e 02484 onnruiOCTOBER 1979 $2.00 FUTURE EVENTS: RENE DUBOS, RICHARD LEAKEY R#Y BRADBURY THOR HEYERDAHL FRANK HERBERT, PETER GLASER, KARL POPPER, DENTON COOLEY, IEYOND COMPUTERS: 3NE-MAN ROCKET: m SEARCH OF YETI: ROBERT A. HEINLEIN JEHN SHEPHERD: onnrui1979 OCTOBER EDITOR & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE EXECUTIVE EDITOR: FRANK KEND1G ART DIRECTOR: FRANK DEVINO EJROPEAX ECr-J-:: IJfl. B-HNARD DIXON FICTION :o tor- BEN BOVA DIRECTOR OF ADVENTS NO 5EVEF- K'-' WARCA_E EXECUHVE VICF-FRFSIIJ-NI IPVvIM- BILLMAN CONTENTS PAGE FIRST WORD Opinion Bob Gucoione 6 OMNIBUS Contributors 10 COMMUNICATIONS Correspondence 12 FORUM Dialogue 18 EARTH Environment Kenneth Brower 20 SPACE Astronomy Mark Chartrand III 24 LIFE Blomedicine Bernard Dixon 26 STARS Comment Patrick Moore 28 OFFICIAL CIRCLES Politics William K. Stuckey 32 THE ARTS Media 34. UFO UPDATE Report James Oberg 44 CONTINUUM Data Bank 51 INTELLIGENT MACHINES Article Thomas Hoover 60 THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST Fiction Robert A. Heinlein 66 A ROCKET FOR THE PEOPLE Article Kathleen Stein 70 ALIEN LANDSCAPES Pictor a Various Authors 76 THE TEST Fiction Stanislaw Lem 86 PHILIP MORRISON Interview Eileen Zalisk 92 DECADES OF DECISION Opinions Various Authors 96 THE LOST CULTURE OF DELI Humor Jean Shepherd 104 UNSEEN YETI Article Lord John Hunt 108 RENT CONTROL Fiction Walter Tevis 114 EXPLORATIONS Travel Susan Mazur 169 COMBAT Phenomena Marty Stouffer 172 GAMES Diversions Scot Morris 176 LAST WORD Opinion Ursula K. LeGuin 178 PHOTO CREDITS 174 - 7=i.:ISS\CM . 7 N,~77 Cccyngh. 1979 1 Omni IrW-natl^al d All rights reser ed. Published ] Cover art lor this month's Omni OMNI. 871 1), US Volu g y is an oil painting by the ££* ,,:.!,«-. American artist Peter Cartas. tiv, ?;•' HESS HS 2SS : ss,: : The painting was originally : ..' !.',:' .' : 'V: : .- .:;'„-.:».« ;? rJishrr^Any^^", .:;. : commissioned for the cover of inwhde V, 'SSS^SSSm % Smart as the Devil, by Felice Picano (Dsll Publishing). Mr. Carras has studied with Norman Rockwell and Jim Bama. X™ 4 OMNI ' ' Looking back over our first year of publica- neighborhood barber but cridn': expect tion, we have seen .a few old barriers . either anesthesia or antinroiics A: least breached, new frontiers .'explored and. you didn't have to worry about cancer or charted, and much of the so-called im- heart disease. In 1830 the average life possible become commonplace.- Our expectancy was 38 years typhus, Tinker Toy attempt at interstellar flight, the diphiher'a. dysemery cholera, tetanus, Voyager probe, actually reached Jupiter, malaria smslipcx yellow fever, or some sent back an incredible gallery ot photo- other Killer almost certainly felted you i = -.- graphs, and -then headed bravely far before . i . ii. ease: had a Saturn and the stars. At Princeton Univer- . chance to develop their symoloms Com- sity— for the briefest moment:- a team of munications meant li'.rie more than word ot scientists successfully harnessed fusion, mouth.- The Battle ot Now Orleans, lor the powerthatdriyes.the sun. And for the example, was fought T5- days after the firs; time in the history of aviation a wispy Peace Treaty of Ghent was signed; More Hying machine called the -Gossamer.Alba- than 2.000 men died needlessly tross, powered by human muscle. alone-, By contrast, the future from which our cameo a man ac'oss the- English Channel. "thends of the simple -ile" would have us There was, of course, the darker flee is one of infinite promise and hope. side — Skylab came tumbling down, and- Iv'aiiy scientist;?, today predict that the at Three Mile island, for neither the ti'sl nor average human lilo spar: wiii break 100 the last time, we stood at the very years by the next century. Some even go threshold of -eternity. so far as to claim lhal there ere people Vial ,n many ways it was business as alive today who will never die. The )R usual. The Oft ce o! Man.:: cement and technology required tosolve the Scdgei - retired to these days by its much-touted energy crisis-is already with acronym, TOMS-- announced its tiscal us. All that is needed is the political and l plans for the. U.S. space program over the financial commitment to pursue it. JJUNl next four years. TOMB'S resourceful And the door to space stands wide forward planning called for'an immediate open. A future more wondrous, more Uto- im The inane protestations 22-percent decrease in NASA funding. pian, than that of man traveling among the of our "friends of And that, of course, was without reference stars is unimaginable to me. TOMB, the to inflation. It was President Carter's way Carter administration, and/or the deiicate > the life" simple prove one of celebrating mankind's single, most sensibilities of Wall Street notwithstanding thing — that the spectacular