Omni Magazine
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
- Ill 'INTELLIGENCE DRUGS: FREELYAVAILABLE NEW DRUGS TO EXPAND YOUR INTELLIGENCE RED STAR IN ORBIT: SOVIET SPACE COLONIES; COSMIC ART AND SCIENCE .'FICTION, RUSSIAN STYLE THE WORLD'S SMARTEST MAN: 'BYCONSENSUSOFTHE WORLDS SMARTEST COMMUNITY LOCH NESS [MONSTER: TECHNOLOGY AND '6CIENCE JOIN THE HUNT CYBERNETIC WAR: .ELECTRONIC STRATEGISTS ' AND THE ULTIMATE WEAPON >PLUS: BUCK ROGERS AND BRAVE NEW WORLD A FIRST LOOK AT THE NEW FILMS -PENETRATING THE .MICROCOSMOS- HARNESSING THE GULF STREAM . onnrui EDITOR & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE EXECUTIVE EDITOR: FRANK KENDIG ART DIRECTOR: FRANK DEVINO EUROPEAN EDITOR: DR. BERNARD DIXON 3IRI-.C OR O'" Al )VE"=T 3 \iG: EiEVE^LEY WARDALE EXECU":" VI- V CI--PRESIDENT. IRWI\ E. BILLMAN CONTENTS PAGE FIRST WORD Opinion 6 OMNIBUS Contributors 8 COMMUNICATIONS Correspondenc 10 FORUM Dialogue 12 EARTH Environment 16 SPACE Astronomy 18 LIFE Biomedicine 20 STARS Comment 24 THE ARTS Media 26 UFO UPDATE Report Harry Lebelson 32 CONTINUUM Data Bank 35 CYBERNETIC WAR Article Jonathan V Post 44 DARK SANCTUARY Fiction Gregory Bentord 50 MIND FOOD Article Sandy Shakocius and Durk Pearson 54 THE UNIVERSE BELOW Pictorial Douglas Faulkner 58 GOD IS AN IRON Fiction Spider Robinson 66 GULF DREAM Article Scot Morris 70 RED STAR IN ORBIT Article James Oberg 76 VISIONS OF THE COSMOS Pictorial F C. Durant III BO SELF-DISCOVERY Fiction Vladimir Savchenko 88 RETURN TO LOCH NESS Article Michael Marten and John Chesterman 92 RICHARD FEYNMAN Interview Monte Davis 96 THE LANGUAGE CLARIFIER Fiction Paul J. Nahin 100 EXPLORATIONS Travel Trudy E. Bell 115 SUNRISE Phenomena Ken Kay 142 GAMES Diversions Scot Morris 144 LAST WORD Tnamas F Von:a ecro Cover art for this month's Omni .IGS'- 711), y voIuit.l 8. Copyright ©1979 by Omr edS! Cr.'-jiP.ii: is a multi-image photograph jj» SF by California filmmaker and photographer Larry Norager. 1-1H -„t, In order to produce the : !:=;. , -fi-iin.?* : image -on -image effect, Norager utilized a 500-watt am I -M ailing olticGS. Publishe laser projection to create The Universe Within. 4 OMNI . , ,, >.' | "Nothing worthwhile is ever a matter fO US > " :-;"! .- i:r i(-; easily." wrote physicist -erigh M- Robert 'W next— lockets powered by particle Bussard. at the end of his now-famous beams, long-distance transmission of paperdes'cribuig how to build a ramjet energy by laser beam, interplanetary The. paper outlined plans for a spacecraft Space shuttles, and. of course, an : that would, em ploy powerful magnetic interstellar ramie?. Aii i reaiiy warn to leave fiel' n that with you." he concluded. "Is the thought would be used to fuel the vehicle, lis thatweopenour minds and think beyond purpose was obvious— to carry men to next years budgel with its two thou- the stars. sand—o.r maybe twenty thousand— -.-. : " Bussards paper-was published in i960, cruise missiles and .go back-and enjoy... three years after Sputnik /, theilr^ artificial the idea that it's okay io think freely. You. satellite, was launched and ayearbefore' -epieseut a croup with an unbroken .Yuri Gagarin became Ihe first human !c go history of having ihe greatest cearfvity o' into space. In 'nose days everybody was any that's existed in this country. Don't- talking about going to the moon and then abdicate that -position!'"- onward into the depths of space. But that Whether or not the AIAA will abdicate its was. before the budget cuts, before the position as the four airhead oi creativity a nti technological sentiments of the 1960s is. of .'.gathered their fu!! momentum. T6ciz;y it . a question \ :-i unanswered-. The seems, nobody in the -aerospace business board did later appoint Bussard chairman talks about anything beyond the next of the AlAAs new Technical Working scheduled dip into the federal Group on Future Flight Systems, charged to stimulate thinking en new technologies.' Bussard himself went on to. work at Lbs for [he year 2000 and beyond. It was an ,'Vamos. to found nis own companies, and important step but only mefirst of many. later to head up thethen Atomic Energy Enthusiasm for our move info space, i! if ,'- Commission's engineering program in : - is to have any effeel not only must be nuclear fusion; Then,. in' 1977, he was re*! mien within ihe aerospace industry ^"Today, it seems,; asked to address the board of directors ol but must be instilled In the genera! public, nobody in the aerospace the American institute of Astronautics and Only then, when-public support for the Aeronautics (AIA'.A). a professional society space program equals that exhibited on business talks engineers, the July in 1969 when Neil Armstrong of aerospace scientists,' and day : about anything beyond students. and Suzz.Al.drin landed on the moon, will in the promise of begin to be. realized. the next "When ! got