PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 113/2002 - 1 October 2002
-------------------------------
"Zoroaster is said by the Persians to have left society,
owing to
his love of justice and wisdom, and to have lived a solitary life
on
a mountain. Then this mountain began to burn on account of the
huge
quantity of fire falling from heaven and continue so to burn,
wherefore
the King with the chiefs of the Persians had approached thither,
intending
to adore the Deity. Then it was that Zoroaster had come forth
unhurt
from the fire and approached them gracefully, bidding them not to
be
afraid but to offer some offerings unto God, since he had visited
their territory."
--Hossein Alizadeh Gharib, Griffith Observer, September 2002
"Old warriors would have gasped in disbelief if they could
have
foreseen the debut of a new American rocket last month. A giant
19
stories high, the Atlas 5, successor to America's first
intercontinental ballistic missile, blasted off from Cape
Canaveral, Fla.,
and roared into space to deploy a satellite. But Yankee smarts
had
little to do with the fiery success of the rocket's engines.
Instead,
the brains were Russian. Moscow may have lost the cold war, but
its
companies are beating Western capitalists at the game of making
rocket
motors."
--William J. Broad, The New York Times
(1) U.S. CONSIDERING NEW NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY ON IMPACT
THREAT
http://www.house.gov/science
(2) SPACE FORCES HAVE BECOME INDISPENSABLE IN WAR AGAINST
TERRORISM
Space Daily, 30 September 2002
(3) SPACE IS BIG, BUT NOT BIG ENOUGH
Space Daily, 30 September 2002
(4) THE MAGI AND THE METOERITES
Hossein Alizadeh Gharib, Tehran, Iran
(5) U.S. HOUSE SPACE SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING ON IMPACT HAZARD THIS
THURSDAY
Andy Smith <astrosafe22000@yahoo.com>
(6) THE NASA BUREAUCRATS' NEW EFFORTS TO TRY AND SANDBAG THE NEO
PROBLEM
E.P. Grondine <epgrondine@hotmail.com>
(7) TWO STORIES OF INTEREST
Daniel Fischer <dfischer@astro.uni-bonn.de>
(8) AND FINALLY: A MISSILE THAT WOULD MAKE LENIN FAINT
The New York Times, 22 September 2002
=================
(1) U.S. CONSIDERING NEW NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY ON IMPACT
THREAT
>From http://www.house.gov/science
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics - Hearing
The Threat of Near-Earth Asteroids
10:00 A.M. - 12:00 NOON
2318 Rayburn House Office Building (WEBCAST)
Contact: Republican Staff: Jennifer Wiseman
Democrat Staff: Richard Obermann
Recent relatively close encounters with asteroids have
highlighted the
threat posed to Earth by so-called "Near Earth Objects"
(NEOs). The House
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics will hold a hearing to
examine the
threat posed by such objects, the status of current NEO survey
efforts, and
the national policy with regard to NEOs.
Witnesses scheduled to testify include:
Dr. Edward Weiler, Associate Administrator for Space Science,
NASA
Dr. David Morrison, Senior Scientist, NASA Ames Research Center
Brigadier General Simon Worden, U.S. Air Force
Dr. Brian Marsden, Director, Minor Planet Center, Smithsonian
Astrophysical
Observatory
Dr. Joseph Burns, Irving Porter Church Professor of Engineering
and
Astronomy, Cornell University
============
(2) SPACE FORCES HAVE BECOME INDISPENSABLE IN WAR AGAINST
TERRORISM
>From Space Daily, 30 September 2002
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/milspace-02z.html
by Tech. Sgt. Scott Elliott
for Air Force News
Washington - Sep 30, 2002
Even as the Air Force strives to meet the conventional demands of
a new era
driven by transformation and the war on terrorism, the service's
secretary
remains focused on national security space management.
"We must ensure our space forces, equipment and concepts of
operation remain
as innovative and capabilities-based as those we develop for
air-breathing
systems," Secretary of the Air Force Dr. James G. Roche said
recently.
"Space capabilities in today's world are no longer
nice-to-have," he said.
"They've become indispensable at the strategic, operational
and tactical
levels of war."
Recent space-based contributions to the war on terrorism include
locating
the enemy by using intelligence and surveillance assets, tracking
and
targeting them through the combined employment of weather and
communications
systems, and engaging the enemy and assessing battle damage with
navigation
and reconnaissance systems.
Looking to the future, Roche said he sees America's military
capability
growing beyond the traditional role of force enhancer, to being
more active
in preventing, fighting and winning wars.
"Our adversaries have noted the advantages we gain from
space," he said.
"Given the total interdependence of air and space power, we
cannot risk loss
of space superiority."
But, as important as the space hardware is, the secretary is
committed to
the individual airman.
"The resource most critical to ensuring (our) space
superiority in the years
to come is not technological or fiscal -- it's people, like
everything else
in the Air Force," Roche said.
"We must develop a well-thought out approach to what it is
we want from our
space systems and our space cadre, and then educate warfighters
throughout
the joint community on how these capabilities can positively
affect
warfighting."
Copyright 2002, Space Daily
===========
(3) SPACE IS BIG, BUT NOT BIG ENOUGH
>From Space Daily, 30 September 2002
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/debris-02a.html
Paris (ESA) Sep 30, 2002
According to Douglas Adams, in his famous book The Hitch-Hikers
Guide to the
Galaxy, space is big. However, it seems near-Earth space is not
big enough.
In December 2001, the Space Shuttle pushed the International
Space Station
away from a discarded Russian rocket booster that was due to pass
uncomfortably close. Space litter is a growing problem but
smarter satellite
design may help in the future.
>From the beginning of the space era, satellites and
deep-space probes have
populated the Solar System. There are now a huge number of
satellites
orbiting the Earth, for different purposes including Earth
observations,
weather forecasting, telecommunications, military applications,
and
astronomy.
The space around Earth is therefore becoming more and more
crowded.
Aside from the aspect of 'space traffic control', there is the
question of
what to do with space litter.
ESA's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt,
Germany, tracks
space litter. It estimates that over 23,000 objects larger than
10
centimetres have been launched from Earth. Of these, about 7500
are still
orbiting -- only a very small proportion of them (6%) is
operational.
Half of all the objects are inoperable satellites, spent rocket
stages, or
other large space litter; the remaining 44% is debris from
explosions and
accidents in space. To make things worse, there are an estimated
70,000 to
120,000 fragments smaller than 1 centimetre and the amount of
space debris
increases by about 5% every year.
Tiny fragments, such as paint flecks, moving at very high
velocities of
around 6 kilometres per second can create problems for the
spacecraft and
for astronaut. One way to lower the threat is to remove
satellites from
orbit at the end of their working lives.
If we force satellites down through the Earth's atmosphere, they
burn up.
However, this is more complicated if the satellite is so large
that parts of
it are liable to survive reentry and strike the ground. This is
the case for
some Earth observation satellites, for example, which are very
big and
heavy. When removing a (dead) satellite from orbit is too
difficult, it is
simply left in orbit.
However ESA is developing a new technology for its Darwin
mission. This
technology may allow smaller, more easily disposable satellites
to replace
often enormous relics in the future which would improve
spacecraft control.
