PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 54/2002 - 25 April 2002
-----------------------------
"We're now taking a different view on risk. We have to
protect the
bottom line."
--Marcel Burge, Swiss Re, 23 April 2002
"CONTOUR will provide the most detailed data yet on these
ancient
building blocks of the solar system. By studying at least two
comets, we'll
be able to assess their diversity and begin to clear up the many
mysteries
of how comets evolve."
--Joseph Veverka, Cornell University, 23 April 2002
(1) NASA COMET-CHASING SPACECRAFT ON TRACK FOR JULY 1 LAUNCH
Ron Baalke <baalke@jpl.nasa.gov>
(2) ASTEROID IMPACT COULD BANKRUPT INSURERS
Michael Paine <mpaine@tpgi.com.au>
(3) EXPERTS FIND CLUES TO CAUSE OF DEADLY PACIFIC TSUNAMI
The New York Times, 23 April 2002
(4) HYPERVELOCITY IMPACT SYMPOSIUM 2003
Ron Baalke <baalke@jpl.nasa.gov>
(5) IN CASE OF AN IMPENDING IMPACT - WHEN IS THE TIME TO ACT?
Daniel Fischer <dfischer@astro.uni-bonn.de>
(6) HOW LIFE ORIGINATED IN SPACE
Jon Richfield
(7) 1931 HIGH-ENERGY EVENT
Bob Kobres <bkobres@arches.uga.edu>
(8) AND FINALLY: "UNETHICAL" FOR U.S. TO PROTECT ITSELF
AGAINST NUKE
ATTACKS, SPACE ENVIRONMENTALIST CLAIMS
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
===============
(1) NASA COMET-CHASING SPACECRAFT ON TRACK FOR JULY 1 LAUNCH
>From Ron Baalke <baalke@jpl.nasa.gov>
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Office of Communications and Public Affairs
Laurel, Maryland
For Immediate Release
April 23, 2002
Media Contact:
Michael Buckley
(240) 228-7536 or (443) 778-7536
michael.buckley@jhuapl.edu
CONTOUR Ships to the Cape
NASA Comet-Chasing Spacecraft on Track for July 1 Launch
All packed up and ready for its long-awaited trip, NASA's CONTOUR
spacecraft
left home in Maryland today for Cape Canaveral, Fla., site of its
scheduled
July 1 launch toward an unprecedented comet study.
Secured in an air-ride, climate-controlled shipping container,
CONTOUR set
out from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt and will
reach Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station/Kennedy Space Center later this week.
CONTOUR --
short for Comet Nucleus Tour -- had spent the past eight weeks
being baked,
frozen, spun, shaken and probed in Goddard's test facilities,
getting a dose
of the conditions it will face during launch and in space.
"Our spacecraft is ready and the team is anxious to start
final preparations
for launch," says CONTOUR Project Manager Mary C. Chiu, of
the Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., which
designed and
built the compact 8-sided, 6-foot by 7-foot spacecraft.
After a predawn launch aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket, CONTOUR
will
encounter two very different comets as they zoom through the
inner solar
system. From as close as 60 miles (about 100 kilometers) away,
the
spacecraft will snap the sharpest pictures yet of a comet's
nucleus, map the
types of rock and ice on the surface and analyze the surrounding
gas and
dust. CONTOUR's target comets include Encke in November 2003 and
Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 in June 2006, though the mission team can
steer the
solar-powered probe toward a scientifically attractive
"new" comet should
the opportunity arise.
"CONTOUR will provide the most detailed data yet on these
ancient building
blocks of the solar system," says Dr. Joseph Veverka, the
mission's
principal investigator from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
"By studying at
least two comets, we'll be able to assess their diversity and
begin to clear
up the many mysteries of how comets evolve."
CONTOUR is part of NASA's Discovery Program of lower-cost, highly
focused
space science investigations. APL manages the mission for NASA
and will
operate the spacecraft. Veverka leads a team of 18
co-investigators from
universities, industry and government agencies in the U.S. and
Europe. For
more information on CONTOUR, visit www.contour2002.org.
