The Shiva Encounter: The Second World, #3

By Doug Cook

It's 2044. The Earth is suffering from global warming, overpopulation, and the threat of global extinction. Shiva, a one hundred kilometer diameter dwarf planet has a one-in-fifty chance of impacting the Earth in the year 2079 with four hundred times the impact energy of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. The Vishnu ship, hope for survival launched in 2035, will impact Shiva soon with a 10 gigaton nuclear device to attempt to divert the 'killer from the Kuiper Belt'. The outcome could deliver salvation or turn the remains of Shiva into a graver threat than the one presently stalking Earth. Should Vishnu be aborted?

The effort to settle Mars as a second home for humanity has taken root. Settlement ships from Earth are now launched almost faster than the Martian infrastructure can assimilate them. Survival is a constant struggle. Commander Paula Jennings comes to grips with governing a new planet. Just as art, architecture, and interplanetary economy are blossoming on Mars, the Shiva threat now encompasses the red planet.

Progeny of the Aquila Mission crew, Oleg and Alex Ivanov, Sofi Brewster, and Jacob Petrov lead a trade mission to the nascent Ceres colony. Along the way they rediscover the mystery on comet 125P, with the potential to reshape the future of space exploration.

The Shiva Encounter, the third book in the Second World Series, explores state-of-the-art science packed into a thrilling hard sci-fi adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Doug Cook
• Release date: Feb 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463209141

Doug Cook

Doug Cook is retired from a thirty-four year career as a petroleum geophysicist. He is now dedicated to writing, astronomy, and climate change awareness. Doug participated in ten years of deep-water submersible studies on chemosynthetic communities of life in the Gulf of Mexico . These extremophile organisms relate to Doug's passion for astrogeology and exobiology. He is a member American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), Chair AAPG Astrogeology Committee, Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG), Vice President Colorado Springs Astronomical Society, member of the Planetary Society, National Space Society, Explore Mars, and Adjunct Astronomy Professor PPCC. He has two daughters and lives in Colorado with his wife Elizabeth.

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The Shiva

Encounter

Doug Cook

This book is dedicated to my daughters Haley and Madeline.

Copyright ©2020 by Doug Cook

Douglas J. Cook

Colorado Springs, CO

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Please do not participate in or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Cover image: Doug Cook modified from NASA / JPL / USGS / ESA images

INTRODUCTION

"There needs to be an intersection of the set of people who wish to go [to Mars], and the set of people who can afford to go. And that intersection of sets has to be enough to establish a self-sustaining civilization."

Elon Musk, Case for a multi-planet civilization, Aeon, Sept. 2014

What are the Chances of Earth being Smacked by a Big Asteroid?

The motivations we have today to send humans to Mars are nurtured within a relatively peaceful, stable status quo on Earth. However, Carl Sagan stated that the most compelling reason to extend our civilization to another world is to ensure the survival of the human race. [¹] We can imagine a spectrum of global disaster scenarios to motivate humanity’s exodus from our terrestrial cradle, not the least of which is survival: global thermonuclear war, famine, pandemic disease, and looming asteroid impact. [²] Since 1998, we have been systematically searching for and cataloging near Earth objects (NEOs: i.e. asteroids and comets).

To date, over 16,000 NEOs have been discovered that are larger than 140 meters diameter and 7816 are larger than one kilometer. These pose a global impact threat. Of the NEO populations, about 4700 have been classified as potentially hazardous objects (PHOs) that cross closer than 8 million kilometers to Earth and exceed 300 meters diameter. While this sounds ominous, to date there are no PHOs that present an imminent high probability impact threat.[³]

The Chixulub impactor that killed about seventy five percent of the species on Earth including the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was a fifteen kilometer wide asteroid that delivered the equivalent of ten billion Hiroshima A-bombs of impact energy. That size of impact statistically occurs only once every hundred million years. That likelihood of impact could only be delivered by a large, hitherto undetected, rogue body coming in from the outer regions of the solar system.

The premise of Arcadia Mars and The Shiva Encounter, the second and third books of the Second World Series, is that the threat of ongoing global warming, Earth overpopulation, and global thermonuclear war, together with the peaceful yearnings to explore and colonize Mars were not enough to compel the first human mission to the red planet in the foreseeable future. It took the discovery of an Earth-bound one hundred kilometer diameter Kuiper Belt Object (KBO), hailing from beyond Neptune and Pluto to pry humanity from its myopic vision.

