PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet DIGEST, 28 May 1998
-------------------------
"The truth is, the science of
Nature has been already too long
made only a work of the brain and fancy.
It is now high time
that it should return to the plainness
and soundness of
observations on material and obvious
things."
Robert Hooke, 'Micrographia' (1665)
(1) COMETS, DRAGONS AND PROPHETS OF DOOM
PARTICLE PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY RESEARCH
COUNCIL
http://www.coi.gov.uk/coi/depts/GPP/coi1810e.ok
(2) CRITICS GIVE COMET THEORY SNOWBALL'S CHANCE IN HELL
The Boston Herald
http://www.bostonherald.com/bostonherald/lonw/27come1.htm
(3) MORE EVIDENCE OF ABUNDANT WATER & THERMAL ACTIVITY IN
MARS' PAST
NASANews@hq.nasa.gov
(4) ANSWERING A FAQ ON THE NEO THREAT
Kevin Reed <Kevin.Reed@ccgatewy.gdesystems.com>
(5) INSURANCE COSTS OF NATURAL DISASTERS
D. Changnon & S.A. Changnon, NORTH
ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY
(6) STOCHASTIC TIME CHANGES IN CATASTROPHE OPTION PRICING
H. Geman & M. Yor, UNIVERSITY OF PARIS
==============
(1) COMETS, DRAGONS AND PROPHETS OF DOOM
From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
wrote:
PARTICLE PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY RESEARCH COUNCIL
Swindon, England
Contacts: Charlotte Allen, PPARC Press Office
charlotte_allen@pparc.ac.uk
Dr William
Napier, Armagh Observatory
wmn@star.arm.ac.uk
Wednesday 20th May
1998
08/98
ANCIENT MYTHS AND TREE RINGS POINT TO GIANT COMET'S VISIT TO
EARTH
[http://www.coi.gov.uk/coi/depts/GPP/coi1810e.ok]
Ancient myths, tree ring studies and archaeological evidence all
confirm that a rare giant comet may have visited the Earth only a
few
thousand years ago, raining fireballs and meteors in its wake.
Dr Bill Napier, astronomer at Armagh Observatory, and Dr Victor
Clube
of Oxford and Armagh Universities (sic), have investigated the
doom-laden cosmic myths of early civilisation. From the Persian
prophet Zooraster, who in 500 BC predicted the end of the world
caused by 'a huge comet sent by Satan', to the description in the
Book of Revelations of a 'burning mountain' falling from the sky,
early history is full of myths of celestial combat, rains of fire
and
many-headed dragons, which support astronomers' theories of the
existence of a tumultuous night sky.
Recent terrestrial research has provided 'hard' evidence to
support
theories of close encounters with comets. Tree-ring studies of
Irish
oaks at Queen's University, Belfast, show a dramatic climatic
downturn around 2354-2345 BC, perhaps caused as the Earth entered
the
path of a comet's meteor stream. Archaeological digs in Northern
Syria reveal, at around the same time, a cataclysmic
environmental
event accompanied by destruction of mud-brick buildings caused by
a
'blast from the sky', again pointing to an encounter with a giant
comet.
Dr Napier's article, 'Comets, dragons and prophets of doom'
appears
in the second issue of Frontiers, published by the Particle
Physics
and Astronomy Research Council. All material is copyright free.
Copies can be obtained from the Publicity Team on tel. 01793
442123,
fax 01793 442002 and e-mail PR_PUS@pparc.ac.uk
====================
(2) CRITICS GIVE COMET THEORY SNOWBALL'S CHANCE IN HELL
From The Boston Herald
http://www.bostonherald.com/bostonherald/lonw/27come1.htm
Wednesday, May 27, 1998
By JULES CRITTENDEN
Imagine 25,000 house-sized snowballs - weighing 20 to 40 tons
each -
slamming into Earth's atmosphere every day.
University of Iowa physicist Louis Frank insists that it's
happening,
right now, at a rate of nearly 20 a minute.
But Frank's ``small comet'' theory, which he has steadfastly
defended
for 12 years, continues to raise eyebrows and tempers among
normally
civil scientists.
Yesterday, at an American Geophysical Union conference at the
Hynes
Convention Center, Frank swapped insults with other
scientists over the issue.