###
The Applied Physics Laboratory, a division of the Johns Hopkins
University,
meets critical national challenges through the innovative
application of
science and technology. For more information, visit www.jhuapl.edu.
============
(2) ASTEROID IMPACT COULD BANKRUPT INSURERS
>From Michael Paine <mpaine@tpgi.com.au>
Dear Benny
Steve Ward brought this to my attention. I wonder if their
"risk experts"
subscribe to CCNet?
regards
Michael Paine
Reinsurers looking to worst as a result of Sept.11 attacks Costs
of meteors
and tidal waves are being calculated.
By Philipp Goellner Of Bloomberg News
The Morning Call, April 23, 2002
http://mcall.com/business/local/all-insuranceapr23.story?coll=all-businesslocal-hed
ZURICH, Switzerland. Scientists working for reinsurance companies
are trying
to figure out the chances of even worse catastrophes than the
Sept. 11
terrorist attacks. They're considering the possibility of a
meteor falling
on a world capital or a tidal wave flooding the U.S. East Coast.
Swiss Reinsurance Co. and Munich Re are looking for future
calamities that
could cost their companies billions of dollars in claims or
bankrupt them.
Their risk experts monitor science journals and news reports and
draw up
mathematical models to put a price tag on unforeseen tragedies.
A meteorite crashing into Earth could cause many times the
estimated $58
billion in damage from the Sept.11 attacks, leveling an area the
combined
size of London, Berlin and Moscow, and sending up a huge dust
cloud capable
of chilling the global climate for decades, Munich Re said. In
another
scenario, parts from old satellites and rocket stages slam into
Los Angeles.
"Before Sept. 11, the public would have considered these
threats too remote
to be taken seriously," said Ernst Rauch, a geophysicist who
heads a team of
20 scientists, meteorologists and hydrologists in the global risk
research
unit at Munich Re, the world's biggest reinsurer. "We would
have been
laughed at."
The purpose of the research isn't just to identify
once-outlandish risks.
Insurers and reinsurers, which assume the risk of disaster for
insurers, say
they need to review the wording of policies to exclude or limit
coverage for
losses from meteors or other previously unimagined
disasters.
"We're now taking a different view on risk," said
Marcel Burge, head of risk
engineering services at Swiss Re of Zurich, the world's
second-biggest
reinsurer. "We have to protect the bottom line."
Traditional worst-case loss scenarios didn't contemplate teams of
terrorists
commandeering commercial jets and crashing them into buildings.
The attacks
on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon killed more
than 3,000
people. They were the insurance industry's largest-ever loss.
Because insurers didn't exclude terrorism-related costs as they
do damage
caused by war, the Sept. 11 attacks led to claims from almost all
lines of
insurance, including property, life, worker's compensation,
business
interruption, accident and health, and aviation and space.
Swiss Re posted a loss of 200 million Swiss francs ($120 million)
last year
after 2.95 billion francs in claims from the Sept. 11 attacks.
Munich Re's
2001 profit fell 86 percent, partly because of $1.9 billion in
attack
losses.
Lloyd's of London had a loss of 3.1 billion pounds ($4.51
billion) last year
after the terrorist attack left the three-centuries-old insurance
market
with its biggest-ever bill from a disaster.
Reinsurers say they can't afford another Sept. 11.
Many have excluded terrorism-related losses while raising rates
on other
lines. Swiss Re, Allianz AG, Zurich Financial Services AG, XL
Capital Ltd.
and Hannover Re said earlier this month they are instead forming
a joint
venture to offer property coverage against terrorist attacks on
buildings.