It was named Shiva, the Destroyer. Shiva is discovered to be on a trajectory to the inner solar system and it has a one-in-fifty chance of impacting the Earth in the year 2079. This disaster would be twenty-thousand times the impact energy of the Chixulub Event. Mankind cannot afford to gamble with extinction. This threat drove us to become a spacefaring multi-planet species.

The Aquila Mission returned humans to deep space using the SLS Space Launch System (fictional name therein-- Space Rocket System-SRS) by NASA’s current playbook. In Arcadia Mars, the SpaceX Super Heavy booster with its Starship for deep space travel (fictional name herein-- SpaceTrans Colossus) now becomes the workhorse to establish the first colonies on Mars at Arcadia Planitia starting in 2035. The crew from Aquila, Coby Brewster, Ellie Accardi, Vik Ivanov, and Abby Denton, lead the first colony with their extended family. Establishing Arcadia Colony Base infrastructure for the first twenty one people requires many Colossus heavy lift cargo ships and a lot of human and robot labor.

The Super Heavy/Starship Reality

In the Introduction of Arcadia Mars, we discussed The BFR Reality. As we enter 2019, SpaceX has further changed the jargon. The BFR reusable design comprises a renamed Super Heavy booster first stage along with a Starship second stage. Also discussed was the need for a low Earth orbiting (LEO) propellant depot so that a crewed Starship could launch from Earth and refuel in one rendezvous with the depot instead of waiting for up to eight propellant tanker launches to refuel.

Author’s concept of a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) BFR Propellant Depot capable of storing a full load of propellant for the BFR Second Stage Spaceship (240 MT of methane and 860 MT of LOX). One BFR ship can lift 100 MT to LEO. It will take eight BFR launches to fill the depot for one deep space BFR launch from LEO. The propellant docking port mates with the propellant transfer lines in the BFR aft engine bay by present design.

We can take this concept a step further—a step which can open up the solar system to interplanetary commerce and launch crews to Jupiter and beyond.


The Super Heavy booster is not designed for low Earth orbit (LEO) and atmospheric reentry, but rather to lift the Starship part way to LEO and then return to its launch base just as the reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy boosters have done successfully. Let’s now consider launching the Super Heavy booster as a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) without the Starship load and sporting an aerodynamic nose faring.

Super Heavy booster launched as single stage to orbit (SSTO) without the Starship load and with an aerodynamic nose faring. (Modified from SpaceX images)

Assuming the dry mass of the Super Heavy booster is 150 MT (larger than Saturn V First Stage), with a propellant mass of 2900 MT, it could conceivably be launched to LEO as a single stage. It could then be repurposed to be a fuel depot or Super Heavy space-tug. The Super Heavy space-tug version would need to be converted to utilize vacuum Raptor engines.

Super Heavy booster SSTO being used as a propellant depot refueled by tankers. It can hold 2900 MT of propellant. (Modified from SpaceX images)




Super Heavy booster SSTO being used as a propellant depot to refuel a Starship. (Modified from SpaceX images)

With a Super Heavy used as propellant depot, a Starship could refuel in one operation. The Super Heavy depot holds enough propellant for two Starships. A further extrapolation suggests using a refueled Super Heavy booster to launch the Starship to Mars with a full load of propellant for Mars landing and return without refueling. The current SpaceX concept requires the Starship to refuel on the surface of Mars with propellant manufactured from in situ resources (ISRU) in order to return to Earth.

In this scenario, the now empty Super Heavy booster could then be maneuvered to a Lagrange parking orbit[⁴] for reuse as a propellant depot or space tug. Now imagine moving huge loads of propellant manufactured from water on the Moon, Mars, or deep space asteroids. This is the commodity of interplanetary commerce!

The concept could also be used to launch from LEO truly huge spaceships for human deep space missions to Jupiter and beyond. These huge spaceships will need to provide consumables and artificial gravity using centrifugal force for the crew for voyages lasting years. This brings to mind hard sci-fi space ships such as the Discovery One of Arthur C. Clark’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Hermes of Andy Weir’s The Martian, but perhaps not a ship as large as the interstellar ship Nauvoo on The Expanse!

