WI: Tunguska meteoroid explodes over city?

Goldwater64

Banned
In 1908, an explosion equal to around 10-15mt (About as powerful as the strongest H-bomb detonated by the U.S.) occurred in Siberia, obliterating forests within an 830 mile radius. The most common theory as to the cause is that a large meteoroid or comet exploded about 3-6 miles above the ground.

What would happen if somehow the trajectory of the object had been slightly different, and it had annihilated a city or a large town, say in western Russia, or central Asia?
 

The Sandman

Banned
IIRC, Tunguska and St. Petersburg are on about the same latitude, so assuming that the meteoroid arrives a few hours later the Russians are looking at a burning, flooding patch of rubble where their capital used to be.

This may be of some consequence.
 
The Tunguska meteorite coming down on a city rather than Siberia is a fairly popular idea that keeps cropping up evey so often. From what I can remember the perenial favourite possible targets are St. Petersburg, Berlin, London, but surprisingly hardly ever Paris.
 
I can only speculate that given the general lack of knowledge of the time, remember we are talking about the early 1900's here, that there could very well be people or a group of people who see it as some kind of divine sign, maybe a dooms-day group or something uses it as a 'sign from the heavens' to launch a revolt or revolution. If indeed it hits St.Petersburg well, bye bye Romanavs basically, provided they're there and not elsewhere in Russia at the time. Still would be a tough row to hoe either way.
 

Hoist40

Banned
Wouldn't it also cause an increase in spending on astronomy and space travel. The destruction of an entire city would be a warning that it could happen anywhere and anytime so governments would be more likely to spend money on space. It would not just be an academic thing but something with practical use.
 
Hitting a capital city dead-on is almost certain to be taken as a sign of Divine Judgment back in the early 1900s. Hell, it probably STILL would be, given its improbability.
 
What about something less extreme--say it hits the city of Irkutsk, not too far away? It seems like that should draw some attention without causing political chaos...
 
Science and religion get at eachothers throats much earlier, and in a much more intense way. The remaining world will be left baffled/horrified, and while the religious will call it God's judgement against whichever decadent race has the misfortune of being hit, scientists will desperately attempt to understand where this came from, and what it was.

Maybe, just maybe, the nations of the world stop glowering at eachother with guns and artillery and start looking fearfully at the sky instead. I don't knwo whether you can have a space race without the wartime technology to back it, but an earlier focus on the science of outer space would surely reap technological dividends in itself.
 
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