Copyright © 2002, The Morning Call
=============
(3) EXPERTS FIND CLUES TO CAUSE OF DEADLY PACIFIC TSUNAMI
By KENNETH CHANG
>From The New York Times, 23 April 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/23/science/earth/23TSUN.html
A microphone in the Pacific Ocean near Wake Island recorded a
45-second,
low-frequency roar, too low to be heard by human ears. It was the
sound of
nearly a cubic mile of sediment giving way along an ocean bottom
slope 2,200
miles away off Papua New Guinea.
That recently examined recording is the latest evidence that an
underwater
landslide, not an earthquake, churned up the 30-foot-high tsunami
that
crashed onto coastal villages of Papua New Guinea on July 17,
1998, killing
more than 2,100 people.
Once thought rare, landslide-generated tsunamis have caught the
attention of
geologists, who now look with concern at other continental
shelves that
could collapse with equal disaster. Three-dimensional maps of the
bottom of
Monterey Bay off California, for example, show several sections
that have
given way - and others that have cracked and may collapse in the
future.
What is not known is how often landslides occur and how many
tumble fast
enough to induce tsunamis.
Small landslides - or ones that slip slowly - do not cause
tsunamis.
Cataclysmic landslides, like the partial collapse of a midocean
volcano,
generate giant waves that scour thousands of miles of coastline
around an
entire ocean basin, but they occur very rarely, once every few
hundred
thousand years.
But moderate-size underwater landslides like the one off Papua
New Guinea
may pose an uneasily plausible risk in some places, occurring
once every few
hundred years.
"It is a reasonably significant hazard," said Dr. Emile
A. Okal, a professor
of geological sciences at Northwestern University in Evanston,
Ill.
Almost immediately after it happened, scientists realized the
Papua New
Guinea tsunami was unusual. An offshore earthquake of magnitude
7.0 preceded
the waves, but earthquakes that size strike that area every year
or two;
only the 1998 one was accompanied by a tsunami. The deadly
devastation was
also confined to a 15-mile stretch of the coast; villages only a
few miles
east or west escaped almost unscathed.
That led to speculation that the earthquake had shaken loose a
landslide
that in turn caused the tsunami. Surveys of the ocean bottom
found freshly
collapsed sediment that slid nearly a mile down a 25-degree
slope.
Other scientists argued that a vertical thrust of the sea floor
during the
earthquake directly caused the tsunami, but that the
amphitheater-shaped
depression around the epicenter focused the waves onto the small
section of
the shoreline.
In the latest work, Dr. Okal examined the sound recordings from
Wake Island,
which captured a low-frequency rumble (measured at seven hertz)
that lasted
45 seconds. In the ocean, sound waves can reflect off layers of
water of
different temperatures, allowing them to travel long distances
without
fading out. Earthquakes can generate similar low rumbles, but
those last
only about 10 seconds, Dr. Okal said.
The findings were reported in the April 8 issue of The
Proceedings of the
Royal Society of London.
"For the first time, we are able to identify a landslide
from its acoustic
signature," said Dr. Costas E. Synolakis, a professor of
civil engineering
at the University of Southern California and lead author of the
paper.
Seismic stations on several Pacific islands also recorded the
acoustic
rumblings.
Tracing the path the sound waves took, Dr. Synolakis, Dr. Okal
and their
colleagues concluded that the rumble came from a landslide that
occurred 13
minutes after the earthquake. That, the scientists said, agrees
with
accounts from survivors who said the tsunami followed the first
large
aftershock, 20 minutes after the earthquake. It also rules out
the
earthquake as the cause because the waves would not have taken
that long to
travel the 20 miles from the epicenter to the shore. "We had
to find a
source which happened 10 to 15 minutes after the main
shock," Dr. Okal said.
Eric L. Geist, a research geophysicist at the United States
Geological
Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., described the paper as a "very
intriguing line
of research," but not definitive proof of the landslide
theory. "It's
certainly a plausible story," he said. "We just have no
way of verifying it
instrumentally right now."
Mr. Geist said the earthquake, or one of its aftershocks, must
have also
caused a tsunami because instruments in Japan thousands of miles
away
detected it, a quick-moving wave a few inches high.