Darwin will use a flotilla of six 2-metre-diameter telescopes,
flying in
tight formation, to simulate a single telescope up to 250 metres
across. The
new technology being developed for Darwin allows the flotilla of
spacecraft
to control their mutual position with extremely high accuracy.
Artist's impression of the Darwin free-flyer model. Courtesy
In the case of Darwin, this enables you to analyse the
atmospheres of very
far-away Earth-like planets with high precision and detect the
chemical
signatures of life. Once this technology is developed, this could
also find
other applications: miniaturised versions of such technology
could replace
large, traditional satellites.
"Imagine using an array of 20-centimetre telescopes. They
would be small,
light and easy to mass-produce, so cheap to manufacture,"
says Malcolm
Fridlund, ESA's Project Scientist for the Darwin mission.
They would see objects just as sharply as traditional satellites,
if not
better, and, at the end of their mission, scientists could ensure
that they
burn up in Earth's atmosphere like shooting stars. This way we
keep space
cleaner.
Another improvement is to position satellites further away, to
reduce
'traffic jams' in near-Earth space.
"This is a better position for Earth observation
anyway," says Fridlund,
"Because, in low-Earth-orbit, the satellite orbits every 90
minutes, it is
only over each spot on Earth for a short period of time. In
geostationary
orbit, however, the satellite would be looking at one whole
hemisphere
continuously, so you could just point the array to wherever you
are
interested."
Moreover, we could use Darwin's formation-flying technology to
equip every
satellite with a collision-avoidance system. Unrelated satellites
would
communicate with their neighbours and take corrective action if
they began
to drift together.
Of course, nothing will completely remove the threat of space
litter.
However, if we can use advanced technology to remove unwanted
hardware from
orbit, space will definitely become safer.
Copyright 2002, Space Daily
=============
(4) THE MAGI AND THE METOERITES
>From Griffith Observer, September 2002
By Hossein Alizadeh Gharib, Tehran, Iran
By the time the Hellenistic Greeks encountered the priests of
ancient Iran,
they were already known as Magi. The Magi were identified as
Zoroastrian
ritualists, and they seem to have originated among the Medes,
long after
Zoroaster emerged as a prophet around 1100 B.C. Zoroaster's
ethical doctrine
was framed by a cosmic conflict between truth and lie, good and
evil, and
light and darkness. Its influence on Iranian religion increased
during the
Achaemenid dynasty (550 - 330 B.C.). From 728 B.C. to 550 B.C.,
before the
Achaemenids crafted the Persian Empire, the Medes were one of the
primary
power brokers of western Asia. The Greek historian
Herodotus wrote about them in the fifth century B.C. and also
identified the
Magi as a tribe of Medes that advised the king and interpreted
dreams. The
Magi also recited ritual texts and officiated at sacrifices.
Later Greek and
Roman authorities regarded them as "wise men." Today,
most Westerners know
them from the story of the Christmas Star in the Bible's New
Testament.
According to the book of Matthew, the "Magi," or Three
Wise Men, followed a
special star to Bethlehem and the Christ Child. On a search
through ancient
Persian sources for eyewitness accounts of, and other references
to, events
that might have been connected with the formation of some of the
small meteorite
craters I have discovered in Iran, I encountered a wealth of
ancient meteor and
meteorite lore associated with the Magi and Zoroastrian
tradition.
Stargazing and the Early History of Zoroastrianism
The early history of Zoroastrianism is a blend of ancient
legends, scattered
bits of interdisciplinary knowledge, and an oral tradition that
remained
unwritten until at least eight centuries after the true era of
Zoroaster.
Linguistic evidence, careful dating of the various stages in the
development
of Mesopotamian constellations (Rogers, 1998)-some of which we
find in
Zoroastrian scriptures, and a wealth of later historical accounts
all lead
us to set the approximate date for the formulation of
foundational elements
of Zoroastrian faith not later than 1000 B.C. Ancient Greek and
Roman
scholars accepted as fact Zoroaster's reputation as a dedicated
stargazer.
Astronomical knowledge in some parts of the Avesta, the
Zoroastrian
scriptures, is abundant, especially in works like the Tir Yasht
("the Book
of Praise of Sirius"). The very ancient forms of language
used in these
passages of the Tir Yasht and six other similar works suggest
they comprise
some of the oldest parts of those texts. In the Tir Yasht (1.2,
5.8), there
seems to be a reference to what probably was a Leonid meteor
shower,
occurring each year around mid-September in the pre-dawn sky:
"We praise Sirius, that bright white fast flying healer,
shining far high
which sheds pure unpolluted light. We praise Sirius, the mighty
glorious
star who wins over shooting stars, who smashes shooting stars
when they are
hurled between the earth and the sky as worm [-shaped] stars near
the vast
mighty scenic deep sea. He truly comes as a sacred horse,
exciting water
into waves,Sand swift winds begin to blowSthis way the beautiful
peaceful
rain comes to the land." (Zoroaster. The Book of Yashts, p.
343)
Despite the later account of Ptolemy (Ptolemaeus Claudius. The
Almagest, p.
253), Sirius is described as pure white, not red. More evidence
for this
ancient observation of a meteor shower appears in an unexpected
Greek
source, Pseudo-Clementinian Recognitions, now only extant in a
Latin
translation from the second century A.D.
Zoroaster, a very great observer of the stars, wished to be
regarded as a
divine being and began to elicit sparks from the stars and to
show them to
the people. (Geiger and Windischmann, pp. 131-133)
An observer able to "elicit sparks from the stars" may
not only have noticed
the occurrence of meteor showers but also recognized the annual
periodicity
of some of them. The account also hints that at least one meteor
shower was
so active in the second millennium B.C. it reliably offered a
spectacular
event to impress those not so aware of the such celestial
phenomena. Dio
Chrysostom, in the late first century A.D., was a Greek
philosopher and a
friend of the Greek biographer Plutarch, and in his Borysthenian
Creation
Chrysostom wrote about the life of Zoroaster,
according to an alleged myth of the Magi. Were the event he
reported to
happen today, it very well might change the life of any
contemporary
observer of the sky. In the past, this remarkable phenomenon
confronted
those who saw it with powerful forces of nature they regarded as
signs from
the gods. Although the passage is only a few lines long, it is
rooted in the
original words of Zoroaster.
Zoroaster is said by the Persians to have left society, owing to
his love of
justice and wisdom, and to have lived a solitary life on a
mountain. Then
this mountain began to burn on account of the huge quantity of
fire falling
from heaven and continue so to burn, wherefore the King with the
chiefs of
the Persians had approached thither, intending to adore the
Deity. Then it
was that Zoroaster had come forth unhurt from the fire and
approached them
gracefully, bidding them not to be afraid but to offer some
offerings unto
God, since he had visited their territory. (Geiger and
Windischmann, pp. 135-136)
The Mithra Yasht, one of the older Zoroastrian texts, references
a
mysterious, fiery, white, all-metal chariot of the deity Mithra,
who in
later sources acquired some affiliations with the sun. In the
Mithra Yasht
(18.70), we seem to reading about a daytime bolide that heralded
the fall
of a meteorite.