``These cartoons are meaningless!'' Frank said about the chart
that
NASA physicist Al Harris put up to shoot down one of Frank's
basic
premises.
``I have a PhD in celestial mechanics . . . I think I know what
I'm
talking about,'' Harris responded.
It all started 12 years ago with Frank's claim that his satellite
images of Earth's aurora showed hundreds of dark pixels that
could
only be explained by small, low-density comets that vaporize
harmlessly on impact with the upper atmosphere.
``Twenty-five thousand a day the size of a house? There is no way
you could avoid seeing these out in space,'' said astronomer
Brian
Marsden of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,
whose job it is to log all observations of objects in the solar
system.
Critics ask why there are no new craters on the moon where
Frank's
comets must be slamming home. Frank says their density is too low
to
make a noticeable impact site, while they are too fast and small
for
telescopes focused on miniscule sections of the sky.
Physicist J.P. McFadden said Frank's efforts to intensify his
aurora
images produce the dark pixels. McFadden drew fire when he
suggested
that Frank debunked his own work when he recently revised his
calculations.
``I find it absolutely detestable to quote me saying I was
wrong!''
Frank fumed. ``Read the paper!''
The moderator quieted Frank while McFadden insisted Frank had
revised
his numbers.
Frank himself got up to show his own collection of charts
supporting
his view. ``I don't have a lot of time to answer this close-knit
group (of critics), but I can tell you these are not clouds,''
Frank
said, reciting his own calculations. ``There is just no way you
can
duplicate these results with instrument noise.''
The debate filled an auditorium with physicists eager to see the
intellectual slugfest.
``I've never seen anything like this,'' said one NASA scientist.
``It's not very constructive. They are not solving the problem.
But
people are curious.''
Copyright Boston Herald 1998
=======================
(2) MORE EVIDENCE OF ABUNDANT WATER & THERMAL ACTIVITY IN
MARS' PAST
From NASANews@hq.nasa.gov
Douglas Isbell
Headquarters, Washington,
DC
May 27, 1998
(Phone: 202/358-1547)
Diane Ainsworth
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
(Phone: 818/354-5011)
RELEASE: 98-90
SURVEYOR DATA REVEAL MORE EVIDENCE OF ABUNDANT
WATER, THERMAL ACTIVITY IN MARS' PAST
New mineralogical and topographic evidence suggesting that Mars
had
abundant water and thermal activity in its early history is
emerging
from data gleaned by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft.
Scientists are getting more glimpses of this warmer, wetter past
on
Mars while Global Surveyor circles the planet in a temporary
11.6-hour elliptical orbit. Findings from data gathered during
the
early portions of this hiatus in the mission's orbital
aerobraking
campaign are being presented today at the spring meeting of the
American Geophysical Union in Boston.
Among many results, the Thermal Emission Spectrometer instrument
team, led by Dr. Philip Christensen of Arizona State University,
Tempe, has discovered the first clear evidence of an ancient
hydrothermal system. This finding implies that water was
stable at
or near the surface and that a thicker atmosphere existed in
Mars'
early history.
Measurements from the spectrometer show a remarkable accumulation
of
the mineral hematite, well-crystallized grains of ferric (iron)
oxide
that typically originate from thermal activity and standing
bodies of
water. This deposit is localized near the Martian equator, in an
area
approximately 300 miles (500 kilometers) in diameter.
Fine-grained hematite, with tiny particles no larger than specks
of
dust, generally forms by the weathering of iron-bearing minerals
during oxidation, or rusting, which can occur in an atmosphere at
low
temperatures. The material has been previously detected on Mars
in
more dispersed concentrations and is widely thought to be an
important component of the materials that give Mars its red
color.
The presence of a singular deposit of hematite on Mars is
intriguing,
however, because it typically forms by crystal growth from hot,
iron-rich fluids.
Meanwhile, the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter instrument is giving
mission scientists their first three-dimensional views of the
planet's north polar ice cap. Principal Investigator Dr. David
Smith
of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, and his
team
have been using the laser altimeter to obtain more than 50,000
measurements of the topography of the polar cap in order to
calculate
its thickness, and learn more about related seasonal and climatic
changes.
These initial profiles have revealed an often striking surface
topology of canyons and spiral troughs in the water and carbon
dioxide ice that can reach depths as great as 3,600 feet below
the
surface. Many of the larger and deeper troughs display a
staircase
structure, which may ultimately be correlated with seasonal
layering
of ice and dust observed by NASA's Viking mission orbiters in the
late 1970s.
