🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1996Jun5.135313@fnalv.fnal.gov>, higgins@fnalv.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
> Have you seen the new June issue of *Physics Today*?  Take a peek at
> Irwin Goodwin's news piece on Chinese nuclear testing on pages 46 and
> 47.  He says that in test-ban negotiations, the Chinese are holding
> out for peaceful nuclear explosions.
> 
> Goodwin has gotten unnamed Chinese diplomats in Washington to explain
> that (among other peaceful uses) they are interested in nuclear
> weapons for asteroid deflection!  First time I've heard of this notion
> entering real-world disarmament discussions.

Bob Park's "What's New" big-science bulletin for 7 June reports that
the Chinese have dropped their insistence on peaceful nuclear
explosions for this treaty.  So I guess this episode is over. 

Still, it was interesting to see the cosmic impact issue pop up,
however briefly and however peripherally, on the radar screens of
policymaking.

"Do you know the asteroids, Mr.Kemp?...    Bill Higgins
Hundreds of thousands of them.  All        
wandering around the Sun in strange        Fermilab
orbits.  Some never named, never
charted.  The orphans of the Solar         higgins@fnal.fnal.gov
System, Mr. Kemp."
                                           higgins@fnal.bitnet
"And you want to become a father."
  --*Moon Zero Two*                        SPAN/Hepnet: 43009::HIGGINS