Bennu And The Jets

By The Time You Read This -

The title will probably make sense.  Conrad did make a note in his notebook about just that title, because, being a dinosaur, he writes things longhand with a pen on paper.  I've even got a quill pen knocking about the Sekrit Layr somewhere, together with bottles of black ink, which

     ANYWAY let's get back to Bennu, shall we?  This is not the subject of an Elton John song (lyrics by Bernie Taupin) - and I'll have you know that those doyens of heavy metal, Blue Öyster Cult, had a live version of a song that directly mentioned Elton (and Jeff Beck), behaving badly in their dotage.  Art!

     Okay, now for a cold, hard dose of reality.  'Bennu' is the name given to an asteroid, by a small child if you must know, because they won a competition to name it.  It could be worse.  At least it's not "Asteroidy McAsteroidface".  Art!

     As you can see from this, Bennu is a pretty hefty chunk of rock.  Welllll, it may actually be a loose collection of rocks, rather than a single solid object, because there's a lower mass limit where an asteroid will not become a single homogenous lump, and Bennu is well under that limit.

     This space rock is 

     NO!  Not that kind of 'Space rock' - hang on, let me just chastise Art with this patent 'Atomicattle-prod'

     This space rock is a Near Earth Object, meaning that it swings close to Planet Earth once every six years.  This means, naturally, that the gutter press and the International Stupid Corps are up in arms about how it's going to collide with Earth and we're all going to die, the oceans will boil, the atmosphere escape into space, and cats and dogs will live together.  That kind of apocalyptic stuff.  

     Reality is a lot less exciting.  There is a possibility of an impact, yes.  Not for another two hundred years, a minor but important plot point, and the chance is one in 2,700.  Art!

     Without bothering to check, Conrad assumes the ISC will reference the film above, which <severe wincing ensues> is a gigantic NO!  In fact -

NO!

     In "Armageddon" the impactor is said to be 'As big as Texas'.  There are a very small number of very large asteroids, which have been known about since the nineteenth century and whose paths and orbits are common knowledge.  The idea that an undiscovered asteroid of such immensity could suddenly appear, with mere weeks notice, is beyond ludicrous.  We would have years, if not decades, of lead time to come up with a solution.

     IF Bennu were to be a problem, there are at least half a dozen ways it could be induced to move off an intersecting orbit.  One of these has already been tried; slamming a space probe into an asteroid to affect it.  The idea was to study what ejecta came out of said asteroid, but it's trajectory was also altered.  Art!

     The 'Double Asteroid Redirection Test' or DART proved eminently successful.  If we hit Bennu with a massive space probe early enough, it would be nudged off-course only by a tiny fraction, which would accumulate over the decades into a complete miss.  Or there is the NEAR, or 'Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous', which proved that we can place a probe on the surface of an asteroid.  As Conrad has pontificated previously, if we do this with a probe that is built around a gigaton-yield nuclear warhead, Bennu is going to shift course.  

     ANYWAY  allow me to gesture aggressively toward Art with a fishfork -

    What you're looking at here is a sample capsule from the Osiris-Rex asteroid mission, which scooped up a sample of Bennu's surface in 2020.  It got returned to Earth today, much to the jubilation of NASA, who can now study the asteroid in flagrante delicto, as you might say.  Not only them: they plan to keep 75% of their 9 ounce sample secured for future research.  Art!

     Impressive, nicht wahr?  If I may interject a past quote from one Mister G. Roddenberry, "Did aliens build the Pyramids?  No.  Human beings did, because they're clever and they work hard."

You What?

As you should surely know by now, Conrad is gradually working his way through a quarterly-published Codeword magazine.  It has, for the most part, been very scrupulous about sticking to the unspoken rules of Codeword.

     Until now.  

     First they had SMEWS as a solution.  Conrad had to go look up this breed of bird on the internet, as it was news to him.  Art!

     This, Gentle Reader, is a 'CITTERN'.  An obsolete musical metal-stringed instrument of centuries past, which I thought might have been CISTERN mis-spelled.  But no.

     WHAT, ARE WE ALL OF A SUDDEN MEDIEVAL MUSICOLOGISTS NOW?

They Keep Proving Me Right

You should be getting tired by now of Conrad's endless references to South Canada and how they really miss being subjects of the Crown.  Honestly, their lives would be so much better if they'd just come out and admit that Queenie and now Kingie are models of good behaviour that put their own boorish politicians to shame.  Art!

Courtesy "The Daily Beast"

     Read them and cry, in a restrained and appropriately British manner thank you very much.  Or, you could move north from South Canada into British America, where they still revere the reigning monarch.  Yes, even the Frenchies.

 

     Right, off to stir the Sunday Stew and add in some rice vermicelli.  Back soon!

"City In The Sky"

I hope you're paying attention here, this info-dump stuff is crucial to the plot.  Crucial I tell you!  And yes, I should know, I wrote the Dog Buns! thing.

     ‘Please don’t suggest strange ideas like an anachronistic Australian death-ray, sat in the desert for forty years with an inexhaustible power source, unlimited spare parts, a dedicated radar system, generations of operators in a hermit community, all living for the moment they can shoot down your Dart.’  His mocking hand gestures underlined how silly he found the desperate ideas put forward.

     Ace stood up, causing the scavenger microphone to be pointed at her.

     ‘Hi there, Prof!  I went over the last glider with Alex and inspected it for any flammable or explosive materials, and there ain’t none.  Dart Two didn’t go bang because of anything that went wrong with it.’

     ‘Thank you, Ace,’ came the grave reply.

     ‘According to you, Doctor Smith, we’d better start looking for a different landing site, or do you expect us to slowly expire Upstairs?’ asked a man sitting with arms folded, giving off an air of dislike.

     ‘I have a better solution!’ beamed the Timelord, refusing to look even slightly offended.  ‘I will take the TARDIS Downstairs and scout around for these supposed aliens, get rid of them and solve your problem.’

     He tried for a light and airy voice, well aware that his hypothesis, if true, meant the beginning of an extremely dangerous time for anyone venturing from orbit to the Earth’s surface.

     It can't be that easy, this fan-fic is a whole lot longer.

     I've been down to stir the stew, probably 5 minutes later than I should have been as it had started to stick.  Thank you for staying the course of Conrad's Cookery.

Apropos Of Nothing

Conrad has, over this weekend, been playing various John Carpenter soundtracks, which, given that the chap is a talented musician in his own right, means playing JC's chosen soundtrack as composed by JC and also played by JC.  Art!

Escape From New York Theme - YouTube

     There you go.

Finally -

Better get the schedule for next week sorted out.  Conrad anticipates being on 09:00 - 17:00, which is his lesser favoured time-span.  However - a word you might have anticipated but not seen today so far, har-har! - whichever time he ends at, he will be at home 00:00:01 seconds later.