The laser data also have shown that large areas of the ice cap
are
extremely smooth, with elevations that vary only a few feet over
many
miles. At 86.3 degrees north, the highest latitude yet
sampled, the
cap achieves an elevation of 6,600 to 7,900 feet (1.25 to 1.5
miles
or 2-2.5 kilometers) over the surrounding terrain. The laser
measurements are accurate to approximately one foot (30
centimeters)
in the vertical dimension.
In June, the ice cap's thickness will reach a maximum during the
peak
of the northern winter season. Thickness measurements from April
will
be compared to those that will be taken in June, contributing to
a
greater understanding of the Martian polar cap's formation and
evolution.
In addition, the Global Surveyor accelerometer team, led by Dr.
Gerald Keating of George Washington University, Washington, DC,
has
discovered two enormous bulges in the upper atmosphere of Mars in
the
northern hemisphere, on opposite sides of the planet near 90
degrees
east latitude and 90 degrees west longitude. These bulges rotate
with
the planet, causing variations of nearly a factor of two in
atmospheric pressure, and systematic variations in the altitude
of a
given constant pressure of about 12,000 feet (four kilometers).
Additional information about these findings and other exciting
new
results from the Mars Global Surveyor mission is available at the
following Internet sites:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/
http://emma.la.asu.edu/
http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/mola.html
After a month-long period during which the Sun was between Earth
and
Mars and thus degraded communications with Global Surveyor, the
spacecraft has resumed taking scientific data in its temporary
elliptical orbit. In September, it will once again begin dipping
into
the upper atmosphere of Mars each orbit in a process called
aerobraking. The drag from this procedure will allow the
spacecraft
to reach a low circular orbit and begin its primary two-year
global
mapping mission starting in March 1999.
==================
(4) ANSWERING A FAQ ON THE NEO THREAT
From Kevin Reed <Kevin.Reed@ccgatewy.gdesystems.com>
Dear Victor and Benny,
I have been asked this question ("How long can we expect
until the
next catastrophic impact?") so many times I have come up
with an
answer which (usually) works. I realize that the questioner is
usually
trying to put the question of impact into a personal perspective,
to
place the impact into their own "personal probability
scale", so I
reply with a similar question.
If I am in LA or another major metro area, I ask the questioner,
"How
long do you have until you are in a fatal car wreck?". If I
am talking
with a coworker (we travel a lot) I ask, "How long until you
are in a
fatal plane crash?". If I am speaking in the Midwest or to a
midwesterner, I can also add, "How long until you are killed
in a
tornado or struck by lightning?". Other questions may be
asked
according to audience an all of these questions are things people
ask
themselves quite commonly, purposefully or not.
Who hasn't been on a flight where a big pressure pocket is hit
and the
plane makes a sudden jolt, shudder, or loss in altitude, causing
a
mass "whoa" or "yow" from the passengers?
Doesn't the long shot of
dying in a plane crash become just a bit higher in probability on
your
own "personal scale"? When you are driving and a car
suddenly swerves
in front of you, causing you to jolt out of your normal driving
reverie, doesn't the thought of a fatal car crash rise in
"personal
probability" for you, if just for a second? If you are in a
storm and
hear/see the simultaneous 'boom-flash' of lightning or hear the
rushing wind of a passing tornado (I've actually heard this
myself),
doesn't the thought of being struck by lightning or tossed by a
twister seem a little more "personally probable"?
No one takes the impact threat seriously on a personal level
because
no one has been in a similar, smaller situation with which to
grasp
the concept. Most people have been in a "fender bender"
(never caused
by them specifically, of course) and thus can personally
"scale up"
the crash to fatality. A slightly smaller portion of us have been
in a
minor airplane mishap, an engine flame-out, a sudden loss of
altitude,
etc., and can "scale up" that experience. Very few (if
any reading
this) have had a meteorite hit close by, or heard the
buzz/whistle of
a low bolide passing overhead and thus have no "small
scale"
experience with which they can scale up to catastrophe.
