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Millennium Meteor Fireworks
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 05:43:20 -0400
To quote Monty Python, "Now for something completely different !" The Millennium Meteor Fireworks Project Version 1.5 10/11/93 D. Caulkins 437 Mundel Way Los Altos, CA 94022-1118 (415)948-5753 (415)948-1474 fax Email: dcaulkins () igc apc org In seven years we will enter the next millennium; wouldn't it be great if we had beautiful international displays celebrating humanity's entry into the year 2000 ? It is possible (and not very expensive) to generate very large and spectacular world-wide high-technology fireworks displays at a cost similar to that often spent on ordinary fireworks displays. This project fits the current international political climate rather well. Both we and the Russians have agreed to destroy lots of ballistic missiles of various types. What better way to verify destruction than putting on beautiful displays for the citizens who paid for the missiles ? Millennium Meteor Fireworks might even be made to pay for themselves; the producers of films, music videos, and rock concerts could be induced to sponsor the project for publicity, or if they were given rights to films and videos of the Millennium Meteor Fireworks. The idea is simple: use slightly modified ballistic missiles to produce firework-type displays in the form of artificial meteor showers. Each Millennium Meteor Fireworks ballistic missile could carry tens to hundreds of thousands of artificial meteors, each one of which would make a meteor trail much brighter than most natural meteors. Ballistic missiles have throw weights (amount of payload they can deliver on target) ranging from hundreds of pounds for smaller missiles up to many thousands of pounds for ICBMs like the Russian SS-18 and the American MX. The expensive parts of the missiles - rocket engines, guidance computers, and control systems - are already paid for. All that is needed is to replace the nuclear bombs with inexpensive artificial meteors. The average 'shooting star' meteor with the same brightness as the brightest stars weighs about 1 gram when it starts to enter the earth's atmosphere. The 'fireworks' artificial meteors should be at least 10 times as bright, so each artificial meteor might have a weight of 10 grams. This means that an ICBM could carry several hundred thousand, enough to make a very spectacular display. Even more spectacular artificial meteors would result from higher weights like 50 or 100 grams. There is a tradeoff here between the number of artificial meteors and the brightness of each one. A range of sizes from small to large may be best. When a Millennium Meteor Fireworks ballistic missile final stage finishes its boost phase and passes beyond the atmosphere into space, small chemical explosions would be used to disperse its payload of artificial meteors into a cloud which could be 1 to 10 miles in diameter on re-entry. This would produce tens to hundreds of thousands of very bright artificial meteors, all appearing in a period of tens of seconds over a place whose location can be selected with an accuracy better than 1/2 mile or so. The size of the cloud would determine the 'density' of the display; it would not be difficult to create a cloud which would fill a major part of the night sky. The videos of Scud missile re-entries during the Gulf War show that even short-range less capable ballistic missiles can produce 'artificial meteor' effects. Artificial meteors could produce colored trails as they re-enter the atmosphere. If made out of the proper elements, many colors could be generated: blue (copper), red (strontium), green (barium), yellow (sodium), etc. If some artificial meteors had layers of different color-generating materials they would change color as they burned up in the atmosphere. Note that the artificial meteors need no special mechanism to produce a spectacular display; any mass entering the atmosphere at a velocity of about 10 kilometers/second has potential energy 15 times greater than that of an equivalent weight of TNT. No chemical reactions are needed; atmospheric friction will provide all necessary energy. The artificial meteors would need to have special shapes to insure that they burn up completely while well above any man-made objects like airplanes. The ideal shape would be one which stayed incandescent for as long as possible, but was guaranteed to be down to a fraction of a gram at a safe altitude of 10 miles or so. A shape with holes or internal cavities would probably have the right performance. It might also be interesting to make artificial meteors with aerodynamically active shapes that would perform various maneuvers as they fell. It is also possible to have explosions. Use larger weight artificial meteors that would descend farther into the atmosphere and sonic booms would be produced. This may not be a good idea; people unaware of the Millennium Meteor Fireworks might be alarmed by the explosions. Safety would be a primary objective. Each Millennium Meteor Fireworks payload would be equipped with a radio beacon so that it could be tracked and destroyed if it strayed off course or failed to function as intended.
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- Millennium Meteor Fireworks David Farber (Oct 12)