Landslide-generated
tsunamis dissipate quickly and do not travel that far. He added
that in the
chaos, the witnesses could have mistaken the sequence of events.
The theory that underwater landslides can set off tsunamis dates
back more
than a century. In recent decades, tsunami researchers shifted
their
attention to offshore earthquakes, still thought to be the cause
of most
tsunamis.
But after Papua New Guinea, scientists thought they might have
underestimated the dangers of landslides. In 2000, scientists at
Pennsylvania State University warned of unstable, waterlogged
sediments
under the seabed off New Jersey. The weight of rocks above could
potentially
blow the sediments out the side of the continental slope like a
stepped-on
water balloon, causing a landslide and a tsunami.
Scientists also see potential collapses in places like the mouth
of the St.
Lawrence River where sediment from the river piles up. In 1929, a
7.2
earthquake toppled part of the sediment pile, causing a tsunami.
Underwater landslides have also occurred off the coast of
California. In
Monterey Bay, "you see large numbers of bites taken out of
the canyon
essentially," said Dr. Steven N. Ward, a research
geophysicist at the
University of California at Santa Cruz. "Some look very
fresh. Some look
very old. Some look like they haven't happened yet."
The canyon is cracked in some places, Dr. Ward said, and even a
small
earthquake near a crack could set off a landslide. Most of the
slides in
Monterey Bay are small - only about a fortieth the volume of the
Papua New
Guinea landslide - but because they occur very close to shore,
they could
still create 15- to 20-foot-high waves that strike a small
portion of the
coast. "Ten miles up or down the coast, you won't see
it," he said. "It's
big, but it's fairly local."
To better understand how sliding sediments create tsunamis, Dr.
Synolakis
and his colleagues conducted experiments earlier this month at
Oregon State
University. In what looks like a small swimming pool, they slid a
wedged-shaped block down the slanted bottom of the pool and
measured the
size of the waves. They varied the weight of the wedge between
200 and 1,000
pounds by adding lead weights.
The measurements show that, contrary to earlier beliefs, that the
largest
waves are not caused by the push of the wedge.
"The big thing is sucking water down" behind the
sliding wedge, Dr.
Synolakis said. "Now we find most of the energy is expended
in creating the
wave on the back end of the slide," which head in the
opposite direction -
toward the shore.
Copyright 2002, The New York Times
============
(4) HYPERVELOCITY IMPACT SYMPOSIUM 2003
>From Ron Baalke <baalke@jpl.nasa.gov>
http://www.estec.esa.nl/conferences/hvis2003/index.html
Third Announcement and Final Call for Papers
HVIS 2003
Hosted by the European Space Agency's Research & Technology
Centre (ESTEC)
7-10 April 2003
Grand Hotel Huis ter Duin
Noordwijk, The Netherlands
The Hypervelocity Impact Symposium is a regular event that is
dedicated to
enabling and promoting an understanding of the basic physics of
high
velocity impact and related technical areas. This international
event
provides a forum for researchers to share and exchange a wealth
of knowledge
through oral and poster presentations and technical exhibits.
HVIS 2003 will be the eighth symposium in a series. It will be
hosted by
ESTEC and held in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. The dates of the
conference
coincide with the tourist season in the bulb district and
Noordwijk is
located in this district.
The technical sessions will be held at the Grand Hotel Huis ter
Duin,
Noordwijk during April 7-10, 2003.
All papers presented at the Symposium will be published in a
refereed volume
of the International Journal of Impact Engineering.
Symposium topics
* Hypervelocity phenomenology studies
* High-velocity launchers and diagnostics
* Spacecraft meteoroid and debris shielding and
failure analysis
* Material behaviour under high velocity impacts
* Fracture and fragmentation
* High velocity penetration mechanics and target
response
* Analytical and numerical simulation techniques
* Asteroid impact and planetary defence technology
* Penetration mechanics of shaped charges and
explosively formed penetrators
* Planetary impacts
Call for papers
Abstract of proposed papers are solicited from those actively
interested and
involved in hypervelocity impact. The preferred method of
submitting
abstracts is using the form on this web site.
