(urth) Dome, Dome on the Range

[Jeff Wilson]

On 1/12/2011 10:28 AM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:
>
> One could also observe that Urthians don't mention seeing rocket flares either. Is this because such technology is obsolete, except perhaps for pushing certain asteroids long distances, or because even large ships simply would not be visible? I don't know.

It's implied that the resources for rocket ship travel are depleted. 
Space commerce still exists, but it's the "cacogens'" yet more advanced 
flying saucers and such that handle the coming and going without visible 
drive flames. I'm thinking the doming and irrgation of Luna was done 
during a period when outgoing interstellar travel was not available or 
just too arduous. Purn's recollection implies that incoming travel was 
going on before Lune became Green..

> The Moon can't hold air because it's too small and cold. If it's not our Moon, it doesn't need to be so small and cold. The solution is implicit in the problem.

However, the astronaut pictures make it as plain as anything else in the 
BOTNS that Urth and Lune are meant to be the equivalent of a future 
Earth and Moon.

> Also, there is artificial gravity of the magical, not physical, kind. We know this technology exists and we know Lune has power. Why not have a 1-gee Moon? I suppose the best argument against this is negative: the Whorl, much smaller, has physically created artificial gravity.

Exactly; if Lune had grav plates or polar spindizzies  or whatever for 
the looting, why didn't Typhon loot them for his pet project?

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >