: onnrui' SEPTEMBER 19/9 %2 D9 FANTASTIC^ HIGH-SCHOOL BEINGS: CONFIDENTIAL: THE ORBITING __-j PLUS: ;60JtiHMsT:v?;.,;; >«.>. SKINNER: IMhI(nWI onnrui SEPTEMBER 1979 EDITOR & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE EXECUTIVE EDITOR: FRANK KENDIG ARl DIRECTOR: FRANK DEVINO EUROPEAN Eu "I OR: DR 3-^MARD DIXON FICTION EDITOR BEN BOVA DIRECTOR OF ADVI-P" S \'G BFVERLEY WARDALE EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT: IRWIN E. BILLMAN ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER KATHY KEETON ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER (INTL): FRANCO ROSSELLINI CONTENTS PAGE FIRST WORD Opinion Stan Kent 6 OMNIBUS Contributors 8 COMMUNICATIONS Correspondenc 10 FORUM Dialogue 12 EARTH Environment Kenneth Brawe r 16 SPACE Astronomy Mark R. Ctiartrand III ia LIFE Biomedicine Bernard Dixon 20 THE ARTS Media 22 UFO UPDATE Report James Oberg 32 CONTINUUM Data Bank 35 "DOC" Article Stephen Davis 44 KINSMAN Fiction Ben Bova 52 GEOSCAPES Pictorial Douglas Faulkner 56 LIFE IN DARWIN'S UNIVERSE Article Gene Bylinsky 63 GRAVESIDE WATCH Fiction Edward H. Gandy 66 B. E SKINNER Interview Michael Hollingshead 76 EYEWITNESS TO SPACE Pictorial FC. Durantlll 82 SARASWATI IN THE BRONX Article William K. Stuckey 90 THE VACUUM-PACKED PICNIC Fiction Rick Gauger 94 FOOD FOR ZERO-G Article Dava Sobel sa EXPLORATIONS Travel Dava Sobel 37 SCHLIEREN PHOTOGRAPHY Phenomena Gary Settles 40 GAMES Diversions Scot Morris 44 LAST WORD Opinion Stuart Diamond 46 PHOTO CREDITS Cover art for this month's Omni OWN,. 1979 f:SSN 0-49-an ;. US v,-,lj-e \ Number 12 Coi xjnl-vy n ir-s Ut:«; =r«:s= aic £i''„. = Is a watercotor by the "snajjsiv r -TJanada 10022 Tel (2121 593-33D1 Prin-od ir :h B U.S> O; [i'ere::ii American artist Alan Magee. prasisaorE.-andtrfti-Mjria le -n i- , The painting was originally done for the cover of Henry "' i i " "! - Miller's Time of the Assassins : :.-.. C -,U P_Csinacid. dr-.:j .'..FC . id3-!?S:.;:!-;n~.-';. ci:.. ioCW'-. r..' , , ,! (Simon & Schuster). Magee is 1 ' i: I, '.: : ' ' ,il i i. , I .'iii i, a self-taught artist mho lives and paints in Maine. Whether the United States is first, second, space," unless some attempt is made to or no-show in space depends upon many involve young people, if only so that they factors, but pervading all concerns, be can benefit from the experience of the first Ihey budgetary or otherwise, is a basic generation of space pioneers. lack of creativity. To ensure leadership in Involvement of young people in the space, particularly during austere years, space program is a two-way street. It requires fresh, innovative thinking. New benefits not only the student but also the concepts and approaches need to be experienced planner or engineer. NASA's explored, but NASA, more comfortable advanced planning is becoming with a do-nothing, low-profile approach, is increasingly conservative and shirking grand concepts. Perhaps fearful shortsighted. A fresh approach to the of an Apollo-type backlash, NASA has complicated problems of future space done its best to decline funding for certain programs could relight the flame of advanced projects, prompting harsh creativity that was so evident in the days political criticism and review from the of Von Sraun. pro-space ranks of the Congress. To As NASA gets older, the agency quote Representative Don Fuqua of becomes increasingly resistant to Florida: "There is insufficient innovation and change—the classic commitment — The space program symptom of terminal bureaucracy. But, is dying on the vine." unlike most federal bureaucracies, NASA One real consequence of this backlash recognizes its own problem, Dr. Robert is the age crisis now facing the aerospace Frosch, NASA administrator, was quoted in industry. The aerospace slump that a recent interview in Business Week: "The followed funding reductions for Project system has now sharpened its pencils in a Apollo, apart from hurting the bank way that discourages changes that are balances and attitudes of many major. We have been so busy with other engineers, caused the industry to stop things thai we have inadvertently told the hiring young people because of an overall people who think up ideas to go away." lack of jobs. This trend has started to Thus, NASA realizes it needs a £ There is an age crisis reverse, with boomlike hiring going on in transfusion of ideas, and the most obvious now facing the Seattle and Los Angeles, but most of these source for these ideas is the student bright new employees end up in the aero, community Students can contribute a aero-space business. rather than the space, side ol the different viewpoint, a fresh approach The likelihood that a business. The available jobs are in that the experienced eye may have commercial defense aircraft programs: overlooked. Such involvement would young engineer will or almost no newly graduated students go to prevent a loss of planning momentum, join NASA's space work in the space business. NASA itself is and perhaps end NASA's lack of program payroll is in a substantially worse position. Faced creativity. with federally mandated work-force The Space Age has passed its virtually nonexistent.