Your Job is to Salivate and Beat the Drums » « Monday Meslier: 144 – Origin of The Most Absurd, The Most Ridiculous, and The Most Odious Usurpation, Called The Divine Right of Kings.

Good to Know They are On The Job

By now, you ought to have heard about A/2017 U1 – a large rock that whipped through our solar system at an odd angle off the plane of the ecliptic, moving so fast that it almost certainly could not have come from within our solar system. [rt]

That’s all well and good, and seriously freakin’ cool. Is it possible that there could be something even freakin’ cooler?

Oumuamua they named it.

I know that’s just an artist’s rendering but basically, I see that as a gigantic lawn-dart made of wrought iron, moving 25.5km/sec.

Here’s what’s cooler: NASA has a Planetary Defense Coordination Office. [pdc]

Surely, you’re thinking as I am, that the PDC has a vast fortress hidden under a hollowed-out island armored with layers of plascrete. Sadly, no, it does not. Perhaps they have cool uniforms – you know, nehru jackets and unitards worn over corsets for the men, and skintight rompers made of oven-scrubber with purple wigs for the women. Sadly, no. Perhaps they have patches with some kind of cool unit logo… Sadly, no.

At least someone needs to be making a comic book about them. Seriously, I am so sick of silly comic books about super-powered idiots in spandex, who punch each other – especially now that I know that we have an actual Planetary Defense Coordination Office that is standing by, ready to worry about planet-killers inbound. They are even thinking of what sorts of things we can do that would work better than sending Bruce Willis and a load of nukes up to try to deal with a 400m rock moving at a ridiculous speed.

What is planetary defense?
Planetary defense is the term used to encompass all the capabilities needed to detect the possibility and warn of potential asteroid or comet impacts with Earth, and then either prevent them or mitigate their possible effects.  Planetary defense involves:

  • Finding and tracking near-Earth objects that pose of hazard of impacting Earth;
  • Characterizing those objects to determine their orbit trajectory, size, shape, mass, composition, rotational dynamics and other parameters, so that experts can determine the severity of the potential impact event, warn of its timing and potential effects, and determine the means to mitigate the impact; and
  • Planning and implementation of measures to deflect or disrupt an object on an impact course with Earth, or to mitigate the effects of an impact that cannot be prevented. Mitigation measures that can be taken on Earth to protect lives and property include evacuation of the impact area and movement of critical infrastructure.

Why don’t these unsung heroes have a fan club, a skull-island fortress, snappy uniforms, and a comic book? There has to be some science fiction writer who can write up a few of their adventures, before they have them. Because, if we have an adventure with an asteroid that is too exciting it’d be better to read about it before, since there won’t be any readers after.

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human base, ready to defend

The Gollop brothers produced one of gaming’s great turn-based strategy games, X-COM, UFO Defense which was at least somewhat influenced by the TV series. It was a research/resource management game, which embedded a turn-based combat tactical module, in which you had to plot the movements and firing arcs of your troops, as they attempted to capture downed alien spacecraft, or defend human bases or towns against attack from UFO marauders. I played the whole game through several times, on hard mode, and had to cheat wildly (restoring my save file every time one of my expedition teams got wiped by the aliens) Good times, happy memories of last-ditch battles and crazy assaults. Anyone else play it, or its successor Laser Squad Nemesis? If you played LSN and got stomped by “ThePinkBunnyNinjas” that was me.

Your Job is to Salivate and Beat the Drums » « Monday Meslier: 144 – Origin of The Most Absurd, The Most Ridiculous, and The Most Odious Usurpation, Called The Divine Right of Kings.

Comments

  1. says

    Is that a priest on the UFO cover? If it is, why? I wondered why I saw a bunch of articles on UFOs today. All the Ufonauts must be jumping with the joy of conspiracies.

  2. cartomancer says

    The trick with the original X-COM was to capture a live Ethereal as quickly as possible, so you could get the research bods back at base to poke it until they unlocked psychic abilities for your operatives. Then, with a sufficiently powerful psychic on the team (mine was called Mannfred Winckelmann), you could mind control the enemy to do all your fighting for you.