interested the American space Rocket Society [the precursor ot the AtAA] Curiously, thanks to movies like Star. scheduled dip into the back in 1938 or so, if was kind c; a Wars and Close Encounters and even federal pocket-book. "9 collection of crazies," said Bussard to the space operas like Battlestar Galactica, assembled board of the AIAA -'Everybody we now have among us a generation of wildly excited .the was looking at the big problem: Can we young people about J. ever go to the. moor/' The world was young possibilities of space. Each yearfhe and hadn't average age of NASA employees goes up. come and gc js Thus we have a generation gap on our to do were just sifting out there: Then, a hands, a split between the dream of space reality Luckily, there are men iii-e few months ago. I iookoo a: the AiAA's and its 1977. annual-meeting. .prog-ram with its Bob Bussard at work to bring :he two --.-'"'- theme Aerospace in the Third Century. A generations together 'v- provocative title — a iong way to .look The situation was well put-last fall by . Harrison H. ahead But as I -coked through the formsr astronaut, now Senator ' the Institute ol detailed program. I saw mostly ideas like Schmitt in an address to intercity airtransport, freight hauling with Electrical and Electronic-Engineers-.'. venieai-takeoff airemm oetter air-traific "When there are young gene rations- .of '. control, and other things that will matter to Americans champing at the bit to move us this year and next year™ the things that cur civilization of freedom oack to the will matter to the survival of corporations, frontier of space." he said. '"we say to. and federal bureaucracies. That worried ; he~-. "vVaifl One pemenl of our budget, or fifth of ol out me . 1 wondered where all thai childlike one one percent y;oss enthusiasm £ national product. ;s too. much for such Bussard proceeded to shower the AIAA childish dreams.' Hogwash! Civilization is viih ideas about things thai will moving into space "CO v ^mm h Ati' DRJirUII Eighty years ago a Russian assistant director of the National Air and The monster of Loch Ness has been schoolteacher named Konstantin Space Museum and head ot the pursued with everything from harpoons tb Tsiolkovskiy said, "The Earth is astronautics department. Durant's close submarines armed with machine guns. the cradlG of the mind, but one does not association with Andrei Sokolov, the Beethoven symphonies and Scottish live in the cradle forever. Humanity leading space artist in the Soviet Union, tunes have been piped through giant will venture beyond the edge of the gave Omni access to some of the most underwater speakers in hopes of luring atmosphere and then will boldly move out treasured and revered works of Soviet the beast. Now high technology and occupy all of the worlds and spaces space art to date. Sokolov's portfolio introduces TAD (target alarm detector), a around the sun." containing imaginative visions of distant wooden raft equipped with an array of The Russians have come a long way planets, alien life forms, and far-off stellar electronically synchronized lights and since their astronautical humiliations of a systems begins on page 80. cameras loaded with the fastest color film decade ago and are now much closer Rounding out Omni's "Soviet space in the world. "It's the most sophisticated than most of us think to realizing package" is an excerpt from animal trap ever devised," say journalists Tsiolkovskiy's dream. This month Omni "Self-Discovery" (page 88), a novel by John Chesterman and Michael Marten. presents a rare and in-depth glimpse into Soviet science- fiction writer Vladimir Will TAD finally catch the elusive Nessie? the world o! Soviet space exploration, Savchenko. Trained as an electrical See for yourself on page 92. beginning with an exclusive article on engineer Savchenko began writing This month's fiction highlights Paul J, Soviet space colonies by James Oberg. In science fiction in the late '50s. His abilities Nahin ("The Language Clarifier," page "Red Star in Orbit" (page 76). Oberg. a as a raconteur, combining speculative 100). A professor of electrical and specialist in Chinese/Soviet space science with a satirical view of scientific computer engineering, Nahin has been programs, closely examines Russia's new politics, has established him as one of the writing science fiction for over a decade aggressive and concentrated space leading Soviet novelists. and, "after learning many things the hard effort, which is already laying foundations Though the chemical details of memory way, began selling it about two years ago." for such ambitious projects as robot tanker and learning are still unknown, 20 years of A graduate of Stanford. Caltech. and the spaceships, pseudogravity. multimodular research have begun to reveal some of its University of California at Irvine, Nahin space stations, and.