Killjoys at NASA cancel Doomsday

[james_davis_nicoll]

"Using updated information, NASA scientists have recalculated the path of a large asteroid. The refined path indicates a significantly reduced likelihood of a hazardous encounter with Earth in 2036."

Fools! Have they never read those books where by creating some false crisis, the steely-eyed rocket men get the money to properly develop manned (and girled) spaceflight for the betterment of Man?

Comments

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

"Girled spaceflight" made me LOL at work.

[thesaucernews.livejournal.com]

...but they named it Apophis! Apophis! It would have been perfect! Now we're just gonna get hit by an asteroid without such an apocalyptically cool name, or just a serial number.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

You know, it wouldn't be that hard to shift the closest approach 30,000 km closer to the center of the Earth, if we start now.

[thesaucernews.livejournal.com]

If the extinction of my species comes about due to the impact of Asteroid Petunia or something, it's just going to be embarrassing on top of everything else.

[http://users.livejournal.com/krin_o_o_/]

Yeah, that's gonna suck at the pearly gates:

"Next," calls out St. Peter.
"And your party would be?" he asks of a waterlogged soul.
"Victims of Hurricane Cassandra" replies the first in the huddled mass.
"Cassandra? That's 2031, the super storm right?"
"Yeah. That's us."
"How many in your party?"
"Fifty thousand and thirty-five souls, sir."
"Right, head on in and take the first left."
St Peter calls out "Next!" and looks down at a blasted charred mass.
"Hmm, and you would be?"
"Remains of the eastern hemisphere, we think..."
St Peter scatches his beard, "oh? Well, how did that happen?"
"Asteroid 2056p345, sir"
"What? 205... What was it's name again?"
"Didn't think it had one, sir"
"Right, how many in your party?
"About 6 billion..."
"Let me get this right, you expect me to believe that 6 billion souls died and nobody has a name for what did it?!"
The smoldering soul looks apologetic and says, "Well, I don't think anybody was left to give it a name."
"RIGHT! I've had enough of your cheek, all of you step over there and somebody will be along to deal with this."
St Peter sighs and mutters, "every generation, there's always a group of wise guys... Ever since that whole N1H5B24 thing."
"Next! And you would be?" he cries out.
"Western Hemisphere, sir. 4 billion."
St Peter looks up and sighs again, "Well, at least this looks like th last batch."

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Is it too late to deceive the authorities into setting up a wild-eyed scheme to steer the asteroid into medium-to-high Earth orbit so that we can mine the Hell out of that sucker?

[thesaucernews.livejournal.com]

I had an idea somewhere in the pile in which they essentially tossed the asteroids into Earth, let them hit the ocean or somewhere reasonably inpopulous, and mined them terrestrially because it would be cheaper than building the infrastructure to mine them in space. This scenario presents some minor issues of its own, however.

[derekl1963.livejournal.com]

"This scenario presents some minor issues of its own, however."

Minor ones... Like any asteroid of mineable size being large enough to wipe out all life on earth - regardless of where it lands.

:)

[thesaucernews.livejournal.com]

yeah... plot scenarios were pretty limited with that one.

[http://users.livejournal.com/krin_o_o_/]

I recall something of a story where they diverted the planet killer comet into the moon, giving the moon a short lived (few hundred years worth) atmosphere and water, thus making it colonizable.

But for the life of me I can't remember the source!

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Does this look familiar? (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/m/michael-mccollum/thunderstrike.htm)

[tandw.livejournal.com]

Those are some choice cover blurbs, there.

[wyjoe.livejournal.com]

Can you say mega-tsunami? I knew you could.

[thesaucernews.livejournal.com]

Pish. That'll all blow over eventually.

[thesaucernews.livejournal.com]

In the meanwhile, iridium for everybody (left)!

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't that eliminate the main advantage of asteroid-mined materials, namely that they are already in space, thus reducing the cost of getting them there? Mining asteroids for terrestrial applications seems unlikely to be all that cost-effective unless you are living in the Iron Age and some pieces of one already happen to have fallen conveniently nearby.

[thesaucernews.livejournal.com]

I hadn't considered that as the primary purpose of asteroid mining at the time -- but yeah.

[yorksranter.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

James once said that the business model for asteroid mining was that you diverted a smallish metallic asteroid into a lithobraking orbit, and then you took money in exchange for not doing it again.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Until James Bond busts into your hollow volcano with a bunch of ninjas.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

if "manned," then shouldn't it be "wommanned"?

"girled" would indicated "boyed".

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

In those old stories, men were real men but women were just girls. Smelled nice, though.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Given that I'm currently halfway through copyediting volume 2 of the selected stories of Lester del Rey, I can certainly agree with that statement. Even though I axed the stories which were most blatantly sexist.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Back when Baen was reprinting Laumer and I was getting copies via the SFBC, I believe I may have used the "horrifyingly sexist even for the 1960s" warning. ISTR even Flint warned readers about that aspect of Laumer's work.

