IGN'80 MPUTER FORECAST: THE NATION'S FUTURE ACCORDING TO EACH CANDIDATES PLATFORM NEBULAS: SECRETS OF DEATH OF THE GALAXIES A PARTICLE: FICTION: PROTONS NORMAN ARE NOT SPINRADS FOREVER MEDIA TALE i onnrui NOVEMBER 1980 EDITOR & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB CUCC10NE PRESIDENT 6 ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER; KATHY KEETON XFCiriVh :j:i!-.|' BEN 30VA Ai-:i LIR-CTOR- RA vK DEVINO MAr.AG M" -Li--:jR , Ai\D-HSO\' OORMAN FICTION EDITOR : iG5rFT 3Hf_CXLEY tuR^f-TAM rr,-no= >; i>"i-;\arddixon DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING EzVEHLTY WARDALE EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT: IRWIN E. BILLMAN SENIOR VICE-FRtilL'LAT ',1ARi VJNE HOWATSON AS:0CIA:EP;..EI. S: ; zF: Mir L; F=!A\CO ROSSELLINI CONTENTS PAGE FIRST WORD Opinion Ben Bova 6 OMNIBUS Contributors S EARTH Environment Eleanor Smith 14 LIFE Biomedicine Bernard Di*on 16 SPACE Comment David C. Webb 22 MIND Behavior Philip Hilts 23 VIDEO TiieArts Gregory Miller 28 FILM The A/15 Jeff fiovin 30 UFO UPDATE Report E. Lee Speigel 32 CONTINUUM Data BanK 35 PROTONS ARE NOT FOREVER Article Robert March 44' OUT OF LUCK Fiction Walter Tevis 52 SATURN ENCOUNTER ArticlB Charles Kohlhase 64 I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC Article Kathleen McAuliffe 70 CELESTIAL VISITATIONS Pictorial Gilbert Williams 76 ARNOLD MANDELL Interview William K. Sruckey 32 PRIME TIME Fiction Norman Spinrad 88 NEBULA Pictorial Marc Kaplan 92 CAMPAIGN '80: A COMPUTER Article T nd ANALYSIS Owen Dav1es on PEOPLE Names and Faces Dick Teres 26 INNOVATIONS New Products 30 EXPLORATIONS Travel Phyllis Wollman 33 COMPETITION RESULTS Double Dactyls Scot Morris 35 STARS Astronomy Mark R. Chartrand III 41 WHOOPER SWANS Phenomena Telji Saga 42 GAMES Diversions Scot Monis 44 LAST WORD Opinion David Ssltman 46 PHOTO CREDITS 32 This mpnth's sinking cover was rendered by German artist Fred-Jurgen Hogner. One o! Europe's most proline artists, yrig hied. Narh ing may be Rogner has illustrated more than 100 ci Sforvi publipations. His flamboyant style was the subjecl of a recent , and all rights in por- television show filmed in Bavaria. 4 OMNI during the week empnasized that the STS was the beginning of a new era in American space efforts. Some V:P visitors were? even invited to- : "iiy ' the soLitiifi simulator. I gave it a try, and at the point where the technicians cheerfully pointed out that I had probably ripped the oi' I wings : removed my hands from the controls arid watched the ship's FIRS' LAJDRD By Ben Bova iOns visitor to the Johnson Space Center said that the word celebration was wrong for Space Week; the correct word should be funerai.9 .indefinitely long periods of lime. (8) Detailed studies of lunar minir . orbital manufacturing, solar-power . satellites, and. the supporting systei they will require, These studies. shot incJude field tests. and experiments verification ot key problem areas, in or on the moon; as necessary. Abigagenda. However, these ste are requisite if.we are to begin using i\ energy and the natural resource to solve human problems here on- Earth. Car weexpccl ournext president to accomplish all these things? We should demand nothing less.OQ DRnruiBUi teams of physicists are racing him. McAuliffe learned that the Victorians' the Voyager spacecraft Go: aooard on Two first, to claim the proton "kill." By faith in electrical cures was nol wholly page 64. destroying the particle, they unfounded. Turn to "I Sing the Body This month's Earth column. "Atomic hope to prove that quarks, which make up Electric" (page 70) and find out why Vets" (page 14), reveals a naiional shame. protons, are the ultimate building blocks of electricity is revolutionizing medicine. In the 1940s and 1950s mililary personnel aloms. The scene of Ihe "crime" will be a What effect does this U.S. election have were exposed !o radiation from nuclear hole deep below the earth's crust. Only on jobs, inflation, and the gross national tests. Since then these soldiers have here can scientists trace the delicate produci? Data Resources International, experienced a rate of cancer higher than paths of protons without atmospheric commissioned by Omni, has projected an the national average. The Veierans inlerference. In "Protons Are Not Forever" economic forecast for the nex! four years Administration refuses to acknowledge (page 44) Robert March outlines the based on the Democratic and Republican any connection befween the nuclear tests historic event. "After twenly years of doing platforms. Senior edilor Dick Teres; inter- and what has happened to these ser- physics with big accelerators, if will be fun prets the results, beginning on page 100. vicemen. Eleanor Smith was moved to lo get free of the red tape of working in "Nebula"(page 92) is a pictorial taken wriie about the problem after hearing laboratories." Does the fierce rivalry from top science writer Timothy Ferris's Orville Kelly, lounder of the National the between