The Arcadia Colony

In Arcadia Mars, the Arcadia Colony expands with many adjunct international colony groups. SpaceTrans has constructed paired manufacturing and launch facilities in Japan, Korea, China, India, and the UAE on schedule to make the Mars launch window in 2039. Colossus colony ships launched with colonists from those nations at an increasing cadence. A total of twenty four Colossus ships launched in the window from September 27 to October 3, 2039 with one colony ship of forty colonists and three supply ships from each launch center in Japan, Korea, China, India, and the UAE. Coalition (International Space Coalition) and LDS ships launched from the US. Each of the four new colonies will be dependent on the established facilities of Arcadia Base until they can develop some degree of independence. The four new adjunct colonies from Japan, Korea, China, and India have been constructed three hundred meters from Arcadia Base respectively to the west, southwest, southeast, and east of Arcadia Base with tunnels connecting back to the nexus. The ships landed on their individual new landing pads from April 28 to May 3, 2040.

This is a successful realization of making Mars colonization open for a wide sector of humanity. A sobering detraction from that ideal were the massive riots in India during the selection of colonists. During the Colossus launches from India, a stampede of people tried to breach the heavy gates of the SpaceTrans launch facility driven by the desperate delusion that some lucky few of them could barge on board and be whisked out of their overcrowded suffering. Over two thousand people died in these riots and stampedes.

The total number of people on Mars in May 2040 has grown to four hundred and eleven including the thirty one births recorded on Mars to that date. The colonists begin building adjunct colonies in a larger circumference ring around Arcadia Base to accommodate the arrivals in the July 2042 and September 2044 launch windows. In 2044, they will establish the Erebus Montes Base, another nexus in Arcadia Planitia one hundred kilometers southwest of Arcadia Base. The goal of having a million humans on Mars by 2079, the arrival date of Shiva and its threat to Earth, is still a long, long way from reality. It may well be unachievable in that time frame.

Can a growing multi-national, multi-cultural colony live in peace? The stick for large scale defense measures are the industrial lasers mounted on armored rovers stored in secret bunkers below Arcadia in case of need in a future conflict. Other rovers will be fitted with a ballistic missile capable of hitting any threat on Mars or in Mars orbit. God forbid that there is a future conflict needing these weapons.

The Coalition redoubled its oversight on all SpaceTrans Mars launch manifests and inspections to insure that only the Coalition has any weapons for possible conflict on Mars. All bets are off for any future colonies that may be launched independent of SpaceTrans and the Coalition. Mars and anywhere beyond Earth is open territory if you can get there.

After nearly seven years of preparation, planning, and construction, the Shiva Diversion Mission ship Vishnu (the savior) launched in 2035 armed with a ten gigaton nuclear device to impact, detonate, and deflect the one hundred kilometer KBO Shiva from its possible extinction encounter with Earth in 2079. The Shiva rendezvous and Vishnu detonation will occur in 2044 at 37 AU from the Earth between the orbits of Neptune and Pluto. The ten gigaton explosion is calculated to give Shiva a 4.31 cm/s lateral shove that will become a 73,000 km deflection by the time it reaches Earth. Will the detonation create an expanded problem with a debris cloud?

Are we alone in the universe?

As humanity settles worlds beyond Earth, the question about finding extra-terrestrial intelligence, ETI, somewhere out there is inevitable. How many civilizations might exist in the universe and why have we not been contacted yet?

Dr. Frank Drake first tried to quantify N, the number of intelligent civilizations, ETI, in our galaxy and on the scale of the universe itself, that might be capable of communication with us. The equation for this estimate is known widely as the Drake Equation. It combines eight increasingly narrow factors of estimation beginning with estimating the number of stars in the galaxy and the number planets orbiting stars beyond our own sun.

The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet occurred in 1992. As of April 2019, there are over four thousand confirmed planets in just over three thousand star systems.[⁵] How many of those planets could support life? Roughly one-fifth of stars have planets in the habitable zone of the star, where temperatures allow for liquid water and could support life as we know it. How many of those planets actually develop life and then go on to evolve intelligent life that sends signals of their existence into space? How long does that intelligent life exist before going extinct?