"We praise Mithra, he who the God-created Verethraghna [a
Persian symbol of
war and also the planet Mars] moves before him like a boar which
kills in
just one hit...a boar with speckled face, with iron feet, with
iron
cladding, with iron nerves, with iron tail, with iron chin...a
rushing boar
which is trailed by flaming, glorious, mighty, rushing
fire." (Zoroaster.
The Book of Yashts, pp. 424-503)
We later find an account in the Vidaevadata of a stone given to
Zoroaster by
God to repel the Devil. This book's name means "the
anti-Devil data," and it
was written in its final form around the second century B.C. It
contains the
traditions actually held and practiced by the Magi at that time.
In chapter
19, verse 4, Zoroaster was attacked by non- believers, and
"Zoroaster stood up and went forth...with a massive stone
which he had
received from God, the Creator, and was in a large stall. [The
Devil asked,]
"Where did you get that stone?" [Zoroaster replied,]
"Of this far-horizoned
earth, beside the River Daraja, beyond the hill of the house
of Poroshasp." (Razi. Vidaevadata, pp. 1728-1729)
Possibly this passage is referring to a 1.5-ton meteorite
(Alizadeh Gharib,
1999, pp. 1728-1729) that once was kept in a fire temple in
Ardabil, a city
in the northwest Iranian province Azerbaijan (not Aran, the
neighboring
region to the north which later, in the Soviet-era Cold War
climate of
political intrigue, adopted the name of the ancient Iranian
province of
Azerbaijan and now is known as the Republic of Azerbaijan) which
Zoroastrians traditionally regard as Zoroaster's birthplace.
Alternatively,
the passage may document the more massive iron of Armanty
(Alizadeh Gharib, 2002, pp. 1820), found in the nineteenth
century in
central Asia, which many scholars regard as the birthplace of the
religion.
Later, during the Islamic period, the fire temple at Ardabil was
transformed
into a mosque. The meteorite still existed in the tenth century
A.D., when
Maghdassi, an Iranian traveler who resided in Jerusalem, visited
Ardabil:
"In the Grand Mosque of Ardabil there is a large stone that
even a heavy
hammer cannot scratch and had fallen from the sky to outside the
city.
People carried it to the mosque. And I quote from the elegant
servant of the
mosque, who told me, "We were walking near Ardabil when
suddenly we saw
something like a huge shield in the sky which was falling to
earth. When it
landed, we found it was a stone. It was like this [iron], which
is narrow at
both ends." (Al-Maghdassi. Ahsan al-Taghassim fi Marefat
al-Aghalim, p. 380)
This temple still exists as a religious monument, despite looting
several
times by the Ottoman Turks and the Russians. The present
whereabouts of the
Zoroaster meteorite are unknown. I am hopeful, however, it may be
recovered
because I have identified clues regarding its fate. The iron of
Armanty
enjoyed a more fortunate fate, for it now resides in sromchi, the
capital
city of China's Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region. Isotopic
testing may be
able to uncover its terrestrial age and establish a date for the
fall. The
Armanty meteorite was found in a region that originally was
inhabited by the
Scythians, an Iranian people mentioned by Herodotus.
He reported a Scythian myth which refers to the fall of several
gold
implements out of the sky and onto Scythian lands. The date for
this
legendary event is supposed to be about 1500 B.C. Interesting
reports in
Greek sources also provide information on the Ardabil fire
temple. This
report is also from the Pseudo-Clementinian Recognitions.
Zoroaster, wishing to enhance his reputation as a divine being by
eliciting
sparks from stars, repeated this practice very often until he was
borne away
by God himself, whom he troubled too much...People built in his
honor a
monument and ventured to adore him as if he were a friend of
God and had been lifted to heaven in a chariot of lightning. They
also
venerated him as a Living Star, hence he was called Zoroaster
("the living
star") after he died...yet his ashes were collected as if
they were the
remains of lightning and brought to the Persians to be preserved
by them,
under constant watch, as godlike fire fallen from heaven as a
heavenly god.
(Geiger and Windischmann, p. 132)
A similar story in another Greek source, later translated into
Latin as
Homilies of Clemens, reinforces the meteoritical aspect of
Zoroaster's
death.
People of those times honored the tomb with a temple built in
Persia where
the bringing down of fire had taken place. The Persians first
took coals
from the thunderbolt which had fallen from heaven...being the
first to adore
it. (Geiger and Windischmann, p. 133)
Sky, Stone, and Iron
Thanks to iron meteorites that occasionally fell from the
celestial vault,
the sky was associated with iron by the Persian peoples. This
tradition is
embedded in words for these elements of nature. In Avestan, the
ancient
language of Zoroastrian scripture, the word asana means both
"sky" and
"stone." Modern Persian (Farsi) preserves the
tradition, after three
thousand years of linguistic development, in two cognates, aseman
("sky")
and sang ("stone"). In other branches of the Iranian
family of languages
unaffected by foreign influence, including Kurdish and Baluchi,
the words
survive in more pristine form. In Kurdish, the word for iron is
asen, and in
Baluchi, it is ayen. The word for iron in modern Persian is ahan.
Interestingly, it is eisen in German. Linguistic relationships
aside, there
are hints in old Zoroastrian sources that imply this association
of stone
and iron with the sky. According to the book of Gatha (chapter
30, verse 5),
which is thought to represent the oldest parts of the Avestan
holy scripture
and the original words of Zoroaster, the sky is made of the
hardest stone,
worn by Ahura Mazda, the God of Creation and cosmic order, like
armor. In
this sense, meteorites had a spiritual and religious importance
and could
repel evil spirits. This understanding was reiterated in later
Avestan
scripture. In the Farvardin Yasht (verse 2), the sky is said to
be "shining
metal." The second chapter of the Bundahishn, a Zoroastrian
encyclopedia, is
titled "On the Material Genesis," and it confirms,
First, God created the sky, clear, far away, and egg-shaped, of
iron stone.
(Faranbagh, Dadegi. Bonde Heshn, pp. 39-40)
The Bundahishn also contains a passage about the possibility that
various
objects-including fish, toads, and of course, stones-fall out of
the sky.
[The glorious Zoroaster] also tells in religion that as Sirius
carries water
with the power of wind to the air, it also carries anything
present in the
whirlpool to the air, things like stones, fish, toads, and
similar objects.
The evidence confirms that these things come down with the rain,
for it is
evidently witnessed that there are times that fish, toads, and
stones rain
down. This fire which also falls and which people call lightning
is also
stone. It goes up with water to the air, where it reaches the
hands of
demons who are the enemies of Sirius. They take it using magic,
heat it, and
spoil it to hot and dry or to cold and dry and bring it back to
earth to the
loss of people. (Faranbagh, Dadegi. Bonde Heshn, p. 96)
This passage in the Bundahishn is among the most direct
documentations of
the relationship between meteorites and magical power. This
association of
meteorites with magical power was a prime incentive for the Magi
to search
for meteorites.
The Magic of Meteorites
Before the advent of the iron age, in which iron ore could be
smelted into
metal and forged into tools and weapons, the metal most in use in
the
civilized world was copper, along with its alloys. When, however,
a fragment
of a metal harder than copper fell from the sky, the ancients
took notice.
