Tunguska, Steampunk, and Those Harvard Women

What would have happened if Harvard's women astronomers had discovered the comet that slammed into Russia in 1908?  It's a perfect story for a steampunk-science novel, with Jules Verne et al trying to save St. Petersburg, and Lenin plotting against them!  No need for magic, but bring your pith helmet and goggles.

Here's more from astronomer Norm Sperling, presenter of this FREE and fun skeptalk:

June 30, 1908.  Far to the east of the Ural Mountains, over the
Podkamennaya Tunguska River in central Siberia, an icy, rocky comet
slammed into Earth's atmosphere, exploded in the air, flattened a vast
forest, and triggered unusually colorful sunsets over much of the
world for many days.

No scientist visited Tunguska till World War I came and went, the Russian Revolutions ousted Tsar Nicholas II and then Kerensky and replaced them with Comrade Lenin, and the Red Army squelched the White Army.  In 1921 Dr. Leonid Kulik heard about the remarkable impact, and led scientific expeditions there from 1927 on.  In 1934, Ukrainian astronomer Igor Astapovich famously remarked (without the slightest trace of irony) that "If the Tunguska meteorite had fallen 4 hours 48 minutes later, then St. Petersburg would have found itself in the seat of its explosion, and the city would have been in ruins."  Drs. Kulik and Astapovich had been left no clue that any scientists had previous knowledge of the affair.

But they sure did, as astronomer Norm Sperling writes in his forthcoming alternate-history novel in the Steampunk genre, The League of Farsighted Astronomers.  The women "computers" of Harvard Observatory spotted the impactor in 1881, and calculated that it would hit St. Petersburg.  Marshalling scientific and political contacts, they organized a fantastic venture to divert it.  The story interweaves a 1700s maharajah's observatory in India, bicycles chasing a steam locomotive through Arizona Territory, a vast field of mirrors in Australia, world's fairs in Chicago and Paris, and giant ray guns in New Zealand.  The project was supported by Tsar Alexander III ... and therefore attacked by the young Lenin.  The team included Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Jules Verne, Mabel Loomis Todd, and Henri Poincare, plus many more scientists and engineers.

The astronomy is true to the way the solar system works, and true to the way astronomers work.  No magic was needed.

Steampunk fans will appreciate the roles played by Jules Verne, goggles, pith helmets, slide rules with personalities, and miniature, jauntily-tilted hats.  Steampunk attire and props will be especially welcome.

Presented as a public service by the Bay Area Skeptics.