Re: Rendezvous with Rama

On Fri, 16 Mar 2007 08:59:56 +0000, Maurice W wrote:
Chaps

A C Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama had a large extraterrestrial vessel
paying a visit to our solar system, with it being spotted somewhere
out near Jupiter.

I've got two questions

1 -with current and near future technology, would we be certain to
spot something like this coming into our solar system early on, or
could it well get much closer to us without being spotted?

No we would not be certain. There is a project called NEAT
(near earth asteroid tracking) which looks for asteroids and
comets that may pose a threat i.e. hit, earth. I'm sure someone
will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think they search all
the sky - just those parts that are visible from america.
Of course anyone trying to sneak up would need prior knowledge of
the planet's blind spot(s).

2 - how close could such a vessel get to Earth, without being spotted
if it tried to hide ie if it came in keeping the sun between itself
and us, and then 'hid' behind, say, Mars or Venus and they moved
closer to Earth on their orbit

It's many years (20+) since I read RvWR, but I recall that the
craft were long and thin. Given that, the cross section they present
to either a radar probe or reflected sunlight are proportionately
small, compared with their actual size.
The yanks' current stealth technology is probably good enough
to hide a small satellite in L.E.O.
If the craft came in fast and from above/below the plane of the
ecliptic (i.e. where no-one's looking) then I would expect it could
get pretty close, say to within the moon's orbit.
Maybe they're here already :-)

Not that I'm expecting this to happen, but more a question of
scientific robustness of Science Fiction

M


--
...........................................................................
.. never trust a man who, when left alone ...... Pete Lynch .
.. in a room with a tea cosy ...... Marlow, England .
.. doesn't try it on (Billy Connolly) .....................................

.

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