"Combining all these numbers conservatively produces estimates that give a total number less than one, meaning we are alone in the universe. More optimistic numbers can yield tens of millions of possibilities. Drake’s original estimates were between twenty at the low end, and one hundred million at the upper end."[⁶]

This is just the estimate for the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, ETI, in our galaxy. The most recent numbers estimate that there are over a trillion galaxies in the universe. Our own Milky Way galaxy has over three hundred billion stars. The number of stars in the universe is an inconceivably large number. By applying the new exoplanet data to the universe's 2 x 1022 stars, we find that human civilization is likely to be unique in the cosmos only if the odds of a civilization developing on a given habitable planet are exceedingly small, less than about one in ten billion trillion.[⁷]

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence, SETI, has been active since the founding of the SETI Institute in the 1960s by Carl Sagan and Frank Drake. So far, the result has been disappointing though there have been a few fleeting detections of signals of interest that alas did not repeat or could not be confirmed.

The Fermi Paradox is named after the physicist Enrico Fermi. It refers to the apparent contradiction between the optimistic high probability estimates of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and current lack of evidence for them. Are the super-conservative estimates that we are alone in the universe correct?

The Explorers

What will the explorers in The Shiva Encounter find and what will it mean for humanity’s future in The Second World Series? Shiva, a hundred-kilometer-wide dwarf planet, has been knocked out of the Kuiper Belt beyond Pluto and is headed toward the inner solar system. Astrophysicists estimate a one-in-fifty chance it will collide with Earth in 2079. Humanity cannot afford to gamble with extinction. We must make a second home for humanity.

Refer to Dramatis Personae for a full roster of players in the growing population on Mars. Now on to reintroducing our deep space explorers and colonists of Mars. The veteran explorers of the Aquila Mission—Coby Brewster, Ellie Accardi, Vik Ivanov, and Abby Denton—are chosen to lead the colony crew of twenty-one people, including their families, to Mars to prepare for the arrival of Colossus-class colony fleets in Arcadia Mars.

Coby is a natural leader with strong chiseled features. He commanded the Aquila Mission and became the first governor of the Mars Arcadia Colony. His hair is graying now and he’s past his prime. Ellie Accardi is Coby’s wife and dedicated astrogeologist.

Ellie, once with the red haired look of Botticelli’s Venus de Milo, has aged gracefully. She made the first discovery of fossil extraterrestrial life on asteroid Bennu and later found primitive living layers of slimy life forms on Mars. Never underestimate her strength of character.

Vik Ivanov, affectionately called the big Russian spaceman by his wife, Abby, had racked up more hours in space than any human before the Aquila Mission. He is a fix anything engineer and able spaceship pilot. He assumed the role of second colonial governor of Arcadia Colony.

Vik’s wife, Abby Denton, has long served the Aquila crew and now tends the growing number of Arcadia colonists as flight surgeon, doctor, and obstetrician. She never shirks from a disaster and has saved Coby and Vik from the brink of death on more than one occasion.

The families of Coby, Ellie, Vik, and Abby are becoming core leaders of the Arcadia colony. Sofi Brewster is the daughter of Coby and Ellie and Alex Ivanov is the son of Vik and Abby. The two were conceived on the Aquila Mission and were known as the space twins. Their personalities and shared thoughts are inseparable. They’re extremely tall, intelligent, clairvoyant, and hold multiple PhDs in engineering and astronomy. Sofi and Alex were married on Mars at age eighteen and now begin their legacy on Mars.

Oleg Ivanov is Vik’s son from his first marriage. Oleg is a ‘chip off the old block’ as a pilot and aerospace engineer. His leadership skills are waxing as he leads the first interplanetary trade mission to the nascent Ceres colony. Olga Sadoski is Oleg’s wife. She is equally skilled as a pilot and engineer at Oleg’s side in adventures and mishaps. Their daughter, Oksana, was the first human born on Mars.

Jacob Petrov is Coby’s son with Russian astronaut Elena Petrov. Jacob and Elena are elite members of the first twenty one Martian colonists. Jacob is intelligent and handsome. He’s an engineer and Ellie’s protégé as an astrogeologist.