  4. jrkrideau says

    It is a really weird shape for an asteroid, I heard, so it’s really bugging the astronomers.

    Could be a priest.

  5. says

    Caine@#1 and chigau@#3:
    The character of Commander Straker was played by Ed Bishop. In an attempt to make SHADO (the secret organization that fights UFOs) look all moderny and sci-fi, they came up with some pretty absurd costumes. Costumes that made Space 1999 look positively bland. Straker often wore a taupe-colored leisure jumper, with a corset under it, and various jackets. One of the distinctive features of the series was that every effort was apparently made to make the men look silly and the women look, um, less silly. But not much.

    That’s what I meant about how the women’s outfits were sort of revealing jumpsuits made of pan-scrubber.

    In the future, alien spacecraft will be tracked using osillyscopes.

  6. says

    cartomancer@#2:
    Then, with a sufficiently powerful psychic on the team (mine was called Mannfred Winckelmann), you could mind control the enemy to do all your fighting for you.

    I figured that out on my second play-through. My first play-through, I perfected a sort of Red Army-style “rush in force” that was also pretty effective.

    My characters were all named after co-workers. Some of them, purely out of coincidence, were often the ones sent out ahead of everyone else to draw enemy fire. I don’t know why it happened that way, it just did. (cough)

  7. says

    jrkrideau@#4:
    It is a really weird shape for an asteroid, I heard, so it’s really bugging the astronomers.

    I’m sure everyone has thought Rendezvous with Rama at least a few times.

    Edit:
    Um…Describing Rama:

    Its speed (100,000 km/h) and the angle of its trajectory clearly indicate it is not on a long orbit around the sun, but comes from interstellar space.

    Unlike “Rama” the asteroid is tumbling, and has an 6/8hr rotational period. Rama was about the same size as the asteroid but had a rotational period of 4 minutes – it must have been made of some pretty cool stuff.

  8. John Morales says

    I know that’s just an artist’s rendering but basically, I see that as a gigantic lawn-dart made of wrought iron, moving 25.5km/sec.

    Its composition is as yet undetermined*, but it’s not losing volatiles.
    That speed is relative to the Sun; the Earth itself moves at nearly 30 km/s. It’s its trajectory which is interesting.

    —

    * spectral measurements indicate a (carbon?) crust, light-curve measurements suggest it’s dense and probably metal-rich. cf. https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.05687

  9. says

    I think the Planetary Defense Coordination Office needs some cool Tshirts and logo windbreakers that say “PLANETARY DEFENSE” on the back.

    I mean, the Fuel Rats have better loot, and we’re just a gaming guild. These people are responsible for PLANETARY DEFENSE. It’s a scandal.

  11. komarov says

    Why don’t these unsung heroes have a fan club, a skull-island fortress, snappy uniforms, and a comic book? There has to be some science fiction writer who can write up a few of their adventures, before they have them

    I’m not sure how many strips you can get out of Senior Simulation Engineer Clara Warren in cubicle 13C, as she tries to run out the clock on her grant to simulate asteroid deflection strategies. But if you’re interested, the conclusion on the final report* read as follows: “Unless the asteroid conveniently inserts itself into a high orbit or similar trajectory, there is nothing we can do because we can’t reach it with any significant payload that could dent or deflect it. For asteroid defence purposes alone, we therefore conclude that relocating to a smaller gravity well such as Mars or the Moon would, at this time, present humanity’s best chance.”

    *9 days overdue and 96.59 dollars over budget, earning her a reprimand placed on her permanent record. Perhaps that might be worth an issue all of its own. Call it character development as our hero – dressed in a white shirt and loose tie rather than spandex – struggles with her self-esteem and motivation after being dealt such a heavy blow.

    I played the whole game through several times, on hard mode, and had to cheat wildly (restoring my save file every time one of my expedition teams got wiped by the aliens)

    Well, I probably shouldn’t mention that the early version (which was the one most widely distributed, I think) was buggy* and reset the difficulty to easy the first time a game was reloaded. Still fun, although I used to wonder where my godlike strategic cunning came from and why it didn’t transfer to any other games. Fortunately there are patches these days and dosbox to run it all.

