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From: maurice@nmtvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Space burial
Message-ID: <296@nmtvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 24-Feb-85 02:33:22 EST
Article-I.D.: nmtvax.296
Posted: Sun Feb 24 02:33:22 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 28-Feb-85 01:20:51 EST
References: <>
Reply-To: maurice@nmtvax.UUCP (R. Maurice Levasseur)
Organization: New Mexico Tech, Socorro
Lines: 18
Summary: 

>Has SSI considered the possibility that they could be starting  our
>first inter-stellar war?  I, for one, would consider it a very hos-
>tile act if someone were to fire little  ash-filled  titanium  cap-
>sules  at  me.   Such bullets propelled by light-sails, as at least
>one netter proposed, could  reach  their  victims  at  .999c  given
>enough  time.  Even if launched only with enough velocity to escape
>the solar system, those little bullets would pack  quite  a  wallop
>when  impacting  a  target  at  some  great differential speed.  An
>angry, intelligent civilization so threatened could  easily  calcu-
>late the trajectories and figure out where they came from.
>ZAP! we're history!

   By the time it wastes someone/something and they send something back,
provided that they can send something back we WILL be history.
   In thinking though, could that great siberian explosion (1908?)
be someone elses ash-filled titanium capsule hitting us first?

   roger