Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 77: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

VENUS OF TROY 75 been torn from the earth in past millennia by such a planetary fission when a still denser inner core exploded. Could such a violent fate befall our earth? Will we have to get up on our spaceships and gallop off in all direc- tions to escape such a world-shattering and scattering blast? Well—it would seem not, since old Terra is a good twenty-five per cent above the cal- culated critical mass. However the critical mass, calculated to be about “6 +t 0.80 the mass of the earth, is not too far removed from the mass of Venus, which is 0.817 that of Earth. In all of the pressure studies thus far made, the phase transitions are functions of both the total pressure and the tem- perature. A not unreasonable change in temperature, say by the gradual buildup of heat from radioactivity, or perhaps an increase in the output of neutrinos from the sun, could put Venus into the critical region. 4 IN TIMES TO COME EXT month Tom Godwin has the cover story ‘““The Gulf Between.” The cover is by a new artist—Kelly Freas. It is in a new style. I think Freas has done a remarkable job of putting over the concept behind Godwin’s story. Godwin’s story discusses Man versus Robot from a quite new angle. That there is a gulf between is obvious, but what is the nature of that gulf? What's the inherent difference between the kind of thinking the robot does and the kind a living entity, even a dog, does? It looks as though Godwin has presented an excellent case for his answer as well as a bang-up story! Also coming up in the somewhat more distant future are a number of highly interesting items that I can’t schedule definitely as yet. The Chalk River Nuclear Pile had an accident—the first nuclear pile to go out of control. The problems that arise when radiation gets loose are con- siderable. Wallace West has an article coming up on how you clean up after someone has dropped a hot pile. It’s not fun. | [[SAWZ77) THE EDITor. comilcloooks.c©