[martin-wisse.livejournal.com]

What, no Helen O'Loy?


... Is there anything left? ...

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Helen O'Loy is actually not as blatantly sexist as some of his other work. It made the cut.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

That's scary.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

An example of one that didn't make the cut is "The Last Lunacy," which has only appeared once, in the March 1951 issue of Future.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I'll settle happily for "live-crewed".

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

if "manned," then shouldn't it be "wommanned"?

Not in the stories James is citing, no.

-- Steve can just imagine the pipe our handsome, clean-cut, brilliant hero would take from his lips to correct his plucky girl Friday's misunderstandings.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Blast, I posted too slowly.

-- Steve knew he should've ignored that phone call.

[hattifattener]

Not to be pedantic, but — okay, I admit it, actually to be pedantic, but, even a ship crewed entirely by girls would be “manned” by them. The ”man” in that word is hands, manos, hands of fate style (or “manual”, or “manipulate”, or “all hands on deck”, maybe).

A ship crewed by sentient telekinetic slime-molds would be unmanned, I think.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

A ship crewed by sentient telekinetic slime-molds would be unmanned, I think.

Would that also go for a ship crewed exclusively by eunuchs?

[hattifattener]

Or a ship crewed by people who are so scared they lose their masculine qualities?

[hattifattener]

(Clearly there's some elaborate and not particularly funny pun or shaggy-dog story here about a sentient, crewless ship and its reaction to a terrifying situation.)

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

What is the DeltaV to capture this one?

[http://users.livejournal.com/krin_o_o_/]

Dammit! Somebody call the shop steward... They'll answer to the Space Engineers Union for this!

- krin

[nelc.livejournal.com]

Not for the betterment of Man and Girl?

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

You're totally not joking, are you? That's a real plot, isn't it?

Of course it is.

I'm tempted to write a story about scattered bands of peaceful, sheep-herding orcs who discover that the odd, hairless creatures crouching in that lonely fort down the way have been justifying the ore, engineers, work crews and gold coins to build their new-fangled steam cannons and self-propelled carts by sending reports of marauding orc hordes back to the Imperium.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Similar to the one about the fake alien invasion concocted to unite warring humanity. That was a pretty good Outer Limits episode, actually.

[thesaucernews.livejournal.com]

I'm a sucker for "it turns out the monsters are really us (da dummmmm)" stories, and yeah, that one was wild. Imagine what one could do the black budgets and genetic engineering ten years into the future. But would there be any reason to create a monstrous bogeyman for the world to rally against?

[(Anonymous)]

The idea of an alien menace uniting mankind and forestalling war predates the "one world or no world" fears of the Atomic Age. Note Andre Maurois's "The War Against the Moon", dating from 1928.

Bruce

[(Anonymous)]

The Outer Limits did Watchmen?

tlönista

[matthewwdaly.livejournal.com]

Moore was shocked to find out only after publishing ten issues of the comic, too. He gave a shout-out at the end (Sally is watching "The Architects of Fear" when Dan and Laurie visit her), but he claims that he came up with the idea independently.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

Someone needs to use that plot again.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The initial reports about Apophis (then just identified as 2004 MN4, I think) were somewhat muted for an asteroid-threat story, because they appeared in the aftermath of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. I tried to work out a rough estimate of what Apophis would do in the unlikely event that it actually hit us, and I recall, on the basis of some desultory Googling, deciding that it stood a fair chance of being... about as bad as the tsunami that had, with 100% certainty, just happened. At that point it struck me as a bit unseemly to keep worrying so much about the asteroid.

[martinl-00.livejournal.com]

But ... but ... Apophis might kill *pale* people!

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Consider also that the affected area would probably be predictable to some degree years in advance. The real-estate implications would be interesting. There's a mildly science-fictional Glengarry Glen Ross descendant lurking somewhere in there.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Interesting conflict if it turns out we can't move it enough to miss Earth but we can move it enough to pick where it hits on Earth.

I've been in at least one interesting discussion about targeting considerations. (http://groups.google.ca/group/rec.arts.sf.fandom/msg/4696baf5bfd60466?hl=en)

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

Does this mean I have to keep planning for retirement?

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Yes, and it will completely spoil my 39th (for the Nth time) birthday plans as well. I thought it would be simply marvelous to have my birthday on the last perfect day before the apocalypse. But no, of course it would turn out to be too small and miss us entirely to boot.

[matthewwdaly.livejournal.com]

Ugh, do I know that pain. My name finally made it up to bat in the Atlantic hurricane season in 2004, but it wound up not killing anyone and everyone was still all "blah blah blah Ivan". Sometimes the universe gives you lemons, you know?