If it is not possible to submit your abstract through the web
site, it may
be submitted by e-mail as an attachment or by mailing a printed
copy, along
with a diskette copy to the following address:
HVIS 2003
ESTEC Conference Bureau
Postbus 299
NL-2200 AG Noordwijk
The Netherlands
Tel: +31-71-565-5005
Fax: +31-71-565-5658
E-mail: confburo@esa.int
Abstract must be received no later than May 15, 2002
Authors will be notified in June 2002 of the review decision for
their
proposed paper. An author's packet will be mailed to authors
whose abstracts
are accepted.
Acceptance of an abstract indicates preliminary acceptance of a
paper for
publication in the International Journal of Impact Engineering,
subject to a
technical peer review with final recommendation on the basis of
such review.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, see:
HVIS Web site http://www.hvis.org/
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(5) IN CASE OF AN IMPENDING IMPACT - WHEN IS THE TIME TO ACT?
>From Daniel Fischer <dfischer@astro.uni-bonn.de>
Dear Benny and all others in the NEO community,
the recent most interesting "cases" of 1950DA and
especially 2002CU11 raise
a question that has not been discussed on CCNet in recent memory:
How do we
define the *moment* when we really have to start working on
active
deflection of a probable impactor?
Most papers on mitigation issues agree that a) we will know
years, probably
decades in advance of an impact that it will happen and that we
have to do
something about it, b) that this case will in all likelyhood
happen many
decades, if not centuries, from now (but it will happen one day),
and c)
that therefore no anti-NEO hardware should be built now, as our
technology
will be so much better anyway at the time it will be needed
eventually.
This sounds all very straightforward, but I'm missing a
discussion on the
point-of-decision: At which impact probability do we start to
build a
deflection system - be it of the 'traditional' stand-off nuke or
the
innovative Yarkovsky-modification kind - for a specific
threatening NEO?
What if, for example, the probability of a 2049 impact of
2002CU11 had not
gone down (as it did, to 1:77,000 on April 9) but would have kept
rising?
I recall some simulations of how the probability of an actual
collision with
Earth would rise over time - there were presentations at DPS
conferences,
and a video simulation by Paul Chodas was once shown on ABC's
World News
Tonight, with the error ellipse around Earth shrinking as time
went on.
Those studies often were just meant as reminders that more
precise
astrometry of NEOs was in order. But who has discussed the actual
decisions
that have to me made about mitigation measures and when they
would have to
take place?
Daniel Fischer
science writer
Germany
===========
(6) HOW LIFE ORIGINATED IN SPACE
Remarks from Jon Richfield on report by Natalia Reznik via
Andrew Yee
<ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
Hi Benny
A quick note concerning: HOW LIFE ORIGINATED IN SPACE (CCNet, 23
April 2002)
Some readers may be familiar with some of my fulminations on
related
subjects during the past few years, and decided that I was
unregenerately
resistant to the idea of extraterrestrial life. This is
incorrect. For what
it is worth, I expect that there is life of sorts elsewhere in
the universe
and that it will have certain correspondences and resemblances to
life on
Earth. Whether its frequency is likely to be once per
planet in the
biosphere, once per solar system, once per million stars, once
per galaxy,
or what, I don't know. There are too many gross uncertainties and
I wish we
could devote just point zero one percent of our global budget to
related
studies! What gets my goat is a number of incorrect assumptions
and
untenable deductions that tend to be associated with such
discussions.
I am sceptical about life on Mars and even more sceptical about
any of it
getting to Earth and practically dismissive about its having
established
itself here if ever it did arrive, either as the origin of
Earthly life, or
as a component of Earthly life.
But I am listening...