This heavenly metal had something no other metal could
match-hardness. Iron
is one of the hardest metals, especially when it contains some
impurities.
The strange circumstances of iron's appearance on the surface of
the earth
invested it with supernatural power. Trailing smoke and fire,
along with the
thunder generated by supersonic passage through the atmosphere, a
meteorite
arrived in high style. Iron meteorites were at one time the only
known
source of iron, and they were revered as highly valuable objects
belonging
to celestial gods. It is, then, no surprise we find all kinds of
iron charms
and miniature weapons made of meteoritic iron in the bronze-age
burials of
Egyptian and Mesopotamian kings. Small weapons of this celestial
metal could
penetrate any known armor, and their quality surpassed similar
weapons made
of softer metals. These attributes alone would have persuaded
people that
iron meteorites possessed supernatural power. For the ancients,
owning an
iron dagger was a little like an individual today owning a
nuclear weapon.
The reputation of heaven's iron continued for centuries. Najib
Bakran, the
thirteenth- century Persian geographer, wrote in his geography of
the
medieval world,
Sometimes when lightning strikes, something lands on earth
similar to iron
but colored like copper and shaped like an arrow or spit. Being
hit by one
of these results in immediate death, and if it strikes any part
of the body,
it will pass through it. Nothing may shield from it, and normal
iron does
not affect it. Nothing can be made of it due to great hardness,
and I heard
that such a material landed in Mazandaran and Daylam [on the
southern shore
of the Caspian Sea], some as large as a weapon. People call these
"bricks of
the heavens." (Bakran, Najib. Jahan Nameh, 1962 facsimile)
It is highly probable Najib Bakran, when writing these lines, was
actually
describing a finely-oriented, rust-covered specimen he examined
personally
or even some small arrowheads made of meteoritic iron. The
magical power
attributed to meteorites was one reason Iranian kings like Mahmud
of Ghazni
so eagerly sought them. He once demanded a dagger be fabricated
from a large
piece of iron meteorite witnessed to fall in 1009 A.D. Detailed
accounts of
this meteorite have been transmitted to us through the words of
two Persian
scholars of the time, Avicenna and al-Biruni. According to
Avicenna,
"One day in the vicinity of Jouzjanan, a piece of iron
weighing 150 man (450
kilograms or 990 pounds) fell from the air. The people around
there heard a
great sound. When it was brought to the king of Jouzjanan, King
Mahmud of
Ghazni, who had heard about it, demanded a piece of it. They all
tried in
vain to separate a part of it, but it was not possible. At last,
expert
ironsmiths began to make a sword of it [in their usual way of hot
forging],
but they failed because its grains, similar to millet, were
interlocked.
This made it a highly solid object. Nothing worked on it, neither
stone nor
iron and steel." (Kashani, Ghazi Ahmed.
Taarikh-e-Negarestan, p. 113)
The same belief in meteoritic power prompted Jahangir, the fourth
Mogul
emperor and the ruler of India, to order two swords, a dagger,
and a knife
be contrived from a meteorite found in India around 1621
(Schaefer, 1998, p.
70). Magical power aside, meteorites had practical material
value. According
to an Assyrian cuneiform text, iron meteorites were worth eight
times their
weight in gold. Such meteorites were probably traded through
Assyrian
commercial outposts in western Iran at a time they were perhaps
available
from masses of iron meteorite. This may also explain why such an
ancient and
vast land as Iran has failed in recent times to yield a single
piece of iron meteorite. In Mesoamerica, on the other hand, a
number of
massive iron meteorites have been found since the era of the
Spanish
conquest. The late Harvey Harlow Nininger, a celebrated and
pioneering
meteoriticist, noted this geographic disparity in his
contribution,
"Meteorite Distribution on the Earth," to The Moon,
Meteorites, and Comets
(Middlehurst, Barbara M., and Kuiper, Gerard P., 1963, p. 171):
The suggestion has been made that climatic conditions in the
southern
Cordillera favored the preservation of meteorites and that
erosion was
especially favorable for their exposure. However, the great arid
highlands
of Iran, with an even more arid climate and with a considerably
greater
population, have yielded none of the world's great irons...The
question
naturally arises whether the older civilization of Persia may
have disposed
of massive irons, processing them for utilitarian purposes.
Nininger concluded the absence of massive Iranian iron meteorites
could be
explained by their consumption by expert metal workers, who had
long since
exhausted the supply through cold tool making, a conclusion
reinforced by
the discovery of a handful of meteoritic artifacts in bronze-age
burial
sites in west and central Iran. A cuneiform text, inscribed
around 2000 B.C,
verifies ancient exploitation of meteorites.
I brought the amutu [iron meteorite] to the boss, and he said,
"I will smelt
it!" I said, "I will not give permission for
smelting." He said, "When you
have gone, I will smelt it." He smelted the amutu, a lump of
three shekels
resulted, through smelting...I suffered a loss of four shekels.
He offered
me eight shekels of gold [per shekel of meteorite] for the rest
of the
amutu. I said, "It is too little." (Bjorkman, Judith K.
1973, p. 112)
Memory of the time when iron meteorites were so valuable may have
persisted
through generations and fused with the belief in the spiritual
and magical
powers assigned to iron meteorites. This memory also may have
sustained a
high demand for these objects, despite their rarity and
diminishing supply.
The Persian Magi were knowledgeable and wise specialists who
would have
understood the situation, and we are aware of their eagerness to
obtain
meteoritic material thanks to Pliny the Elder (first century
A.D.). In the
Natural History (book XXXVII, chapter LI, line 135), Pliny
describes several
kinds of fulgurites found in Kermania (Kerman), a south-central
province of
Iran, and then, quoting Sotacus, Pliny comes to this point:
"Sotacus distinguishes also two other varieties of the
stone, a black and a
red, resembling axe-heads. According to him, those among them
that are black
and round are supernatural objects, and he states that thanks to
[weapons
made of] them, cities and fleets are attacked and overcome, their
name being
baetuli, while the elongated stones are cerauniae. These writers
distinguish
yet another kind of cerauniae which is quite rare. According to
them, the
Magi hunt for it zealously because it is found only in places
that have been
struck by a thunderbolt." (Pliny the Elder, p.
275)
The last sentence suggests the meteorites most favored by the
Magi were what
today we would call observed falls. In any case, the spiritual
and
commercial value of meteorites kept the Magi on the lookout for
them.
The Magi of Our Time
Pliny's description of the Persian Magi as diligent meteorite
hunters
reminds us there are people in our era who travel great distances
and expend
energy and time in pursuit of the "bricks of the
heavens." Meteorite
entrepreneur Robert A. Haag is a modern meteorite Magus. Henry
Augustus Ward
(1834-1906), although now all but forgotten, was an American
museum builder
and pioneer meteorite hunter. Not a single book has been written
about Ward
and his endeavors, but stories of his travels around the globe,
as far as
South America, Australia, and Persia, are recorded. On 18 April
1880, a
clear afternoon sky was suddenly darkened by an unexpected cloud
and nine
sonic booms. This event occurred over a region about 37 miles (60
kilometers) southwest of Tehran, before the puzzled eyes of a
shepherd, who
was tending his flock when something hit the ground with a great
noise. The
shepherd hurriedly returned to his village and reported his
"vision." Some
of the men of the village returned to the place where the
shepherd had
experienced the unknown and observed a pit about 61/2 feet (2
meters) deep
at the exact spot, punched by a stone that now rested at the
bottom of the
cavity. The stone, weighing about 119 pounds (54 kilograms), was
transported
to Tehran to the court of Naser al-Din Shah, then the King of
Persia. Soon,
the news of this meteorite fall spread through Europe and to the
German
mining engineer Fredrich Dietsch. Examined by experts, the
meteorite proved
to be a mesosiderite, a variety of stony-iron meteorite which
today we know
formed through successive collisions between well- developed,
gravitationally-differentiated minor planets. The metallic cores
and stony
mantles of parent objects are evenly mixed in these meteorites.
