js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) (12/20/84)
So many people have already posted articles pointing out glaring mistakes and inconsistancies that I hesitate to add to the list. But what the heck. Let's see. Someone mentioned the burning shield during the 'air braking' maneuver. Did you notice that the shield seemed to be four gas-filled bags? Did you wonder how they stood all of that pressure, ablation, heat, etc. without being destroyed during the first 2 seconds of atmospheric entry? When they were told to leave, did you wonder why nobody asked how far away they had to be in 2 days? It seems as though minimal fuel expenditure would have gotten them much further away in two days than ALL of the fuel in one ship did in ten minutes. Did you notice that HAL's speech synthesizer seemed to require almost his full memory? Current technology would allow speech synthesis systems which would work much easier. And the piggyback ride with the two ships! The center of mass was obviously out of the line of thrust. How could it thrust in a straight line? And if the new sun REALLY looked that bright from Earth, I'm sure the inhabitants of all coastal cities wouldn't be very pleased with the long term effects of the 'gift'. And the guys who were smart enough to make the monoliths and everything were stupid enough to think that the addition of a sun to our system would ensure that 'it would never again be dark on Earth'. Wrong! During one part of the year, it would never be dark. But, I did kind of like the idea of turning a gas giant into a sun. I guess this could be done if the monoliths were compressing the gases into neutronium or something, effectively shrinking Jupiter until it's gravitational field was strong enough to compress and heat and ignite the atmosphere. You'd have to be able to generate awfully strong force fields to do the trick, though. All in all, though, it was entertaining enough to be worth my $2.50. Jeff Sonntag ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j