Word: orbital
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...probably in the year 2126, it will fall to earth. The odds are small -- 10,000 to 1 against -- according to the International Astronomical Union's Brian Marsden. But the downside is so great that Marsden has urged his colleagues to keep careful track of Swift-Tuttle so its orbit can be more precisely calculated. If it really is on a collision course, the only answer may be to blast it from afar with nuclear warheads...
...solar-cell farm covering roughly one-quarter the area of New Mexico could supply enough electrically produced hydrogen to replace all the fossil fuels consumed in the U.S. If the necessary real estate can't be found on the planet's surface, the solar collectors could be parked in orbit, beaming energy to earth via high-power microwaves...
...towers of flame and smoke as primitive, brutal and notoriously unreliable. Before the next millennium is very far along, humans will get their lift from space planes that take off and land like conventional jets but are powered by "scramjets" that, once aloft, will enable them to swoop into orbit or go halfway around the world in two hours. Cargo will be shot into orbit by electromagnetic rail guns that ramp up the sides of mountains, or will be flung upward by looping orbital tethers, sort of like David's slingshot...
...days from Earth, and we have a slight problem. This one, I hasten to add, will not affect our new attempt to deflect Kali into a safe orbit. I note that the news media are calling this deflection Operation Deliverance. We like the name, and hope to live up to it, but we still cannot be absolutely certain of success. David, who appreciates all the goodwill messages he has received, estimates that the probability of Kali impacting Earth is still...
...last week a Japanese comet hunter spotted a faint blob through powerful binoculars, and a check of its orbit confirmed that Swift-Tuttle had come back at last (it may be barely visible to the naked eye in November). Why so late? A comet's orbit is determined only by careful plotting of its position when it's visible; evidently the 1862 measurements were off. To his credit, Brian Marsden, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, had argued in a 1973 paper that Swift-Tuttle might be late. Few astronomers paid attention -- but Marsden's prediction was only...