I MISS ISAAC ASIMOV.

11/30/2016UncategorizedNassicornsis30

Here is a short synopsis of a, as yet to be written, science fiction story.

It was a dark and stormy night when suddenly the moon exploded and everyone died. The End.

I don’t think I’ll write the story because there would be no purpose in it. The world is tense enough without being offered a hopelessly useless scenario in which the human race is wiped out.

Neal Stephenson’s 2015 sci-fi novel “Seveneves” is a story about what would happen if the moon suddenly exploded. I just saw a short video from Business Insider and Tech Insider exploring that possibility. Perhaps some rogue planet slams into the moon, causing it to explode into small pieces which collide with each other until the whole mess rains down upon the earth. This causes great fires worldwide and perhaps even evaporates the oceans. The event renders the planet uninhabitable for thousands of years. The only way to survive would be for humanity to escape the earth, only to be able to return some millennia later.

Producers, Kevin Reilly and Kevin Loria, with the help of Erik Asphaug (Arizona State University) and Daniel Freeman (University of California, Berkely) treat us to this video while neglecting to mention some important, albeit useless, points.

First, the earth has a far greater gravitational force than the moon and would be a much more likely target for a rogue planet than the moon would be. They also fail to mention how the loss of the moon would drastically change things. There would be no tides. God knows what would happen to seasons of the year. Earth’s rotation and orbit around the sun would be changed in unknown ways. Its position in the solar system would be threatened. Then, there is the problem of any real number of people successfully rocketing off into space for thousands of years, just to return to “WHAT”? Likely a dead planet hiding somewhere other than expected.

We are constantly offered hypothetical doomsday stories for entertainment and to give us some things to think about. I have no problem with the Hollywood movies of this ilk because, in them, some people do survive. Neither do I have a problem with books like “Seveneve”. Asimov is my personal favorite sci-fi author. My problem lies with the scientific community (including NASA) lending its “physics” expertise, (in the alternate definition of “enema”), to the non-fiction certainties in stories I see about killer asteroids, killer comets, killer meteors, Yellowstone’s super volcano or other calamities, any one of which would be able destroy the world. The earth is actually doomed. That is a fact. Why do we need a high colonic reminder of these things? Isn’t life stressful enough? Sure, within the theoretical and applied worlds of physics and astronomy there may be some merits in examining these issues. They could be relevant in the same way the space program brought us the delightful breakfast drink, “Tang”. But does anyone really believe we could build enough interstellar vehicles to evacuate humanity from the earth to escape the inevitable? Perhaps the intrepid pioneers, clad in top hats and swim flippers could be launched, either singly or in small groups, into the cosmos with the aid of a really, really big slingshot.

Let’s focus on things we can possibly influence. Right now we have increasingly urgent problems of all types. Pandemics for which to prepare. The effects of global warming. Countless species and common sense becoming extinct. ISIS. Nancy Pelosi running free. We really do have our hands full.

Of course, none of these things will matter in the long run, but while we’re here, why not make life as enjoyable as possible and stay away from worrying about the moon blowing up.