Word: orbit
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According to advocates of an SDI speedup, it might be possible in the mid- 1990s to orbit a space-based system of hundreds of satellites, called "garages," each capable of launching a dozen or so smart rocks that could strike Soviet missiles as they are launched. The system would also include ground-based smart rocks capable of striking warheads as they re-enter the atmosphere. Gerold Yonas, until recently the chief SDI scientist, says "even a modest deployment of this sort would run over $100 billion." By contrast, a full-fledged Star Wars system involving lasers and other futuristic technology...
...proposed system of smart rocks is a far cry from the original, exotic technologies. One plan was to use laser weapons in space, but the generators have proved too heavy to put into orbit. Researchers are now considering a more complicated plan to use ground-based lasers and bounce the beams off mirrors in space. Attempts to develop neutral particle beams or electromagnetic "rail guns" have likewise proved difficult...
Even the smart-rock technology faces daunting obstacles. According to the most optimistic projections, such a system would require putting more than 6 million lbs. into orbit, the equivalent of 125 space-shuttle loads. Nor have scientists come up with a workable way to discriminate between thousands of incoming warheads and ten times as many decoys. Perhaps the major unresolved issue is survivability. "Satellites in orbit are sitting ducks," says one expert, "far easier to hit than ICBMs in ballistic trajectories...
Meteorologists attributed the abnormally high tides to an unusual cosmic dance. The combination of factors included syzygy (pronounced syz-uhjee), a twice-monthly condition in which the earth, sun and moon are most closely in alignment; perigee, when the moon is closest to the earth in its monthly orbit; perihelion, when the earth is at its shortest distance from the sun; and the tidal bulge caused by the moon when it reaches the southernmost point in its orbit...
...close together, and the fireworks begin. The monumental gravity of the neutron star raises such high tides on its companion that gases are torn wholesale from the white dwarf's surface and pulled into orbit around the neutron star, forming a so-called accretion disk. Some of that material continuously spirals down to smash into the surface of the neutron star -- at a rate of a trillion tons a second -- striking so violently that it literally explodes. Says Co-Discoverer William Priedhorsky of Los Alamos National Laboratory: "A neutron star can convert about 10% of the mass that falls...