Dear Folks –

As you can see, Les, the questions will range from the sublime to the ridiculous. You may need to have a paragraph explaining the initial stunnedreactions, and the confusion that followed around the inevitable questions of “what is a neutron star!” “Can we blow it up!” “can we use nukes to divert it’s course (always works in the movies)?” and the general half-hour turmoil that will follow the initial Pronouncement of Doom. Only then will they start to ask more intelligent q’s (probably about who goes and who stays, as someone else has said), and only at the end may you – just possibly, with a very smart reporter – get the sort of question about whether a ship can even be built in time to escape the Solar System.

Quite apart from the questions of “And where will we go, exactly?” “And what will we eat when we get there?” (the Vilani shuuglii problem)

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David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson ..at.. Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw                    davidjw@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"