Walter Watts
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Just when I thought I was out-they pull me back in
  
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virus: Exsqueeze me (msg body fixed)
« on: 2004-03-17 15:07:38 » |
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From this months Scientific American letters to the editor:
SOLAR SOLUTIONS
“The Asteroid Tugboat,” by Russell L.
Schweickart, Edward T. Lu, Piet Hut and
Clark R. Chapman, discussed using larg-
er launch vehicles and possibly nuclear
push mechanisms to deflect threatening
asteroids into unthreatening orbits. These
ideas unnerved my sense of simplicity. Af-
ter reading Philip Yam’s story about so-
lar sails [“Light Sails to Orbit,” News
Scan], I wonder if painting the asteroid sil-
ver would turn the whole spinning nugget
into a “solar sail” opposed to the sun and
if this method would alter the orbit.
Would the solar wind be enough to push
such a painted asteroid away?
David T. Hanawalt
via e-mail
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Exsqueeze me, but some of the near-earth passing asteroids are the size
of Manhattan.
It might be a tad difficult to get that much silver paint into the
shuttle's cargo bay.
Walter
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Walter Watts
Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.
"Pursue the small utopias... nature, music, friendship, love"
--Kupferberg--
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