Review by E.C.McMullen Jr.
FIGHT CENSORSHIP SUPPORT CBLDF ALIEN: THE ILLUSTRATED STORY - !!!SCIENCE MOMENT!!!

SCIENCE MOMENTS
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ALIEN: THE ILLUSTRATED STORY - ALIEN: THE ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

ALIEN: THE ILLUSTRATED STORY

The beacon signal that "Mother" picked up comes from a single planetoid. Lambert describes it as 1200 meters in diameter to which Captain Dallas replies "Tiny".

Tiny? Hoo boy, is it ever!

1200 meters in diameter means the planetoid, as a sphere, is just nearly 4 kilometers in circumference, or just under 2 and a half miles. You could stroll around the planet at its equator in less than an hour.

And yet, the gravity of the planetoid is .86. Not only stronger than our far larger moon, but stronger than Mars. Nearly as strong as earth or Venus.

Was Archie Goodwin implying that the planetoid was fantastically dense? Because it also has a powerful stormy atmosphere. A planetoid 1200 meters in diameter has a dense atmosphere 40,000 meters thick, down to the surface.

All that and yet, compared to the most famous planetoid in our solar system, Pluto (which is smaller than our moon) you could make a line of the ALIEN planetoids, end to end, and it would take 1,975 of them to equal the diameter of Pluto - which is too small to have a gravity that can hold an atmosphere (it may excrete an atmosphere due to tectonics - like our moon - but its gravity is too small to hold onto one), let alone a stormy one.

It would take just over 60 of the planetoids, set end to end, to traverse the widest length of the state of Rhode Island. Rhode Island really could beat the crap out of it in a war!

A few pages later, once their spaceship Nostromo makes a hard landing on the planetoid, Science Officer Ash tells them that the source of the unknown transmission is about 3000 meters Northeast.

Rounding up, the planetoid is only about 3770 meters in circumference. Which means instead of walking 3000 meters Northeast, why not just walk about 770 meters Southwest? You know, in the opposite direction? About the length of 7 regulation soccer fields laid end to end?

Save yourself some time and oxygen!

Yer gonna need that oxygen!

ALIEN: THE ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

In Dan O'Bannon's original screenplay, the diameter of the planetoid Mother discovered was 120 kilometers. Not the 1200 meter diameter in ALIEN: THE ILLUSTRATED STORY.

Why this is better -

This change from meters to kilometers makes the circumference of the planetoid 377 kilometers (234.25 miles), not meters. Still smaller than Pluto, but at least larger than Rhode Island! This in turn makes the much greater (though still quite weak) gravity of the planetoid such that if you have to jump you won't fly off into orbit, or at least, a pulse-pounding parabolic arc.

Yet we come back to that atmosphere and gravity.

The planetoid is far too small to have much of an atmosphere, because its too small to have much gravity to hold it, let alone an atmosphere as powerfully stormy as depicted here1. Yet the gravity of the tiny planetoid is nearly equal to earth, and Captain Standard (becomes Captain Dallas in the movie), says that the atmospheric pressure is the equal of earth. It's only the atmosphere's chemical composition that is unbreathable, so no need for pressurized space suits, just masks.

1Mars has dust storms that can cover the entire planet, yet the atmosphere is so thin that the force wouldn't be enough to blow over a smartcar.

This review copyright 2022 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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