[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

ALH84001 and Me - Part 1


Hello everyone - 
     
     (As promised, the long awaited :), much anticipated :), "ALH84001
and Me" ...)

     You all probably know me as someone with a great interest in
historical impact events, and as someone who devotes a large part of
his time to them.  This was not always the case, and in a former life
a short time ago my driving interests were the Soviet and then the
Russian space programs.
     A couple of years back, in the course of covering these programs,
I attended a Mars conference that was
held by the Planetary Society at the stately National Academy of
Sciences building on Constitution Avenue here in Washington. The first
evening's session was going to feature a talk by NASA Administrator
Dan Goldin, so it promised to be an interesting event even if Russian
reasearchers did not show up for it.    
     I had arrived early, and while the buffet had not
been set out yet, the beverages had, so after getting
credentialed I helped myself to a icey glass of Coca-Cola and took up
a position in the lobby outside the door to the auditorium, a place
where I would have a good chance at catching any Russian scientists
should 
they show up.
     While waiting there, I struck up a conversation with another
fellow who was waiting for the evening's
events to start.  He immediately struck me as a retiring fellow,
someone who had had his life become completely wrapped up in his work.
 We introduced ourselves to each other.  Seems that he was a Dr.
McKay, who worked for NASA out of Houston.
     I explained to Dr. McKay that I really had no 
interest in Mars, that I was a journalist who covered
the Russian space program, and that at the Mars
conference which had been held by the same group the proceeding year I
had met Vladimir Feodorvich Utkin, Yangel's number 2 man at the
Ukrainian rocket firm Yuzhnoye, who had worked with V.P. Glushko on
the later Soviet manned lunar programs.
     Dr. McKay informed me that he had been working
on meteorites, and told me, "We have meteorites from 
Mars."   
     Now at this time I did not know the difference between a
meteorite and a meteor, and was absolutely unable to differentiate a
meteorite from a piece
of iron slag.  But somewhere in the back of my brain 
I remembered that meteorites had been found, where 
analysis of the gas trapped in them indicated that 
they had come from Mars.  In any case, I was not going
to express any surprise to Dr. McKay at his statement, but rather
instinctively I was going to ask him if he had gone on to the next
step.  
     "Have you looked for fossils?"
     "We've found organic compounds.", Dr. McKay
replied, without answering if he had been looking
for fossils.
      At this point my good acquaintance and fellow
scrivner Leonard David interposed.  "Mind if I take this one, Ed?", he
asked.
      Now as my attention had been focused on Dr. McKay, I had not
even noticed that Leonard had been listening in.  In any case, as we
all know, organic compounds are surprisingly common, and the only
place that would print such news was the newspaper "Space News", which
had not bought anything from me ever since I had pirated an interview
with Georgi Grechko at the Goddard Memorial Dinner, after they had
paid for his expenses and meal.
      "No, Leonard, go on ahead.", I generously offered.  It would be
good for Dr. McKay, good for 
Leonard, and I would suffer no loss.  
       But then Leonard, instead of continuing the 
conversation in my presence, drew Dr. McKay aside to 
interview him privately.
       Which as you shall see in Part 2, was a poor decision on his
part. 


   


_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

----------
Archives located at:
http://www.meteoritecentral.com/list_best.html

For help, FAQ's and sub. info. visit:
http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing_list.html
----------