Meanwhile, E.A. Kuzicheva and N.B.Gontareva from St Petersburg
have
apparently produced 5'-AMP under conditions of hard vacuum and UV
in the
presence of lunar soil. This is of course interesting, but why
they think it
is relevant to the problem, is unclear. If there were no
source of such an important molecule on earth, then maybe it
would be more
exciting, but many purine and pyrimidine derivatives have been
produced in
circumstances believed to resemble prebiotic terrestrial
conditions. The
terrestrial product would have exceeded the input from
space by vast factors.
Terrestrial chemosynthetic products of a far greater variety than
those from
space could arise readily and plentifully in our seas and ground
water. But
that is not by any means the most important point.
Remember the fact (frequently, though irrelevantly, harped on by
creationists) that to expect combinatorial generation of the
substances
needed for functional life is totally unrealistic, and to expect
the
generation of living structures is beyond fantasy, even if we
filled the
known universe solid with candidate molecules. If one thing is
pretty near
certainty, it is that life on Earth originally developed by
natural
selection, through complementary interaction of candidate
substances. This
would raise the process from stochastic to a cumulatively
heuristic
status. (Assuming of course, that neither the chariots of the
gods nor
meteorites simply delivered life ready packaged.)
Now, such candidate substances may have been present in space as
well as on
Earth, but in space the desiccated, irradiated, isolated
molecules were
largely stuck where they originated. On Earth they could
move, meet and
interact dynamically, either in solution or adsorbed onto the
controlling
and organising surfaces of minerals. The huge rate and range of
such
interactions over periods of millions or hundreds of millions of
years was
almost certainly vital to the emergence of life. It involved
forms of
natural selection practically from the development of the
first candidate
biomolecules. Even if we were to accept the concept of the
Wickramasinghe
muddy comet, which is a reasonable reaction to this form of
argument, that
would not make much difference; suppose the comet were far from
the sun --
it would be frozen, so that molecular migration and interaction
would for
practical purposes be prevented. On the other hand, if it
is frequently
near enough to the sun to melt, it will be desiccated within a
few hundred
thousand years. Not a very promising cradle of life, compared to
the bulk,
activity and duration of the young planet!
I have a few other niggles with the reports from Russia, though
they are
lukewarm in comparison to the foregoing.
>On the Earth the reaction goes in the solution, but there are
no
solvents whatsoever in space, therefore the researchers dried
them in the
air and got a pellicle. <
"Dried them in the air"??? That already leaves us with
serious questions as
to the relevance to the conditions in space. I wonder whether
such a
"pellicle" would have developed in a vacuum.
Usually vacuum drying gives a
very fine, almost molecular powder, rather than coherent pellets
with
well-defined surfaces (if that is what the translator meant by
this use of
the word "pellicle".) Also, reaction with various
atmospheric gases could
have changed the initial conditions in all sorts of relevant
ways. I don't
wish to niggle unreasonably, but I would need more detailed
reassurance
than I have time to listen to, before the validity of this
procedure would
satisfy me.
"...and the researchers used the lunar soil, delivered to
the Earth
by the 'Moon-16' station from the Sea of Abundance, as a model of
the
comet, meteorite, interplanetary or cosmic dust. The soil
represented
basaltic dust..."
This is not a logical objection, but I don't see why lunar dust
should have
been any more interesting in this experiment than ground ancient
basalt from
Earth. In fact I should be interested to see a control
experiment. My
money says that the two should show very little difference in
outcome.
"...It has appeared that a small pinch of the lunar soil
protects
organic substances from the destructive ultraviolet impact -- the
lunar
soil helps to increase the 5'-AMP yield by 2.7 times."
Again, what is so special about the lunar soil? I do not
suggest that the
investigators stated that it was in fact special, but putting it
like that
makes it sound as though it was the lunar nature of the soil that
did the
trick. If that was in fact what they intended, then control
runs with
terrestrial basalt would be in order.