Eighteen
years after the meteorite fell near Veramin, Iran, when Muzaffar
al-Din
Shah, another Ghajar dynasty ruler, was king, Henry August Ward
was in
Sweden, where he noticed a small fragment of the meteorite in the
hands of
the famous polar explorer A.E. Nordenski"ld. Ward promptly
packed his bags
for the long journey, via St. Petersburg, the Caucusus, the
Caspian Sea, and
the port city Anzali, to Tehran for an audience at the palace of
the Persian
king. It took place on Tuesday, 6 December 1898. Ward left us
with an
overview (Ward, Henry A., pp. 453-459) of his meeting with the
"King of
Kings," who let him cut a fragment from the famous Iranian
meteorite. The
piece, though small (about 5 pounds or 2.3 kilograms), is the
largest
fragment ever passed to private hands. This may have been one of
the few
times Ward was unable to secure all of the main mass of a
meteorite.
Donating the fragment was the highest favor the King of Persia
ever granted
with the Veramin mesosiderite. It is possible the king wanted to
engage
American interest in Persian affairs through the Yankee
scientist.
At the time, the usually conflicting colonial interests of the
British and
Russians had converged, and the two nations were cooperating at
the expense
of Persia. Ward, unaware of the subtleties of power politics in
the region,
left Iran quickly, He died eight years later, on 4 July 1906, in
an
automobile accident in Buffalo, New York. Ward's heritage was
tons of
meteorites acquired from over 600 separate falls. Ward's Natural
Science
Establishment still operates in Rochester, New York. The rest of
the Veramin
meteorite remains in Iran. Although reduced to 114 pounds it
would be
coveted by all of those Magi and metal workers who in antiquity
scoured
Persia clean of meteoritic iron.
References
Alizadeh Gharib, Hossein. "From the Solar System to the
Court of Naser
al-Din Shah" (December, 1998) (in Persian).
Alizadeh Gharib, Hossein. "A Tale of Mummies and
Meteorites," Meteorite
(February, 2002): 18-20.
Alizadeh Gharib, Hossein. "Zoroaster's Meteorite," Sky
& Telescope 97, 5
(May, 1999): 12-14.
Bakran, Najib. Jahan Nameh. Moscow, U.S.S.R.: folio 20a, 1962
(facsimile
edition) (in Persian and Russian).
Bill, James A., and Louis, William Roger, eds. Musaddiq, Iranian
Nationalism, and Oil. London: I.B. Tauris & Co., 1988.
Bjorkman, Judith K. "Meteors and Meteorites in the Ancient
Near East,"
Meteoritics 89 (1973): 91-130.
Faranbagh, Dadegi. Bonde Heshn. Tehran, Iran: Toos Publications,
1990 (in
Persian). Geiger, W., and Windischmann, F. Zarathushtra in the
Gathas and in
the Greek and Roman Classics. Leipzig, Germany: Otto
Harrassowitz, 1897.
Kashani, Ghazi Ahmad. Tarick-e-Negarestan. Tehran, Iran: Hafez
Library, 1972
(in Persian).
al-Maghdassi. Ahsan al-Taghassim fi Marefat al-Ahgalim. Leiden,
the
Netherlands: 1909 (in Arabic).
Nininger, Harvey H. "Meteorite Distribution on the
Earth," in The Moon,
Meteorites, and Comets (Middlehurst, Barbara M., and Kuiper,
Gerard P.,
eds.) Chicago, Illinois, USA: University of Chicago Press 1963,
pp. 162-182.
Pliny the Elder. Natural History (Volume X). Cambridge,
Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1962.
Ptolemaeus, Claudius. The Almagest. Chicago, Illinois, USA:
Encyclopedia
Britannica, Inc., 1952.
Razi, Hashem, trans. Vidaevadata. Tehran, Iran: Fekr-e-Rooz
Publications,
1997.
Rogers, John H. "Origins of the Ancient Constellations: I.
The
Mesopotamian Traditions," Journal of the British
Astronomical Association
108, 1 (February, 1998): 9- 28.
Schaefer, Bradley E. "Meteors That Changed the World,"
Sky & Telescope 96, 6
(December, 1998): 68-75.
Ward, Henry A. "The Veramin Meteorite," The American
Journal of Science
(fourth series) XII: 453-459. Zoroaster. The Book of Yashts.
Tehran, Iran:
Tahoori Publications, 1968 (in Persian).
Copyright 2002, Griffith Observer
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(5) U.S. HOUSE SPACE SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING ON IMPACT HAZARD THIS
THURSDAY
>From Andy Smith <astrosafe22000@yahoo.com>
Hello Benny and CCNet,
The U. S. House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics (SSC) is
planning a
hearing on "The Threat of Near-Earth Asteroids", this
Thursday (3 October).
There have only been a few such meetingss, in the last decade (3
or 4).
The SC Chairman is Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, of California.
He is a
long-time supporter of a well-funded and organized NEO program.
The SSC is a
part of the House Science Committee (SC)and Congressman Sherwood
Boehlert,
of New York, is the Chairman. Another strong supporter for a good
program is
Congreeeman Ralph Hall, of Texas...the ranking minority member.
At this
time, the Associate Administrator of the NASA Office of Space
Science (Dr.
Edward Weiler) is listed to talk and there may be others added to
the
agenda. See http://www.spaceref.com/calendar/calendar.html?pid=1734
It would be good for all, who can, to contact these folks and to
monitor the
meeting. It may be WEBCAST.
We are pushing for: (1) Larger telescopes (especially LSST) to
join in the
hunt....with more help for the existing search programs, for the
existing
large survey telscopes (Sloan, etc.) and for the MPC Data Center,
(2) A
quick-reaction deflection capability, using existing equipment
(weeks
instead of years to react),(3)The development of rapid 24/7 alarm
and
evacuation plans for the coastal cities (5 hour goal) and a
dynamic
international preparedness program, to include the excellent
(largely
volunteer) programs in Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK, Canada, the
ESA, etc.
We feel it is very important to assist such elected governmental
groups as
this, in understanding the importance of the NEO issues and to
encourage
them to help their government agencies to increase the key
activity funding
support levels. NASA, the Air Force, the Department of Energy
Labs, NOAA and
others have done a lot, in the last decade, to help us to
understand this -
the greatest of all credible natural dangers - and to prepare to
prevent
impact, if possible, and to survive impact, if we must. We thank
them and
all of the groups, around the world, that are helping. However,
there is
much, much more to do and we are, indeed, living on borrowed
time.