^ reductions, a young engineer is unlikely twenty-first birthday, NASA is twenty years to be put on NASA's space-program old. and it's about time that government payroll. and industry realized that established The anti-space-expenditure lobby engineers and scientists do not have a (otherwise known as the Office of monopoly on creativity. If the United States Management and Budget) argues that is to maintain some semblance of cosmic there is no need for concern. Proponents leadership, it will take more than say that there is no need for a dynamic presidential rhetoric. A serious attempt to space program Yet the pulse of the nation involve young people in all aspects of is throbbing with rockets' fire. Groups space— planning, hardware development, supportive of the space program are and flight operations— is essential to the forming all over the country, and if NASA, vitality of future space programs. NASA's the Office of Management and Budget, current expenditures on educational and the President will open their eyes and programs are minuscule, and such funds ears, they will realize that the Apollo are usually the first items to be cut during backlash has been beaten. The public budget reductions. Even under the wants a strong, dynamic, and expanded President's tame space policy this state of space program, and government and affairs cannot be tolerated. If we are to industry should prepare to deliver. maintain our leadership in space, a If the aerospace industry is to meet substantial commitment to a youthful, public demands, if will need to replenish creative space program must be made. its work force as retiremenf and attrition Failure to do so will mean Humankind's take their inevitable toll. Many of the space Childhood's End will never occur. DO program's planners and chief protagonists will, like old soldiers, fade away. The Stan Ken!, a young engineer now program will lose direction and be unable employed by Aerojet Liquid Rocket to maintain what President Carter called Company, is a member oi the NASA the "leadership of the United Stales in advisory subcommittee on innovation. u DfinruiBU! Seventy- six-year-old Harold "Doc" probabilities and improbabilities of the Dava Sobel informs us that space-shuttle Edgerton — inventor of every- appearance that alien beings are likely to crews won't revert to slurping out of plastic thing from Brownie flashcubes lo take. What do beings on other planets look bags like their predecessors. "There'll be a laser strobes— a folk is hero among the like? "Well, you wouldn't want to go up and fully operational galley on board, capable world's top photographers and something embrace one," Bylinsky remarks. Artist of preparing seven meals in just 23 of a legend around MIT, where he has Wayne McLoughlin illustrates. minutes," writes Sobel. "At least, there'll be been a professor for half a century It was When Omni decided to profile the Bronx variety." Sobel's fondness for space travel Edgerton who first introduced ultrahigh- High School of Science, in New York City, and her interest in food led her to NASA's speed photography developed high-speed Washington editor Bill Stuckey jumped at Johnson Space Flight Center, in Houston, motion pictures, took the first films of the assignment. Stuckey has more than just Texas, where she was introduced to some atomic explosions and the first close-ups of a passing interest in the high school, He of the leading diet and food specialists. the Loch Ness monster. This month Omni claims to know more about Nobel Prize The highlight of her trip was "sampling a presents a profile of Edgerton former by winners than just about anybody else in the bowl of dehydrated bananas." Sobel's Rolling Stone editor Stephen Davis. "I world, and Bronx just happens to be cook's tour of outer space begins on saw his photographs in the National considered "the breeding ground" for page 98. Geographic when I five was years old," future Nobel laureates. Stuckey rightly In 1971 Lester saw Cooke . curator of says Davis. "I've been a fan ever since. The this as the perfect chance to meet some painting at the National Gallery of Art, in images were burned into my mind," Davis future prizewinners, as well as to pick up a Washington, DC, and NASA's James spent a month with Doc, attending his top story, In his article "Saraswati in the Dean authored a magnificent book, classes and meeting with many of his Bronx" (page 90), Stuckey profiles Arani Eyewitness to Space, containing colleagues. 'Another credit to the man," Bose, one of "Science" 's typical students reproductions and prints representing Davis says, "is that he's probably one of the brains whose and ability will probably NASA's art program.