>The researchers have made a conclusion that the organic
compounds
synthesis could have happened in the outer space environment. The
synthesis could have taken place on the surface of space bodies
at
the initial phases of the solar system formation, along with that
the
chemical evolution (formation and selection of complex molecules)
could have
started in space.<
This is not at issue. All the way back to Oparin, Miller
and Urey, this
would have been unexciting.
>By the time the Earth was formed the chemical evolution might
have
approached the phase to be followed by the biological evolution.
That implies that life on the Earth most probably did not start
from
the elementary organic molecules synthesis, but commenced from
the
polymers formation phase or from a further stage. <
Here the wheels come off with a grinding thump. First of all, the
amazing
thing about the first emergence of life on Earth is not how fast
the first
candidate biochemicals emerged; a few hours, weeks or even
millions of years
would be neither here nor there. The breathtaking (and
exciting) thing is
how quickly the complex, functional structures emerged, and as I
have said,
it is grossly implausible that they could have emerged in space,
either in
muddy comets or in desiccated "pellicles". More
or less random polymers
form prolifically on Earth and any traces arriving from space are
extremely
unlikely to have contributed anything of importance.
Also, how many such pellicles or functionally equivalent
structures have
been found on meteorites in or form space? Are our
pellicles relevant to
what goes on out there?
Interesting work of course, and I doubt that such an informal
report covers
it adequately, but even so, it does not sound like a
fundamental new
insight into probable mechanisms of abiogenesis.
Cheers,
Jon
"Marriage has many pains, but
celibacy
has no pleasures"
-- Samuel Johnson
=============
(7) 1931 HIGH-ENERGY EVENT
>From Bob Kobres <bkobres@arches.uga.edu>
Andrei Ol'khovatov has rekindled interest in a 1931 high-energy
event that
was mentioned by John Lewis on page 128 of RAIN OF IRON AND ICE
(1996). The
report that appeared in the New York Times is here:
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/fball/ohiobl.djvu
E-mails rekindle 71-year-old mystery
Tuesday, April 23, 2002
David Lore
Dispatch Science Reporter
MALINTA, Ohio -- The drainage ditches cut long and deep through
the tabletop
farming area southwest of Toledo, channels cavernous enough to
swallow any
trace of the mysterious explosion that rocked this Henry County
village 71
years ago this spring.
Only a handful of the 300 people who live here today are old
enough to
remember the blast, which briefly put the small railroad town on
front pages
around the world.
Nobody knows what happened, but the explosion has been ascribed
through the
years to a meteor, an earthquake, a gas-well explosion or maybe
even a
container of nitroglycerin dumped by nervous bank robbers.
Everybody, in fact, had pretty much forgotten about it until
messages from
Moscow started arriving this month. The biggest boom ever to hit
Malinta
came during the early morning hours of June 10, 1931. It woke up
sleepy
Henry County, snapped off trees and utility poles and rocked
houses as far
west as Indiana and as far south as Columbus.
Continued @:
http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/news/news02/apr02/1213078.html
[requires free registration]
Later.
bobk
Bob Kobres
Main Library
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602
bkobres@arches.uga.edu
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk
=============
(8) AND FINALLY: "UNETHICAL" FOR U.S. TO PROTECT ITSELF
AGAINST NUKE
ATTACKS, SPACE ENVIRONMENTALIST CLAIMS
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
University of California-Santa Cruz
Media Contacts:
Tim Stephens, (831) 459-4352, stephens@cats.ucsc.edu
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, April 24, 2002
Space-Based Missile Defense Systems Could Jeopardize Space
SANTA CRUZ, CA -- The Bush administration's plan to develop
space-based
missile defense systems has generated heated debate, but most
commentators
have overlooked an important and potentially destructive
consequence of
placing weapons in orbit around the Earth. The militarization of
space could
create a permanent halo of orbiting debris that will interfere
with
important scientific and communication satellites, according to
Joel
Primack, professor of physics at the University of California,
Santa Cruz.