Cheers
Andy Smith
International Planetary Protection Alliance (IPPA)
===============
(6) THE NASA BUREAUCRATS' NEW EFFORTS TO TRY AND SANDBAG THE NEO
PROBLEM
>From E.P. Grondine <epgrondine@hotmail.com>
Hello Benny -
My G*d! but these bureaucrats are a nuisance! After all, what
better way is
there for me to spend an absolutely lovely fall Saturday
afternoon than
sitting on my butt and straining my eyes reading a computer
screen? Oh, but
let me count the ways... Ordinarily I could put all of this off,
but since
next Thursday the US Congress's Space Subcommittee is having a
hearing on
NASA's failure in dealing with the impact hazard, I get to spend
yet another
Saturday further improving this wonderful florescent tan of
mine...
I suppose it's a question of timing. Two items appeared at the
very end of
the last week which demonstrate fairly conclusively that the
bureaucrats
within NASA are doing their best to try and avoid dealing with
the NEO
hazard by sandbagging it; thus my writing this dispatch for
Conference
participants became urgent.
If you remember, the UK bureaucrats were quite successful in
"sandbagging"
the NEO hazard by setting up the PPARC studies, and Alan Harris
played a key
role in the effort...
US NEO PROGRAMS PPARC'D WITH AN ATTITUDE: HOW THE HELL DID ALAN
HARRIS GET
PUT IN CHARGE?
Having already done his bit to trash the UK Southern NEO
observatory, we now
find Harris doing his bit to try and trash the US small object
detection
programs. From space.com:
"Spotting Smaller Asteroids that Could Threaten Earth
"Work on the "next generation" of surveys to
detect near-Earth asteroids
(NEAs) is underway, according to Alan Harris, asteroid expert and
senior
research scientist at the Space Science Institute. Both NASA and
the
National Science Foundation (NSF) -- through the National Optical
Astronomy
Observatory in Tucson, Arizona -- have commissioned study teams
to define
surveys that would spot smaller NEAs.
"A Congressional mandate presently has NASA looking for
asteroids larger
than 1 kilometer (0.62 miles). One of these, were it to hit
Earth, would
have terrible global consequences. Harris told SPACE.com that
NASA is
considering space-based as well as ground-based surveys, weighing
the
cost-benefit of searches that scan for smaller-sized NEAs that
could cause
regional destruction.
"The other work supported by NSF is defining the
capabilities and
requirements for NEA surveying using a proposed ground-based
Large Synoptic
Survey Telescope, the LSST. Building of this instrument -- also
called the
Dark Matter Telescope - is being supported in various astronomy,
astrophysics, and planetary science circles."
ALAN HARRIS: OPPONENT OF SYSTEMS TO PROTECT AGAINST IMPACT
This space.com report is somewhat incredible, given that Alan
Harris is
widely known within the NEO community as a person who is unable
to
differentiate between defending against asteroid and comet impact
and
defending against missile attack
(http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc032698.html):
"1) NEO DEFLECTION SYSTEM FAR TOO DANGEROUS TO DEVELOP
From: Alan W. Harris <awharris@lithos.jpl.nasa.gov>
Dear Benny,
Re. the comments from George Wetherill, passed on to you by David
Morrison,
I too am skeptical if an impending collision by an asteroid could
be "a
wonderful thing." I worry that if something like 1997 XF11
had played out
where the error ellipse continued to shrink down close to the
Earth, so that
we could certify that the object would pass only a few radii away
from the
Earth, but we could at the same time certify that there was no
real chance
of an impact, we would nevertheless see the folks who brought you
Star Wars
casting just a shadow of a doubt on our celestial mechanical
predictions, and would
be urging a massive program to deflect or destroy it "just
in case."
"This kind of stupidity is not exactly my idea of "a
wonderful thing,
inspiring the nations of the Earth to work together to save the
planet,"
that George suggests, but I am sure that is the kind of hype that
would be
used to sell the program. I am quite sure that such arguments
would prevail
at a level of risk far below the level at which they are
warrented; the only
question is, how low? I would venture a wild guess that a factor
of a
thousand is about right --that is, if we were to live so long, we
would fall
victim to the development of such a deflection scheme about a
thousand times
more often than one would really be justified, or turned around
the other
way, the odds that we will be peddled a deflection system when
one is not
rationally called for is about 1000 to 1 more likely than that
the
discovered object really poses enough of a threat to call for
such action.
"With regard to the remarks by Farinella, non-nuclear
schemes might be a
practical way to divert the mischief of those who would
"protect" us in
advance of proven need, if we are politically unable to keep them
from
"doing something." But if a real threatening
object were to be discovered,
I think most of the world's population would be happy to go with
the most
expedient solution rather than tinkering with solar sails and
other such
"green" options.
"Cheers, Al"
"Cheers" indeed. Given Harris's extreme anti-ballistic
missile defense
position, all else follows. In his view, not only is a NEO
deflection system
too dangerous to develop, a NEO detection system is as well:
after all, you
have to find potential impactors before you can deflect or
destroy them.
This may also be seen in the following extract from Harris' and
Morrison's
attack on the UK Southern Hemisphere Telescope
(http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc101000.html;
To put this into context,
it needs to be added that Morrison's reluctance to avoid having
resources
diverted from manned Mars flight sutides at Ames is well known.):
FROM ALAN HARRIS:
"Your (Morrison's) piece summarizing misconceptions about
Spaceguard is
excellent. I hope your distribution gets around to enough of the
media to
make a difference in their reporting, and as well to the various
agencies
and committees that make decisions regarding telescope placement,
space
missions, etc. Some of the comments made in response to your list
of
"misconceptions of the Spaceguard Strategy", in
particular relating to the need for
surveying from the southern hemisphere or from space, approach
the level of
"junk science"."
I don't know if rather specious but carefully worded comments
constitute
"junk science", but my thinking is that they do.
Neither do I know if
Harris's and Morrison's attack had any effect in ending the UK
NEO telescope
project, but my thinking is that it did. Continuing with Harris's
comments:
"Rather than making intuitive appeals to "the world as
it might be," we
would do better to look at quantitative calculations of "the
world as we
think it is."
Well, my opinion is that Harris needs to look at the world as it
is, instead
of the world as he "thinks" it is, and take a really
good look at the
historical impact data in that real world, the one where many
people were
killed and large areas destroyed by impact, rather than relying
on
"theoretical" hopes that somehow interfering with
defense against asteroid
and comet impact will lead to abandonment of missile defense
systems.
Continuing with Harris:
"Further criticism should then be based on the model
representation used in
the calculation rather than intuitive wishes of how thing
"should be." I
have reported several times the results of my modeling of
"all sky surveys."