To get the questioner in the proper mind-set, I try to get them
interested in meteor watching. Whenever they are out on a dark,
cloudless night, I tell them to just stare up in the sky. After a
sufficient amount of time passes (minutes or hours, you must
reiterate
to them that patience is a virtue), a meteor may pass overhead,
usually quite rapidly. Now I ask them to stretch their
imagination to
the limit and brighten that meteor thousands of times in their
mind,
"hear" a deafening roar, put in a blindingly bright
terminal flash
(sometimes the terminal flash of a normal bolide is impressive
enough), and then imagine your life immediately snuffed out by a
shock
wave. I then tell them that this particular "scaled up"
scenario is
for a small (50 m) object exploding over their hometown and any
meteor
on any night has the potential for causing this particular scene
to
actually happen. I then tell them that the "big one"
will be a lot
worse.
Put this way, I usually get their attention focused on a personal
level.
Kevin L. Reed (San Diego, CA)
e-mail: kevin.reed@gdesystems.com
or kreed1@san.rr.com
===================
(5) INSURANCE COSTS OF NATURAL DISASTERS
D. Changnon & S.A. Changnon: Evaluation of weather
catastrophe data for
use in climate change investigations. CLIMATIC CHANGE, 1998,
Vol.38,
No.4, pp.435-445
NORTH ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY, DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY, DE KALB, IL,
60115
A 1950-1994 data set of major weather losses developed by the
property insurance industry was examined to assess its potential
utility in climate change research and use in assessing the
relevance
of recent extreme losses in the United States. A process for
adjusting these historical storm losses to ever-changing factors
including dollar values, amount of insurance coverage per area,
and
the sensitivity of society to damaging storms was developed by
the
industry. Analysis of the temporal frequency and losses of these
adjusted weather catastrophes revealed differences according to
the
amount of loss. Temporal changes since 1975 in the catastrophes
causing $35 to $100 million in loss were strongly related to
changes
in U.S. population, whereas catastrophes that created insured
losses
greater than $100 million appear related to both shifting weather
conditions and to regional population changes. This evaluation
revealed that the industry's catastrophe adjustment technique did
not
adequately allow for changes in various demographic and social
factors
affecting damage; however, results suggest use of population
values for
normalizing the adjusted catastrophe database to allow meaningful
studies of their temporal variability. Copyright 1998, Institute
for
Scientific Information Inc.
========================
(6) STOCHASTIC TIME CHANGES IN CATASTROPHE OPTION PRICING
H. Geman & M. Yor: Stochastic time changes in catastrophe
option
pricing. INSURANCE MATHEMATICS & ECONOMICS, 1997, Vol.21,
No.3,
pp.185-193
UNIVERSITY OF PARIS 06, PROBABILITY LAB, CNRS 224, TOUR 56, 3
ETAGE,
4 PL JUSSIEU, F-75252 PARIS 05,FRANCE
Catastrophe insurance derivatives (Futures and options) were
introduced in December 1992 by the Chicago Board of Trade in
order to
offer insurers new ways of hedging their underwriting risk. Only
CAT
options and combinations of options such as call spreads are
traded
today, and the ISO index has been replaced by the PCS index.
Otherwise, the economic goal of these instruments continues to be
for
insurers an alternative to reinsurance and for portfolio managers
a
new class of assets to invest in. The pricing methodology of
these
derivatives relies on some crucial elements: (a) the choice of
the
stochastic modelling of the aggregate reported claim index
dynamics
(since the terminal value of this index defines the pay-off of
the
CAT options); (b) the decision of a financial versus actuarial
approach to the valuation; (c) the number of sources of
randomness in
the model and the determination of a 'martingale measure' for
insurance and reinsurance instruments. We represent in this paper
the
dynamics of the aggregate claim index by the sum of a geometric
Brownian motion which accounts for the randomness in the
reporting of
the claims and a Poisson process which accounts for the
occurrence of
catastrophes (only catastrophic claims are incorporated in the
index). Geman (1994) and Cummins and Geman (1995) took this
modelling
for the instantaneous claim process. Our choice here is closer to
the
classical actuarial representation while preserving the
quasi-completeness of insurance derivative markets obtained by
applying the Delbaen and Haezendonck (1989) methodology to the
class
of layers of reinsurance replicating the call spreads. Moreover,
we
obtain semi-analytical olutions for the CAT options and call
spreads
by extending to the lump-diffusion case the method of the Laplace
transform and stochastic time changes introduced in Geman and Yor
(1993, 1996) in order to price financial path-dependent options
through the properties of excursion theory. Copyright 1998,
Institute
for Scientific Information Inc.
