Order of Kilopi
I'm surprised no one has posted about this yet! This week's episode of The West Wing deals with a big asteroid which apparently is headed toward Earth. They have dealt with astronomy pretty well on the show in the past (including standing eggs on end) so we'll have to see how they handle this.
Established Member
I'll have to catch that. Sounds interesting,
Established Member
Wow, I never really watch that show (we don't get cable up here at school), but I'm going home tomorrow, so maybe I'll try and catch it (the show, not the asteroid :wink!
Order of Kilopi
Man, always this US-centrism...Meanwhile, an asteroid is headed for the U.S.,[...]
Order of Kilopi
Since when is NBC cable? Or do you not get the regular broadcast channels either?Originally Posted by Normandy6644
Wow, I never really watch that show (we don't get cable up here at school), but I'm going home tomorrow, so maybe I'll try and catch it (the show, not the asteroid :wink
Established Member
If they want the great big ball of rock to hit them I'am not goign to argue it should be us! 8-[Man, always this US-centrism...Meanwhile, an asteroid is headed for the U.S.,[...]
Order of Kilopi
Hollywood sci-fi rule: Any asteroid or UFO always lands in the United States.
Vulcan Administrator
Anyone want to bet that Nancy will use this as evidence that TPTB are on the verge of disclosing the truth about Planet X?
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.
Established Member
What did you quote there? The program site?Man, always this US-centrism...Meanwhile, an asteroid is headed for the U.S.,[...]
PS: Oops, I found it at the link that the BA provided in the OP.
Order of Kilopi
I'm betting it will be a play on this story:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...GHQ57IA816.DTL
where initial calculations showed a possible hit. We'll see how well they do it though. If that's it, hopefully they would have better data with a much smaller error margin, making it reasonable to escalate the issue.
Established Member
The Chinese are upset about US recognition of Taiwan, the President's MS has incapacitated him and there is an asteroid on it's way to New York City(Ok so they don't say NYC but it is always NYC ) Find out how Jeb pulls this one off on Wed.
Moderator
Probably waiting to see how well they deal with it.
Yeah, but they also propogated the "space pen" urban legend.They have dealt with astronomy pretty well on the show in the past (including standing eggs on end) so we'll have to see how they handle this.
Of course, they gave the SCSC a solid mention.
We'll see how they handle this.
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Order of Kilopi
ToSeek has been ToSeeked. By GLP, no less!
Order of Kilopi
Now that's scary.
Order of Kilopi
Ow, Ow, Ow! And they say the brain can't feel pain. I think I understand how a computer in Star Trek feels when faced with a logical contradiction ... Honestly, I can't even think that way. ToSeek, you have my admiration, even if they did beat you to the punch.
Order of Kilopi
Hollywood sci-fi rule: Any asteroid or UFO always lands in the United States.
Scratch: Deep Impact had an Atlantic Ocean water impact and the big one was heading for Western Canada. :P
Added: Maybe its just me, but my shark-jump-o-meter started twitching when I read this.
Established Member
All of the imports rushing into the country causes everything near it ,including asteroids, to get sucked in as well.Man, always this US-centrism...Meanwhile, an asteroid is headed for the U.S.,[...]
Order of Kilopi
Do you mean, the real trouble for the White House begins when the NASA reconnaisance probe discovers the "Made in China" sticker on the rock? :-)All of the imports rushing into the country causes everything near it ,including asteroids, to get sucked in as well.Man, always this US-centrism...Meanwhile, an asteroid is headed for the U.S.,[...]
Order of Kilopi
It's the return of the "C-Rock"!
Established Member
A few details of the portrayal -- sorry I didn't take notes
- The asteroid was described as being ~ 400 meters diameter.
- The asteroid was approaching from inside the Earth's orbit, supposedly limiting the ability to observe it (due to sun interference)
This struck me as pretty bad, since unless the asteroid was shot out from the sun (using an insulated solar cannon), there should be several hours to observe it after sunset.
- Only "Japan" and "Maui" could observe, and they were worried about getting data from Maui because of cloudcover.
There should be a lot of other observatories capable of seeing this, I would think. (I don't know how to calculate what size would be needed to see a 400 meter asteroid which is 1 day from Earth --- I suspect not too large). And even if you needed a big scope, the big ones aren't on Maui. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the biggest scopes are on the Big Island)
- From first notice, the asteroid passed the Earth after only one day.
This seems quick to me, but I'm not sure
- They gave a speed for the asteroid, but I didn't take note of it. I'd be curious if the speed given was at all consistent with it's orbital track.
- They stated that after the asteroid missed Earth, "it was on it's way to the Sun"
bah -- If it was inside earth's orbit and then crossed earth's orbit, it is headed away from the sun. If it was on a sun-grazing trajectory (ala comets), then it would have previously been in the night sky, so the aforementioned observing issues would not have been a problem.
Honored Member
For what it's worth, I suspect the writers were playing a game with the counterplot, something done before on the series.
In a way, the punch line was "We don't have TIME for this now, there's a summit going on!"
There were a couple of pauses, as when the President sketches out the possibilities of land vs. water stirkes, but for the most part the very idea was pushed away by the characters who were doing something 'more important' (or perhaps it was ignored because it was an event totally beyond any control, so why worry?).
An interesting trick was that the 'miss' was reported after the fact. I think this was not an accidental throwaway, but a central point.
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