In one simulation reported a couple years ago, I explicitly
tested..."
and further theoretical blather, much of it deliberately aimed at
trying as
best as possible to confuse the total impact hazard with only
that hazard
arising from 1 kilometer diameter and larger asteroids. As for
the impact
hazard itself, the following extract from Harris probably
demonstrates
better than anything else his complete obliviousness to cometary
impactors:
"My point is, the time scale for the impact flux to change
is very long,"
(Actually it can and has changed in an instant - epg) "so to
borrow a
computer term for word processors, "WYSIWYG," or
"What You See Is What You
Get." (This, when actually given the current state of
affairs, "What we
don't see is what we'll get". - epg)
"We have observed the frequency of 1 km and larger objects
"crossing our
bow" to within a factor of 2 or so, thus we can simply
calculate the
frequency of how often such an object hits the Earth, again
within a factor
of 2 or so. There really is not much more uncertainty than that
in the
present impact rate, or the rate for the past and next century or
even
more."
My gosh, all those long period comets Harris observed! Whatever
the
rationalisations behind them, and Harris has sufficient abilities
and
resources to generate large amounts of rationalisations, Harris's
conclusions are always the same
(http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc030402.html):
"My real worry is that too many people will get frantic
about the impact
hazard. ... I actually think we're doing about as much as we
should." (Alan
Harris, 27 February 2002)
Well, my real worry is that "experts" such as Harris
will remain in
positions where they are able to needlessly and recklessly
endanger
thousands if not millions of peoples' lives. Given Harris's
fundamental bias
against missile defense systems, and his confusion of missile
defense
systems with asteroid and comet defense systems, it is clear that
no amount
of evidence will be able to change his somewhat blindered mind.
The only
question left is how the hell Harris got put in charge.
ED WEILER'S MANNED MARS PROGRAM
Some Conference participants may remember that just a few short
weeks ago I
asked Ed Weiler whether he preferred the proposal within NASA for
the
construction of a man tended Moon based NEO observatory or the
proposal for
manned flight to Mars. In reply, Weiler denied that either
proposal existed.
Which brings us to our next item, the NASA proposal for manned
Mars flight
which Weiler signed this week
(http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=6674).
The wording is a little
tricky, so bear with me here.
The actual document itself is the "Memorandum of Agreement
Among The Offices
of Space Science, Biological and Physical Research, and Space
Flight
Establishing the NASA Exploration Team" and last week Weiler
committed the
OSS to its implementation. The scope (goal) of the agreement is:
"To achieve
NASA's mission of "To explore the universe and search for
life," the Enterprises
hereby establish a single entity that has responsibility for
cooperatively
providing the options, priorities, and assessments for future
human/robotic
exploration."
Now as certainly one place in our solar system where life is
likely to be
found is Mars, all of this in more simple terms is an endorsement
of manned
Mars flight. You would think that it might have occurred to these
geniuses
that if any astronaut ever does find life on Mars, his chances of
being
allowed to return to the Earth will be as near zero as you can
get. Even if
the US agreed to his return, which in itself is highly unlikely,
the chances
of foreign governments approving this unfortunate's return would
be even
lower. Further, they could reasonably be expected to take
whatever measures,
and I do mean WHATEVER here, they might feel necessary to prevent
that
return. All of this kind of reminds me of the mathematics of
infinities,
except in this case you have 0 and then numbers of lesser
magnitude than
that.
You will notice no mention of securing the lives of millions of
people as a
goal for these folks. One would also think that it might
have occurred to
them that since the majority of the public would rather have NASA
spend
their money on keeping them from getting hit by the various
pieces of space
stuff, instead of flying a few astronauts off to Mars, they more
or less
have guaranteed NASA no end of grief by setting up manned Mars
flight as
NASA's sole goal.
Ah well, you might also hope that they might have a minimal
interest in
keeping alive the public so that they could finance the
construction of
their manned Mars ship, but then that would be ignoring the real
world,
where the point is actually to stay employed by promising things
which you
can't deliver.
SINS OF OMISSION: ED WEILER'S BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE, ERRH,
MANNED MARS
PROGRAM
Since tying defense against asteroid and comet impact with
defense against
ballistic missile attack has proved so successful for those who
want to
spend all of NASA's money on manned Mars flight, perhaps the
presentation of
a few facts about the manned Mars program may serve to clarify
matters
somewhat.
One of the key reasons currently being put forth by various staff
within the
Office of Space Science for the necessity of developing space
based nuclear
electric power generators is that they will be necessary for
manned flight
to Mars. While this proposition is debatable,(solar thermal
systems work
quite well for manned Mars flight), one fact that isn't debatable
is that
these same nuclear electric power generators can be used to power
solid
state heat capacity lasers for ballistic missile defense:
http://www.llnl.gov/str/April02/pdfs/04_02.3.pdf
which has real nice illustrations of a working unit, and
http://www.abqjournal.com/paperboy/ia/scitech/533280news12-09-01.htm
which discusses the testing program and abandonment of chemical
lasers.
Yes, it really does work. Another interesting point from
the second piece:
"One of the basic advantages of electrical lasers is the
fuel. On a
demonstration last week, the solid-state laser burned through a
three-quarter-inch thick layer of steel with just seconds of
laser exposure.
The electrical current came from a wall outlet and cost no more
than $20,
much cheaper than the cost for an equivalent chemical laser,
researchers said.
And in combat situations, powering an electric laser weapon from
a diesel-powered
generator is likely going to be much easier than fueling its
chemical
counterpart by lugging around a volatile - and
limited - mix of
elemental fuels, they said."
Of course, the same things hold for space based systems, except
more so, and
on the subject of fuel, NASA's sudden interest in sending nuclear
electric
powered probes to Pluto at the same time the Army had success in
testing
this electrically powered high-energy laser is merely a simple
coincidence.
While the use of such nuclear electric powered lasers is
certainly the best means of
diverting a threatening asteroid or comet by laser ablative
propulsion,
let's not mention it, shall we?
No, no, no, no. The important thing for the general public to
remember here
is that Weiler's nuclear electric power generators for manned
flight to Mars
will be used for ballistic missile defense. Now as many of the
IMF meeting
protestors are due to be released here in Washington in the first
part of
the week, and as many of them are certain not have money for
lodging, it seems
to me that the only humane course of action is to suggest to them
some
activity which will both make them feel useful to society, while
at the same
time assuring their continued health through the provision of
adequate
shelter.
Oh well. It also seems to me that all of this manned Mars
malarkey has
diverted sorely needed money away from the vital task of dealing
with the
impact hazard for entirely too long.
CAN I GO NOW?
Well, Benny, my day's shot, and my evening is as well now. The
sun sets on
yet another perfect day, another one of the many which I have
missed due to
the rather complete lack of adequate action on the part of
certain
government bureaucrats, ahem, "employees". Here I had
thought I would
finally be able to quit smoking by using the nicotine skin patch,
but with
this latest round of nonsense today it was the patch and 4
(extralight)
cigarettes. Is it too much to hope that these clowns, errh,
"officials", get
their acts together and finally do what the people who pay them
actually
want them to do, or is that simply asking too much of them?
Baring that,
could somebody just fire them? Quickly?