----------------------------------------
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*
THE HOUSE SPACE SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING ON NASA'S FAILURE TO
PERFORM WITH
REGARD TO THE IMPACT HAZARD: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
From Ed Grondine" <epgrondine@hotmail.com>
Benny -
I'm sure that other members of the Conference have been delighted
by
the media reports that were generated by Clark Chapman's
testimony last
Thursday before the House space subcommitte. I am also sure
that they
will be absolutely amazed at what went on at the hearing, so here
goes:
To set the scene, the hearing was delayed by one hour because of
a vote
by the entire House on setting up a committee to investigate
President
Clinton allowing China into the satellite launch services
market.
Despite the fact that this policy was developed by President
Reagan and
his Secretary of State George Schultz, and later continued by
President
Bush and his Secretary of State James Baker, Republican House
leader
Newt Gingrich is accusing President Clinton of treason for
allowing a
launch failure report to be given to the Chinese. I have never
heard
such reckless accusations in my lifetime, even against President
Reagan
during the investigations of the TOW missile sales to Iran.
Despite this, after the delay the Subcommittee's members were
able to
go forward with the hearing on an amicable bi-partisan basis.
While
some members of this Conference have pointed out that the
government
of the United States is one few governments to allocate serious
resources to the impact threat, the Subcommittee actually held
the hearing to investigate NASA's failure to do more.
The hearing opened with statements by the ranking Republican,
Representative Rohrabacher, and the ranking Democrat, Rep. Brown.
I
regret to inform Dr. Morrison and Dr. Steel that their 1992
Spaceguard
report had no effect on the Subcommittee. What did have an
effect on
them was something they referred to as the Shoemaker Report
(Near-Earth
Object Survey Working Group Report) which they received in 1993
(actual
date 1995).
The Subcommittee had asked NASA to undertake the $26 million
dollar
search which the Shoemaker Report had advocated, and they have
been
pressing NASA to step up the search in the "five years"
since 1993.
Despite funding from the Congress, NASA has spent the money
elsewhere.
Rep. Rohrabacher was particularly critical of NASA's plan to
spend $50
million for the "Gore-sat": "What is this supposed
to do, sit back and
watch the Earth be pulverized?". Rep. Rohrabacher
asked for suport
from his Democratic colleagues in an override of President
Clinton's
veto of Clementine II.
Rep. Brown read a message from Sir Arthur C Clarke, which
unfortunately
was little more than the boilerplate which the Conference members
have
heard before. Rep. Brown pointed out that when he had been the
Subcommittee's ranking chairman he had pressed NASA to act on the
Shoemaker Report, and expressed regret that NASA had not done
more to
implement the search strategy it proposed.
Since the hearing had been delayed, the witnesses were only given
5
minutes for their opening statements, instead of the 10 minutes
that
had been scheduled. Clark Chapman was first to testify, and
presented
his new estimates of the danger from impactors, which were later
reported in the media. Chapman pointed out that you are more
likely to
be killed by a mile wide impactor than to draw a royal flush
while
playing poker. He also gave a rate for Tunguska type impacts as 1
per
100 years (later modified to 1 per 100-200 years), and presented
a map
comparing the area destroyed at Tunguska with the area of New
York City
and that enclosed by the ring road (beltway) around Washington,
D.C..
Carl Pilcher, director of NASA's NEO program office, testified
next.
NASA has changed, Dr. Pilcher informed the Committee, and is
committed
to finding 95% of the NEOs in the next decade. NASA had
abandoned the
Shoemaker Report's call for a new 2 meter telescope, and instead
of
seeking $26 million was seeking between $3 to $4 million per year
with
a total program cost of $16-17 million dollars. Dr. Pilcher
then
detailed the improvements that NASA was making to the small
telescopes,
including the CCDs. General Estes of the Air Force Space Command
was
working tightly with Dan Goldin on the use of AF
telescopes. Dr.
Pilcher presented an overhead vue graph showing NASA's proposed
and
actual spacecraft for investigating comets and asteroids.