Governor Paula Jennings led the second Mars colony mission of Arcadia Beta. She succeeds Vik as colonial governor. She’s accompanied to Mars by her husband Sam and astrophysicist daughter Tracy Jennings. Jacob and Tracy become romantically involved, marry, and now have a son named Filip. We’ll see Jacob’s leadership abilities evolve as he follows in his father’s footsteps.

By 2044, there are nearly five hundred colonists on Mars with the goal of making humanity’s second home self-sustaining. More colony increments from many nations arrive from Earth in launch windows every twenty six months. The legacy of the Aquila Mission’s leaders lives on.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PREFACE

PROLOGUE

History of Mars Colonization and Shiva’s Threat

CHAPTER 1 Earth 2044

New York

Kennedy Space Center

Houston

Los Angeles

CHAPTER 2 Arcadia 2044

CHAPTER 3 The Vishnu Impact

CHAPTER 4 Diaoyu and Huangyan

CHAPTER 5 Transport 3

CHAPTER 6 The Ceres Mission

CHAPTER 7 The Comet

CHAPTER 8 Ceres Outpost

EPILOGUE

APPENDIX Primer on Earth’s Climate Change

GLOSSARY of TERMS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

NOTES

Preface

Thanks for reading The Shiva Encounter, the third book of the Second World Series. I hope you’ve enjoyed The Aquila Mission and Arcadia Mars, the first and second books of the series. I’ve written each book so that it could be read as a stand-alone, but you’ll find the story to be more satisfying and complete by reading the series in order.

The main characters from Aquila, Coby, Ellie, Vik, and Abby, lead the first colony on Mars in the desperate bid to make a second home for humanity. Close family members accompany them. In the Arcadia epilogue set in the year 2035, we get acquainted with other characters on the first Mars colony at Arcadia Planitia. The AI entities CASSI and CAMI that made the achievements of Aquila possible are even more capable in Arcadia where we see humans accompanied by true androids.

After Aquila, there is desperation to restart civilization off-world. This stems from the fact that the Earth has a one-in-fifty chance of being destroyed by a newly discovered interloper from the Kuiper belt, dubbed Shiva- the Destroyer. The multi-national effort inevitably involves deep questions and conflict. How do we travel across the face of Mars to make new discoveries? How do we begin to govern a new civilization? How do we deal with the worst crimes a human can commit?

In Arcadia Mars, we dealt with the issues of deadly solar and cosmic radiation. Protection from radiation is a paramount concern, but exposure to some radiation is unavoidable. We expect gene mutation and an increased number of birth defects, perhaps some are advantageous, but most birth defects bring dire consequences. The offspring of the Aquila crew, Sofi and Alex, were the first humans conceived in space. They are endowed with a positive mutation giving them some level of telepathy and clairvoyance. They marry at age eighteen in 2042 and are destined to be future leaders on Mars and beyond. My hopes are with them!

Writing the Second World Series for me has been like reading a good sci-fi book but based on the very real history of Apollo and construction of ISS. The technical parts need telling to put solid technical legs on the mission ideas that I believe describes how we’ll put a crew on Mars. My Arcadia readers asked for a sequel, so Arcadia Mars came to life. The Epilogue of Arcadia begs for more of the story to be told in a third book. I feel like I know the crew and the colonists-- like I’ve been living on Mars.

Sometimes I ask myself where I got the spark for my passion for science, space, and astronomy. The answer I come away with is that for me, this drive is innate. It did not come from a mentor or teacher in my early life, although I believe that this kind of inspiration is vital. It drives and enables the professionals in today’s space industry that will send humans to Mars in the near future.

As a four year old in 1959, I set out from home to touch the sky. This was pure innate curiosity to go beyond my backyard and explore. I can remember being mesmerized not only by the sky at the horizon but also by the mirages of water on the road ahead. We were free range kids. My parents sent my older sister Karen and brother Greg on a rescue mission to find me and bring me home. Other memories tell me that I was different from other kids. While I was playing kick-the-can at age eight with a bunch of kids in the neighborhood, there was a beautiful sunset with dissipating crimson storm clouds. As I gawked in awe, no one else cared.