technological achievement to man will reach into the future with the same date, the tenth anniversary of our landing i m pae a be determination with which ultimate fallibility of man on the moon. his seed rose from trie primeval slime. is his curious This proposed cutback in space A eie celsb'.il.ed Bniish astronomer Sir * '930. living need to rationalize history. spending, however, is only the tip of an James-Jeans' wrote in We are ominous iceberg. According to the- al the very beginning of ;;me. We nave r i National'Sci'ence Foundation, expendi- come into being i the rresn eiorv of ihe tumsfor Research and Development inthe dawn, and a day of almost unthinkable United States decreased by more than 20 length stretches before us with percent in the years between 1968 and unimaginable-opportunities for 1973 During iha; same time period, accomplishment Qui descendants ol Research and Development was up 15 lar-o ' looking oovvn this long vista ol percent in the Soviet Union, up 1.6 percent time from the other end, will see our .in West Germany, and up '20. percent in present age as the misty morning of Japan. human history Ou-' contemporaries ol And all the while we near pleas for a today will appear as dim. .heroic figures return 'othe "simple life."— a legendary .who fought their way. through jungles: of state of being that occurred before, the ignorance, error and suoersti!ion to ad vanceof technology, before pollution, discover Truth." and cefore me so- called energy crisis This month Omni celebrates' its first These inans protes'stior::; p-'e-ve one anniversary The groping irtler- has :h-ng — thai ihe Liiimate ^tibi^y of man i:_> become an eagei child We nave learned his curious need to rationalize history. Con- much in the past year: the need'to look siderthe "simple life" of 1 50 years ago: ahead, to determine the- social, I- you worked i'ac-d a'mosi everybody environmental, and economic impact of had to), you worked a 72-hour week — at future technology on all our tomorrows.' We the loe.st. li you traveled (and almost have learned, once again thai nothing is nobody did), you ; raveled slowly and .so constant as change. Yet our pledge to uncomfortably The trip from Boston to- you remains the same as it was 'a year New York, for example, accomplished ago: to stand al the frontier pf intellectual under idea! conditions, took some 40' and philosophical inquiry, re chart the hours by stagecoach. If you were sick: course ol him an progress imc -he both medicine and surgery were freely twenty-first century and ooyene . ic available — you simply visited your friendly welcome the future. DO CONTRIBUTOR Druiruii This month marks the completion lated into nearly 30 languages, has been Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden of Omni's first year of publication. for the past four decades one of Europe's Memories and Other Disasters have Coming soon will be the end of a most prolific writers. Cofounder of the become prescribed reading in many tumultuous decade and the beginning of a Polish Astronautical Society and member American-literature courses throughout promising, though uncertain, new one. To of the Polish Cybernetic Association, he the world. His short stories have won the help us articulate the key developments of has written, most notably The highly coveted Playboy Humor Award four the decade past and their impact on the Investigation , the classic Solaris, The times, a record unequaled by any other years ahead. Omni went to the world's Cyberaid, and his most recent work, The writer. Shepherd's contribution to Omni, leading figures in science and technology. Chain of Chance. For a passage from his "The Lost Culture of Deli," can be found on The end result is "Decades of Decision" latest novel, see "The Test," on page 86. page 104. (page 96], in which Isaac Asimov, Rene~ Walter Tevis concludes this month's The noted English explorer and mountain- Dubos, Masters and Johnson, Arthur fiction with "Rent Control" (page 11 4). a eer Lord John Hunt trails the "Abominable Koestter. and many others share personal story of time, love, and consequence by Snowman" in an entertaining article insights on topics ranging from possible the author of The Hustler and The Man entitled "Unseen Yeti." Hunt, who took part breakthroughs in their own specialities to Who Fell to Earth. in man's first successful ascent of Mount humankind's changing role within the Thomas Hoover, whose fascinating Everest, in 1953, provides evidence that, cosmos. study on intuition appeared in ourfirst he hopes, will someday prove the Robert A. Heinlein, author of the classic issue {October 1978). returns to examine existence of this legendary creature. See Stranger in a Strange Land, joins Omni's the other side of the mind, the process of page 108.