Dr. Gregory Canavan of Los Alamos spoke next. He emphasized that
the
new CCDs were working, and mentioned the "International
Geophysical
Union" as a coordinating body. Dr. Canavan pointed out
that Long Period
Comets presented 50% of the threat(later he put this in a range
of
40%-70%), that nothing was being spent on them, and that there
was no
clear strategy for a search for them. He thought that large
sensors in
space would be necessary for the detection of LPCs. Dr.
Canavan
thought that the use of radar had not been given adequate
attention.
Spectral studies were insufficient for establishing the material
strength of potential impactors, but Clementine II could answer
this
question. NASA's cooperation with DoD had been good.
Dr. William Ailor of the Aerospace Corporation spoke next on the
upcoming Leonid shower and its effects on currently operating
satellites. As the members of the Conference are already
familiar with
the Aerospace Corporation's work on this problem it will not be
repeated
here.
Dr. John Lewis of University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary
Laboratory spoke next about the possibilitie of man using NEAs.
The
members of the committee initially judged Dr. Lewis to be
something of
a fantasist. Rep Rohrabacher commented on Dr. Lewis's closing
statement
that asteroids could support a population of millions of billions
of
people by joking that then "there would be plenty of room
for lawyers".
Dr. Lewis's later comments on trajectories and compositon during
the
questioning won back the committee's respect for him, but whether
Dr.
Lewis now realizes that the committee has absolutely no interest
in
settling asteroids but instead is focused like a laser on the
problem
of planetary defense is a question that I did not get a chance to
ask
him.
The hearing moved on to the questioning of the witnesses, and
this was
its most amazing part. Brian Marsden does not have to worry, as
despite
10 to 15 minutes of thorough questioning by Rep. Burton and Rep.
Hall
on other organizations both international and domestic, none of
the
witnesses mentioned even one time the Minor Planet Center and the
Internationl Astronautical Federation, so the secret of their
existence
and roles is safe. Later both Dr. Pilcher and Dr. Canavah
assured me
that this was an honest mistake on their part attributable solely
to
nervousness, but since they were both under oath my advice is
that they
most definetly need to send letters to the committee members to
emend
their testimony.
I'm sure that Dr. Steel will be delighted to know that during
this
questioning Dr. Chapman described the SSO's plight to the
committee in
detail. I'm not so sure that the Japanese government and
NASDA will be
similarly pleased when they learn that he is unaware of the $10
million
that they are spending on the NEO dedicated 1 meter telescope,
and that
he informed the committee that "Japan is doing
nothing". The existence
and plight of the St. Petersburg group went completely
unmentioned.
The committee took special interest in Dr. Pilcher's vue graph
showing
all existing and proposed NASA probes, and asked him how many of
them
were real. Dr. Pilcher pointed to each with a laser pointer
and
described each one's state of development, and this seemed to
satisfy
them. I think that the vue graph was assembled by NASA PAO
officer
Doug Isbell and that he also prepared Dr. Pilcher for the
questioning,
so hats off to him for his effort to show that NASA was indeed
doing
something.
In this regard the Conference members should note that these
probes
will cost at least $800 million dollars. While it may be
clear to some
Conference members that part of this money could be more
profitably
spent on searches, it seems that the US aerospace industry has a
surplus of launchers that are too small to launch commercially
useful
communications satellites, so NASA will spend the money to buy
launchers to launch these small probes.
During the questioning Dr. Canavan repeatedly mentioned the
threat
presented by Long Period Cometss, but none of the other witnesses
picked up on this, and the committee passed over it.
The only member of the committee to express scepticism was Rep.
Roemer,
and Dr. Chapman answered easily most of his questions about the
estimates. The usual stumper, how many people are known to
have been
been killed by impactors, was answered by Dr. Chapman pointing
out the
Australian tsunami's, if I remember correctly. By now, a massive
headache brought on by the witnesses' failure to mention the MPC
and
IAF was beginning to overtake me.
Only part of the committee had attended the hearing, and the
other
committee members now had to leave to take care of the pressing
business of the day, and the hearing adjourned. Rep.
Rohrabacher went
to the cameras for television interviews. There were 3 television
crews
at the hearing, but I am not sure who they were with, so I can
not tell
the Conference members who is working on ongoing stories.
After asking
Dr. Pilcher about his failure to mention the MPC, I myself
quickly left
to participate in a small discussion on the problem of planetary
defense.
