecclesiastes 4:16

simon@ | Not affiliated to any religion
simon@ | Not affiliated to any politics
H (+44/0)1784 431998 | Not affiliated to any ideology
W (+44/0)1784 434568 (GMT/BST) | What does that make me?

"I have been asked to point out, as if you couldn't guess, that my rantings
are not the opinions of One Chip Solutions. So now you know, don't you..?"

Here you go, guys, the data as available, so if any of you physics types
want to do back of an envelope calculations about it, keep them to
yourselves 'cos they bore the pants off me. :-)

"Mr Hills [a scientist at America's Los Alamos laboratory] said an
asteroid the size of 1997 XF11 colliding with the Earth at more than
17,000 miles an hour would explode with an energy of about 320,000
megatons of dynamite - the equivalent of almost two million
Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs.

Depending on the collision site, it could cause mountainous tidal waves
or a 20-mile-wide crater, throwing so much dust into the air that the
Sun would be blotted out for weeks, Mr Hills said.

The best estimate so far is that 1997 XF11 will track inside the orbit
of the Moon and pass within 26,000 miles of Earth.

But the estimate has a margin of error of more than 180,000 miles making
a collision with Earth possible."

So now you've got all the figures to play with. Enjoy. :-)

Later,

Steve :-)
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