1
[H[JTHE FOLLOWING FILE IS AN APRIL FOOL'S DAY SPOOF BASED ON THE
PUBLIC RADIO SERIES "STAR DATE", PRODUCED AT THE MCDONALD OBSERVATORY
IN TEXAS.   THE NAME OF THE AUTHOR APPEARS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE FILE. 
THIS IS NOT COPYRIGHTED, BUT IT IS SIMPLE COURTESY TO INCLUDE AUTHOR
INFO IF YOU DISTRIBUTE THIS.

WHILE THIS IS A SATIRE, THERE IS A GOOD BIT OF IMAGINATIVE THINKING IN
HERE, AND MIGHT MAKE A GOOD HANDOUT FOR A CLASS ON PLANETS.

I DOWNLOADED THIS FROM USENET -- NETWORK OF COMPUTERS AT RESEARCH 
INSTITUTIONS AROUND THE WORLD.

Carolyn Collins Petersen

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Stardate: March 32, 2187

The Martian Festival is held each vernal equinox.  More about the events
on Deimos -- after this.

March 32, 2187  The Great Escape

What good is a moon that's 15 km long - on it's longest axis?  About
the only use found so far is athletics.  For several Earth decades
now, Martian immigrants have been finding fascinating ways to take
advantage of Deimos' low gravity.  On each Martian vernal equinox, the
whole solar system turns it attention to the Great Escape.

This year's Escape has several events:

* The Classic

The original jump-off-the-moon event.  Deimos' escape velocity is too
high for all but a few athletes to jump off without a running start. 
The winner is the person to attain the highest terminal velocity.


* The Precision Jump

Several targets have been set up on Deimos for this event.  Entrants
choose two points and jump from one to the other.  Deimos's odd shape
has made this one of the favorite events.  Points are awarded on
accuracy and landing style, and are multiplied by a difficulty factor
for their jump.  Three jumps are made with the sum being the final
score.


* The Long Jump

Here the goal is to jump the highest - and return.  The winner is the
person who stays off Deimos the longest time.  Entrants who reach
terminal velocity are disqualified.


* The Low Jump

You can't jump directly into orbit because your trajectory will bring
you back to your starting point on the surface.  In this event,
entrants take a running start and jump into a shallow climb. 
Somewhere along the trajectory they throw a pair of hand-held weights
to gain a little more speed and inject themselves into a low orbit. 
The winner is the entrant whose orbit has the shortest period. 
Entrants are disqualified if they touch Deimos after their jump or if
they throw their orbit injection weights into orbit (hard to do, but
you really don't want to free fall into one!)  Since the winning
orbits are around Deimos' longest axis, officials require everyone to
jump in the same direction.


* The Relay

This is the only team event.  The object is to move a "baton" around
Deimos faster than orbital dynamics of free fall would allow. 
Contestants put themselves into highly elliptical orbits in the same
plane, but shifted by a large angle.  They're timed so that a
contestant heading out meets a teammate heading in.  The baton has a
guidance computer that controls a small thruster.  The outbound
contestants throw the baton to the next person and the baton rendevous
with him.  Therefore, the baton passes between people moving at speeds
well above the circular orbit velocity.  Each year race officials
further limit the amount of propellant, thereby increasing the
importance of accurate orbits and good passes.  Despite the annual
outcry from contestants, new a record is set each Escape.

---------

The officials in charge of the Great Escape report that they have
selected a new company to provide rescue beacons to the participants. 
Along with several more recovery vehicles, they are confident that
last year's debacle will not be repeated.

Script by Ric Werme, content by Werme and Dave Spain.  (c) Copyright
2187 McAuliffe Observatory, Olympus Mons, Mars

Addendum - Vital statistics of Deimos
Dimensions: 10 x 12 x 15 km
Density: 5.521 g/cm^3 (Most recent measurement)
  [Deimos' odd shape helps make the Great Escape the favorite part of
   the Martian Festival.  However, it plays havoc with computing the
   gravitational field.  Therefore, the following calculations have been
   done for a sphere 12 km in diameter.]
Escape velocity: 10.5 m/sec
Low altitude orbital velocity: 10.5/sqrt(2) m/sec
Period of above orbit: Easy, do-it-yourself calculation

:-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)

 A Pretty Realistic             Ric Werme
 & Informative Look             uucp: decvax!linus!alliant
 Focused On Olympic Leaps       

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