I offer no apologies. I’ve always been a geek. The night sky, the stars, the phases of the Moon feed me. In 1965, Mercury and Gemini are real. Apollo is the stretch goal--a dream, just out of reach. Today it’s Mars...

December 7, 2018- While writing The Shiva Encounter, I had a real astronomical event rock my writing world. Mars and Neptune had a rare close conjunction from Earth’s vantage point where I saw them both in the same field of view of my telescope. For perspective, Mars is salmon red, five months past opposition and receding from Earth at 1 AU (150 million km) distance. The InSight probe has just landed successfully and sent back the first recording of Mars’ wind from its seismometer. Neptune is a distinctive sky blue color and orbiting at the edge of the solar system at 30 AU distance. While looking at this beautiful pair of planets I’m imagining Shiva lurking at 49 AU, its distance from Earth at its fictional discovery in 2027. These things feed my passion to continue the Second World Series.

The Mars Arcadia Colony is growing! For reference, I’ve added a History of Mars Colonization and Shiva’s Threat in the Prologue. I constructed a Dramatis Personae list to help me get to know the new characters. I encourage readers to find that list and a Glossary of Terms following the Epilogue.

If you’re wondering why all of my writing uses Metric measurements, it’s the measuring system of science, it’s decimal, and a hundred times easier to use. In my fictional world, the USA abandoned Imperial measurements in 2023!

I would like to acknowledge the contributions by my wife Elizabeth. Her guidance on the UAE, LDS, and Indian colonies, interpersonal relationships, and ETI got me past some tough questions. I acknowledge that the seed concept of an ETI maneuvering an asteroid and aiming it at Earth was planted in my head by Ian Douglas, one of my favorite sci-fi authors, in his Earth Strike Volume 1 of the Star Carrier Series. The motives implied in The Shiva Encounter are far different however. I would also like to acknowledge my editors Adam Berry, Haley Cook-Simmons, Jeanie Ross, Matt Russell, Sam Siriano, and Susan Vella. Their careful attention to detail and acumen for a good sci-fi story helped improve the book.

I hope you enjoy The Shiva Encounter!

January 19, 2020

Doug Cook

Colorado Springs, CO

Prologue

Comets giveth and comets taketh away.

Carl Sagan, Comet, 1985

July 14, 2027- The Shiva KBO is discovered to be on a trajectory to possibly impact the Earth in 2079.

January 29, 2028

Planetary Defense Conference

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Livermore, California

No! It won’t work! It can’t be done! exclaimed ESA Chief Astrogeologist Lennart Werich.

Exploding the biggest nuke we have one hundred meters from a one hundred kilometer KBO would be like trying to move Mount Everest by having your four year old child blow on it. Most of the impulse farts away into empty space. We’ve done the calculations. At best, a near surface detonation will impart less than five percent of the nudge we need to save Earth even at the distance beyond Neptune.

The surface composition, added ESA’s Dylan Reid, has some effect for vaporizing the object’s surface to impart some additional lateral impulse to the nudge. Vaporizing nitrogen ice from the surface could be particularly effective but it will still be far, far short of the shove needed to do the job.

Dr. Daniele Lorenzo was appointed as the Chairman of the Planetary Defense Conference by the International Space Coalition. "Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been assigned the task of finding the solution to saving Earth and all of humanity from the possibility of impact from Shiva. An answer of ‘It can’t be done’ is unacceptable and unthinkable. We need to work this harder. We have over fifty of the brightest minds on Earth in this room."

Rogozin Zakharovich of Roscosmos responded. "Thank you for that last comment. I accept the compliment! We are part of the Coalition Space Force which is dedicated to protecting space assets with only conventional and laser based weapons. This case is different and calls for extreme measures. Our CSF team worked with the assumption that the combined resources of Russia and America can assemble a ten gigaton thermonuclear device to deliver to Shiva. Instead of detonating above the surface, we’ve modeled making the ‘mother of all bunker buster bombs’. A super hardened, super massive warhead traveling at 28 km/s velocity relative to Shiva, can penetrate several kilometers into a nitrogen ice body while it drives the plutonium trigger to critical mass. With the penetration point on the side of the body where the impulse is needed, the full force of the detonation is imparted to the task. This gives the needed deflection