    *If you played Enemy Unknown a lot you may, in fact, have come across quite a few bugs… On the plus side it meant you didn’t always have to cheat. I remember one base defence where my troopers had the choice of only a few weapons and a lot of Elerium to equip themselves. Lumps of Elerium make terrible weapons** but after the mission several thousand units turned up in my reserves so that turned out alright.
    **More precisely, terrible weapons are made from lumps of Elerium, but the lumps themselves are just bad weapons.

  14. says

    Nevermind…

    It is never explained why female Moonbase personnel uniformly wore mauve or purple wigs, silver catsuits, and extensive eye make-up and their unusual apparel is never discussed in the series. Gerry Anderson has commented that it made them look more futuristic and that it filmed better under the bright lights, while Sylvia Anderson said she believed wigs would become accepted components of military uniforms by the 1980s. But whenever female Moonbase personnel visited Earth (as Ellis and Barry did from time to time), their lunar uniforms and wigs were never worn.

    Ed Bishop, who had dark hair in real life, initially bleached his hair for Straker’s unique white-haired look. After the break in production he began wearing a white hair piece. Bishop, until not long before his death, possessed one of the wigs he wore on the show and took great delight in displaying it at science fiction conventions and on TV programmes. In the episode “Mindbender”, Stuart Damon is seen wearing the same white wig, although deliberately ill-fitting, in a dream sequence segment. Bishop also kept a Certina watch that was specially made for his character.

    Other male characters in the series also wore wigs, again because the Andersons felt that they would become fashionable for both sexes by the 1980s. In early episodes, Michael Billington does not wear a wig which can be identified by his receding hairline and long sideburns.

  16. Raucous Indignation says

    Our little scout was moving at 87.71 km/sec at perihelion. Definitely in a hurry to get somewhere.

  18. Pierce R. Butler says

    While visiting a house-bound relative, I was subjected to an episode of UFO.

    The plot had something to do with the ufos attacking some human mining operation on the moon that I feel sure never featured in the storyline but the once. The Earth forces commander earnestly explained to somebody that “that base was established against my overwhelming objections!” – which destroyed my previous baseline respect for British television script values forever.

  19. Dunc says

    I wondered why I saw a bunch of articles on UFOs today.

    Probably more related to this: Head of Pentagon’s secret ‘UFO’ office sought to make evidence public.

    Just before leaving his Defense Department job two months ago, intelligence officer Luis Elizondo quietly arranged to secure the release of three of the most unusual videos in the Pentagon’s secret vaults: raw footage from encounters between fighter jets and “anomalous aerial vehicles” — military jargon for UFOs.

    The videos, all taken from cockpit cameras, show pilots struggling to lock their radars on oval-shaped vessels that, on screen, look vaguely like giant flying Tic Tacs. The strange aircraft — no claims are made about their possible origins or makeup — appear to hover briefly before sprinting away at speeds that elicit gasps and shouts from the pilots.

  20. polishsalami says

    It’s a starship being piloted by Russell Morris.
    (only Australians will get this reference)

  21. says

    Pierce R. Butler@#18:
    While visiting a house-bound relative, I was subjected to an episode of UFO.

    Relatives shouldn’t do that sort of thing to each other. I’m glad you got out mostly intact.

  22. says

    Dunc@#19:
    Probably more related to this: Head of Pentagon’s secret ‘UFO’ office sought to make evidence public.

    Yes, that’s an interesting story.
    I always wonder (briefly) what they saw.

    I saw a UFO once. It was the weirdest looking thing, climbing into the sky at a funny angle. Eventually I realized it was a 707 taking off from Pittsburgh intl, and I was directly behind it. From that angle it looked like a saucer with a blip on the top.

  23. Raucous Indignation says

    For the record, I loved UFO, cheesy costumes, terrible acting and silly special effects and all!