two teams of physicists latest book, Galaxies, published this fall Association of Atomic Veterans, speak bother him? He's already switched sides by Sierra Club Books. Astronomers from in San Francisco last fall. She was once and claims in any case (hat ihe around the world have provided spec- enormously impressed that these "former premise "is too earth-shaking to leave to a tacular images ol celestia clouds and patriots" were now "angry with the single experiment. Rivalry keeps everyone star dust for this exclusive peek at the government for its complete indifference sharp." March, a physics professor at the cosmos. Ferris won the 1978 American to their plight." Smith has been a member University of Wisconsin, is two-time a Institute of Physics journalism award and of Friends of the Earth for four years and is winner of the American Institute ofPhysics is a professor of English at Brooklyn managing editor of that organization's award tor science writing. College, New York. newsmagazine. The healing powers of e ec'ricity hold What will Voyager t and Voyager2 see Walter Tevis, whose short story "Out of an age-old lascination and a personal one as they pass Saturn and its moons? Luck" begins on page 52, is probably best for Omni biomedical editor Kathleen Charles Kohlhase, mission design known for his novels The Hustler and The McAuliffe. Ironically, a closet Interest in manager of the Voyager project, and Man Who Fell to Earth. Tevis will have a Victoriana led her to the frontiers of medi- James F. Biinn, a computer graphics short-story collection spe- out in January called . cal science. 'At the turn of the century," cialist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Far from Home. He is now working on a McAuliffe says, "Victorians believed have prepared a series of stunning screenplay based on his novel Mock- that so powerful a force of nature as simulations thai take us to Saturn's ingblrd. electricity must also be a potent remedy. environs in advance of the real flybys. Awards updale; George Ft. Ft. Martin When I readabouta'Columbia-Presbyterian Meticulous calculation and expert won the 1980 Hugo science-fiction award doctor who was using electricity to heal interpretation furnish ou r readers accurate for two Omni contribulions, the short story bone fractures, my curiosity was scenes of Saturn and its moons as they "The Way of Cross and Dragon" and the immediately piqued." After contacting would appear to an observer traveling with novelette "Sandkings."OQ 8 OMNI BOB GUCCIONE editor & publisher KATHY KEETON IH? OMNf INTERNATIONAL LTD. THE CORPORATION Bob Guccione {chairman of -the bos KalhyKeeton (president) win E. Billr J. Gucr conjinnunjiCATiDnjs .n Saks I EDITORIAL Editor in Chiet; Sob Guccione; Executive. Editor: Ben Bova; Managing Editor: J. Anderson Dorman; Seme Editors: Dic< Teresi, Scot Morris, Owen Davies; Fiction Editor: Rolls': S^cklov. Humor Edi- tor: Bill Lee; European Editor: Dr. Sernard Dixon; Associate Editors: Ellen Da'tlow, Michael Edelhar!, Inner Mounting Flame Red Carpet to Space? Kalnleen McAuliffe, Kathleen Stem; Assistant Man- Joel Davis wrote with real understanding Having just read Craig Covault's "Universe aging Editor: Paul Hilts; Assistant Editors: Geoffrey .•:;<: [Continuum, the role Kaplan. Richard Levitt; Copy Chief: August 1980] about Red" [August 1980], I am pained to think Robert Boylan: Copy Editors: Charles J. Attardi, of the scientist, citing the example of Dr. that during the next few years, when ES'ian McKsrna-:; Editorial Ai,?.t:ilanis. Susan David Johnston, a U.S. Geological Survey colonization is possible, to Cani.-t.j. Jayne Gassman,. Franceses Lunzer. Mar- we may have go! Weber; Contributing Editors: Stuart Diamond. volcanologist who perished May 18 when hitch a ride with the Russians. We are Robed Malone, Dr. Patrick Moore, Ourk Pearson Mount St. Helens exploded. rapidly falling behind in the space race, Sandy Snakocius As David sought to understand and and something needs to be done. ART explain the that flame glowed within the Therefore, I am sending reprints of Mr, Art Director: Frank DeVino. Assistant Art Directors: mountain. Margaret. Richichi, Elizabeth Woodson; Photo Edi- Joel sought to understand and Covault's article to my state senators. With tor: Hildegard Kron; Assistant Photo Editor: Lisa explain the flame that glowed in David. Omni's help, we just may be saved from Shapiro; Stall Photographer: Pat Hill; Art Assistant: As David's parents, we feel Joel under- the big wipeout and get pointed toward stood very well, and we thank him. the unknown again. Thomas and Alice Johnston Steven Johnston Oak Lawn, III. Mexico, Mo. Norm Kamikow; Southern Advertising Di Peter Goldsmith; Western Advertising Director: Joel Davis's "Death in the Cascades" Prime-time Preachers John Romain; Controller: Marc Director Bendesky; captured the true essence of being a Thank you for "Airwave Apostles," by ' ot Marketing and Distribution/Publications, George scientist.