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- <text id=92TT0720>
- <title>
- Apr. 06, 1992: American Notes:Ideas
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Apr. 06, 1992 The Real Power of Vitamins
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 25
- American Notes
- IDEAS
- Talk About Star Wars
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Now that the threat of a nuclear war with Moscow is fading,
- atomic-weapons designers have been casting around for a
- mission. Some of them--including physicist Edward Teller, the
- father of the H-bomb--have proposed using a Super Nuke to
- destroy a huge asteroid that could extinguish human life if it
- crashed into Earth.
- </p>
- <p> Though many scientists dismiss the notion of blowing up
- killer asteroids as a last-ditch attempt to find some role for
- nuclear weapons, they do think keeping an eye on runaway
- asteroids makes sense. This week, after several months of
- studying the issue, the National Aeronautics and Space
- Administration will urge Congress to establish a tracking and
- detection system that could sound the alert if a big chunk of
- celestial rock starts heading this way.
- </p>
- <p> The watchers are probably in for a long wait. The last
- time such a cataclysmic collision took place was 65 million
- years ago, when dinosaurs still walked the planet.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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