AFTER THE HEARING: A DISCUSSION OF PLANETARY DEFENSE
Despite a massive headache coming on, in large part due to the
witnesses' failure to mention the MPC, after the hearing I joined
with Dr. Canavan, Dr. Ailor, and Dr. Ed Tagliaferri of the
Aerospace
Corporation for coffee.
On the way to the cafe, Dr. Canavan related that the producers of
Deep Impact had approached him for technical help on the film,
and
that he had initially provided it. But when their requests
had begun
to take up more of his time, he had asked for payment, and they
had
then stopped contacting him.
While waiting for the coffee Dr. Canavan repeatedly apologized
for
not mentioning the MPC during his testimony, and expressed regret
at
how few resources Dr. Marsden had available to conduct the MPC's
work.
Dr. Tagliaferri opened the discussion on planetary defense. I set
out
my view that impact events had played a major role in the end of
both
the Hittite and the Etruscan civilizations, and asked whether the
Tsyklon facility at Baikonur might be internationalized to
provide a
stop-gap planetary defense. Russia is moving its military
operations to
Svobodny and Plesetsk, and given a 3 hour visual warning time,
the
former Soviet anti-satellite and fractional orbital bombardment
launch facility at Baikonur would be able to launch 5 missiles at
an
impactor. Dr. Canavan performed back of the envelope calculations
which showed that the Tsyklon could launch useful payloads
against
small impactors, but...
Dr. Tagliaferri pointed out that Tsyklon's use against a large
impactor would only result in fragments, whose entry into the
Earth's
atmosphere would generate enough heat to set the surface of the
Earth
on fire. (Now we know what the Spacecraft Messiah's efforts in
"Deep
Impact" would have led to in reality.)
The 3 hour visual warning time went next. Between the small
image
presented by an approaching impactor, cloud obstruction,
satellite
and aircraft clutter, and the lack of educated observers, the
chance
of there being a 3 hour visual warning was effectively zero.
There
would not be enough time available for any possible targetting
algorithm.
That left Proton and Titan rockets armed with conventional or
nuclear
charges to nudge the impactor as providing the only possible
means of
planetary defense, and then only if the impactor was located
early.
Discussion next turned to Clementine II. It appears that
the United
States' Department of Defense has already put in place safeguards
to
ensure that the Leonid shower will not blind them, and that these
will not require use of the SR-71 reconnaisance aircraft. So an
overide of the President's veto of Clementine II can not be
attached
to legislation putting the SR-71 back on flight status.
The Clementine II spacecraft has been essentially completed, and
Dan
Goldin and NASA's cooperation with the AF on Clementine II had
been
very, very good.
The problem now is to put in place a small group of scientists
capable of using Titans to get a charge to a potential impactor.
It
was suggested that in order to differentiate planetary defense
from
ballistic missile defense, this small group (10-20 people) should
be set
up under the Air Forces Phillips Laboratory rather then under the
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. Department of
Energy
cooperation in providing specialists on nuclear charges was seen
as
certain. It was important that this group be operational
and not
just a study group.
(Now that I think about it, it would probably be better if NASA
used
Titan rockets and this small group to launch the small asteroid
and
comet probes which are now in the planning stage. While
this would
be at least 2 to 3 times more expensive ($400-$600 million
dollars)
than using small launchers, it would provide this group with
essential experience in intercepting Earth impactors. But
this is
only if the searches, including the LPC searches, are already
funded.)
The problem of coordinating this group with their Russian and
Chinese
counterparts came next. While the United Nations committee
on space
would undoubtedly provide the best means of doing this, the fact
is
that the United Nations is broke. Other organizations were
proposed,
but none fit the bill as well.
By now it was approaching time for dinner, and Dr. Tagliaferri,
Dr.
Ailor, and Dr. Canavan left to eat. Whether such a program
for
planetary defense is implimented, and what Congress will ask NASA
and
the AF to do, is anybody's guess at this point.
My headache, far from going away, had grown even more intense,
and I
did not join them for dinner but instead set out to get some
relief.
I do not know if Dr. Marsden will find this technique useful, but
I
went to my local go-go bar (show bar in Brit-speak, Benny). There
the music was as loud, the beer as cold, and the dancers as
lovely as I
remembered, and after several hours of treatment my headache had
subsided by at least half.
Best wishes-
Ed
E.P.
Grondine