"In science fiction movies like Star Wars there are constant
explosions, but
a few seconds later the screen is clean. It's not going to work
that way
near a planet," Primack said.
About 3 million kilograms of space debris (roughly 6 million
pounds), from
dead satellites to paint chips, already orbit the Earth. The U.S.
Space
Command tracks over 9,000 objects larger than four inches in
diameter, and
operational satellites can take evasive action to avoid
being hit by one of these larger objects. In the range from four
inches down
to about the size of a marble, there are relatively few objects
now in
orbit.
The most serious hazard currently is the non-trackable debris
smaller than a
marble that orbits the planet at speeds around 17,000 miles per
hour, 10
times faster than a bullet from a high-powered rifle, Primack
said. A
BB-sized fragment traveling that speed has the destructive
power of a bowling ball moving over 60 miles per hour, and a
marble-sized
fragment can do even more damage. Satellites are armored, but
they can only
withstand BB-sized particles. Even the International Space
Station is
vulnerable to any debris much larger than a BB.
Space-based missiles will generate huge amounts of small debris
particles,
said Primack. Some will arise from weapon explosions, but even
more will
come from the resulting small projectiles hitting larger objects
already in
orbit and fragmenting them. According to Primack, so many bits of
junk could
eventually be orbiting the Earth that no satellite or space
station could be
operated in Low Earth Orbit, 200 to 1,250 miles above the planet.
Space
shuttles and other space vehicles would need heavy armor to pass
through the
debris.
Most communications satellites are located in higher orbits that
would not
be as affected by the debris, but some, such as those for mobile
phones, are
in lower orbits and already in danger. No methods to remove space
debris now
exist.
"If we do this, we're going to create a terrible problem
there's no easy
solution for, but the space debris aspect of a 'Star Wars'
missile system is
just not talked about in the public arena," Primack said.
Primack will give a talk on this issue on April 19 at the United
Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
headquarters in
Paris during the Science and the Quest for Meaning Conference.
The
conference explores the connections between science and
spirituality.
Primack said it would be unethical and immoral to jeopardize
peaceful uses
of space for short-term military gains. Like many researchers,
Primack
relies on data from astronomical satellites in Low Earth Orbit,
where
missile defense systems would also be located. His theoretical
work on the
nature of the "dark matter" in the universe, for
example, was supported by
evidence from the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite,
which
detected fluctuations in the first light of the universe.
Space-based
telescopes are ushering in a new era in space research, and
Primack said he
believes researchers will soon be able to answer fundamental
questions in
cosmology.
"The data from COBE, the Hubble Space Telescope, and other
new observatories
should at last give astrophysicists a solid foundation on which
to construct
an overarching theory of the origin and evolution of the
universe, an achievement that
is also bound to have deep implications for the development of
human culture," Primack said.
In 1993, NASA issued the Policy to Limit Orbital Debris
Generation, but it
has had little impact, Primack said. He hopes that an
international treaty
prohibiting explosions in space and requiring all satellites to
carry mechanisms
to de-orbit them safely will be created in the future.
"Every person who cares about the human future in space
should also realize
that militarizing space jeopardizes the possibility of space
exploration,"
Primack said.
Primack is not new to questions of scientific ethics and policy.
He helped
to create the American Physical Society Forum on Physics and
Society and
teaches a course on "Cosmology and Culture" with his
wife, attorney Nancy
Ellen Abrams, at UC Santa Cruz.
The Science and the Quest for Meaning Conference is sponsored by
Science and
the Spiritual Quest II and the Université Interdisciplinaire de
Paris.
# # #
Editor's note: Reporters may contact Joel Primack at (831)
459-2580 or
joel@scipp.ucsc.edu
until April 17, or after the conference. To reach him
during the conference, contact Tim Stephens in the UCSC Public
Information
Office at (831) 459-2495 or stephens@cats.ucsc.edu .
Additional information about the conference,
http://www.ssq.net/Coming_Events/Paris/paris.html
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