Well, this is more chit-chat than anything. A few years back I had a story come out in Asimov’s Science Fiction titled “Chasing ‘Oumuamua”, about a struggling scientist figuring out how to follow a high-speed interstellar visitor through the solar system.
‘Oumuamua was a probable asteroid that visited us in 2017, sprinting through and zipping back to interstellar space. See Wikipedia.
Now, naturally taking the lead from my story, there are plans afoot to, actually, chase ‘Oumuamua. See this article at Earthsky.org. Or this one at NASA, which is actually titled “Chasing ‘Oumuamua”. Holy smokes. NASA!
Whoops, that NASA article is dated June 2018 and my story came out in January 2019. Of course, with the lead times for magazine, the story had been accepted in January 2018. Six months before. Take that NASA!
No. Retract that. I love NASA.
Now, much as my ego would like to suggest that idea was mine alone, all I really did was channel wishful thinking and follow where the science might take us.
“Chasing ‘Oumuamua” is still available, both through the single copy of that issue of Asimov’s on Amazon, but also also in a little collection of my own, together with the stories “Plunge” (a personal favorite), “Abandoned Theme Parks of Ulplotzka”, Life-Span” and “L-Own”. ebook $3.99, print $9.99. Available through this link.
