From: minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: People with zero science.
Message-ID: <1991Jul27.205417.967@news.media.mit.edu>
Date: 27 Jul 91 20:54:17 GMT
References: <1991Jul26.163221.12162@zoo.toronto.edu> <1991Jul27.001026.21490@news.media.mit.edu> <17565@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Lines: 19


In article <17565@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> holtz@netcord.Eng.Sun.COM (Brian Holtz) writes:
>In article <1991Jul27.001026.21490@news.media.mit.edu> minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>
>>One day the producer insisted on having
>>them land on a planet located between Mars and Earth. Despite the
>>money, he blew up and quit.
>
>You might have to wait awhile for them to line up, but it's quite
>possible for _two_ planets _and_ a _star_ to be located directly between
>Mars and Earth.  ;)

Golly.  Do you mean, without changing the orbital radii?  By placing
them at some libration-like point?  But what would happen to the rest
of the solar system with the extra star?  Now that you mention this,
it seems to be a porrly defined concept in the first place -- that of
having a planet between Earth and Mars.  If we don';t constrain the
definition, then we could just rename everything.  Call Jupiter "Mars"
and then Mars would be the new planet. But I don't think David Gerrold
would have accepted that solution.