Oh well. The House Space Subcommittee meets Thursday for hearings
on NASA's
"plans" for dealing with the NEO hazard, so perhaps I
will finally be able
to put down this labor at last and rest. Hurricane season
is nearly over in
Mexico, and with some generous donations from others my essential
studies on
Olmec mega-tsunami traditions could be significantly advanced
this winter.
as always, yours in science,
Ed
=============
(7) TWO STORIES OF INTEREST
>From Daniel Fischer <dfischer@astro.uni-bonn.de>
Dear Benny,
The following note, coming from an avid meteorite collector
directly
involved in the work and through a mailing list, should be of
interest - it
seems that there are not only streams of meteorites with
identical orbits in
the solar system but that there are meteorites of vastly
different composition in one such stream:
From: "Dieter Heinlein" <Dieter.Heinlein@a-city.de>
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 21:44:17 +0200
Subject: [AKM-Info] Neuigkeiten zum Neuschwanstein Meteoriten
Hallo liebe Meteoritenfreunde,
es hat einige Zeit gedauert, bis der "Neuschwanstein"
Meteorit, der am 6.
April 2002 gefallen ist und dessen erstes und bisher einziges
Stück von 1,75
kg Mitte Juli gefunden wurde, klassifiziert werden konnte.
Denn zunächst haben wir an dem ungeschnittenen Meteoriten am
MPIK in
Heidelberg die kurzlebigen Radioisotope messen lassen, um
beweisen zu
können, dass es sich bei dem Fundstück tatsächlich um den
Meteorit handelt,
der am 6. April niedergegangen ist: es sind wirklich hohe Gehalte
an
kurzlebigen Radioisotopen, wie z.B. Be-7 gefunden worden! Danach
wurden von
dem immer noch intakten Meteoriten Silikonformen erstellt, damit
wir für
verschiedenste Zwecke (für Windkanalexperimente und
Modellrechnungen der
Isotopenanalyse, sowie für Sammler und
Ausstellungen) maßstabgetreue Abgußmodelle erstellen können.
Erst Anfang September wurde das erste Stück vom
"Neuschwanstein" Meteorit
abgeschnitten. Eine erste Dünnschliffanalyse zeigte, dass es
sich dabei
nicht etwa um einen gewöhnlichen Chondriten, sondern um einen
sehr seltenen
Steinmeteoritentyp handelt: nämlich um einen Enstatit-Chondriten
(E6).
Weitere chemischen Analysen ob es ein EH oder EL ist, laufen
gerade.
Die Tatsache, daß aus dem gleichen Orbit wie Pribram (ein
gewöhnlicher H5
Chondrit) ein ganz anderer Meteoritentyp kommt, macht die
Interpretation der
Bildungsgeschichte beider Meteorite jetzt noch wesentlich
interessanter und
wir dürfen auf weitere Untersuchungsergebnisse
gespannt sein!
Beste Grüße
Dieter Heinlein
DLR Feuerkugelnetz
The discovery of the Neuschwanstein had been described in this
press
release:
http://www.dlr.de/oeffentlichkeit/presse/presseinfo/pm20_2002.htm
And finally the following press release could be of interest for
your
studies of apocalyptic ideas:
http://idw-online.de/public/zeige_pm.html?pmid=53215
Regards, Daniel
=========
(8) AND FINALLY: A MISSILE THAT WOULD MAKE LENIN FAINT
>From The New York Times, 22 September 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/22/weekinreview/22BROA.html
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
OLD warriors would have gasped in disbelief if they could have
foreseen the
debut of a new American rocket last month. A giant 19 stories
high, the
Atlas 5, successor to America's first intercontinental ballistic
missile,
blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., and roared into space to
deploy a
satellite. But Yankee smarts had little to do with the fiery
success of the
rocket's engines. Instead, the brains were Russian.
Moscow may have lost the cold war, but its companies are beating
Western
capitalists at the game of making rocket motors. With technology
that is
simple and reliable, powerful yet relatively cheap, the Russians
are winning
over not only commercial customers around the globe but the
American
military as well. What's more, the Russians have outperformed
their
technologically advanced rivals by relying on a strikingly
low-tech fuel:
kerosene.
The Atlas 5, made by Lockheed Martin, is the brainchild of the
United States
Air Force, which realized seven years ago that it would need to
replace its
aging fleet of cargo rockets with a new generation of inexpensive
but
dependable rockets able to loft large payloads.
The Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, as the project was called,
let
American companies pick whatever technology they wanted. Joan B.
Underwood,
a spokeswoman for Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, said
the
company's teams seized on a Russian engine design after being
dazzled by
Russian secrets accessible after the end of the cold war.
"We were astounded," she said. "The Russians were
able to develop systems
and metals and capabilities that allowed them to fire engines at
higher
pressures, temperatures and efficiencies."
A Russian company, NPO Energomash, formed an alliance with Pratt
& Whitney
to make a new engine for Lockheed Martin. The result is the
RD-180, a new
Russian design that experts say has a performance edge of at
least 10
percent over its Western rivals.
"We're getting the crown jewels," said Charles P. Vick,
an expert on the
Russian space program at the Federation of American Scientists, a
private
group in Washington. "It makes up for 30 years of not doing
the appropriate
amount of engine research ourselves."
The trick is that the Russians learned during the cold war how to
excel
without pushing technological limits - the opposite of the West's
approach.
For instance, Moscow often relied on kerosene, an inexpensive
fuel that can
work at room temperature. In contrast, Washington pushed to
perfect the use
of liquid hydrogen. This costly, high-energy propellant must be
refrigerated
down to hundreds of degrees below zero, a temperature that can
freeze,
shatter or otherwise play havoc with fast-moving parts.
The RD-180 uses kerosene in a clever process known as staged
combustion. The
burning of fuel starts in a preburner that powers the engine's
pumps. The
blistering hot residue then speeds into the main combustion
chamber, jacking
up heat and performance. (American scientists adopted similar
technology in
the space shuttle program, but not in rocketry.)
A penny-pinching wonder, the RD-180 has sent American rockets
into space
three times: in smaller, less-sophisticated launches in May 2000
and Feb.
2002, and most recently on Aug. 21 with the massive Atlas 5.
THOUGH a cargo carrier now, the Atlas began life in 1959 as an
ICBM. So a
rocket once meant to drop thermonuclear warheads on Russia has
been made
more powerful by the same people it was meant to annihilate.
"Funny world,
ain't it?" notes the Atlas ICBM Historical Society on its
Web site.
The Atlas 5 flight was a commercial launch, which Lockheed Martin
is
encouraged to do under its Air Force contract. (The government
paid $500
million of the rocket's development costs, while Lockheed Martin
put in $1
billion.) The newly lofted satellite belongs to Eutelsat, a large
European
satellite operator, and is to broadcast radio and television
signals across
Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
The Atlas 5 is scheduled to begin lofting military payloads in
2005. But
sooner than that, the Russian engines may get an added bit of
government
business. The Air Force is developing two separate families of
military
rockets: the Atlas 5 and the Boeing Delta 4, which uses American
technology.
The latter program has been delayed, however, and now, with the
Atlas 5
soaring high, Air Force officials are considering shifting a
Delta payload
to the new Atlas.
The peace dividend will grow, Lockheed Martin officials say, as
new,
beefed-up versions of the Atlas 5 are unveiled in the future. The
largest
will be able to loft into orbit payloads up to 28.5 tons - nearly
5 tons
more than the nation's current leader, the Titan 4.
Call it the engine that came in from the cold. "This,"
said Ms. Underwood of
Lockheed Martin, "is a very big deal."
Copyright 2002, The New York Times
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