Love the story and the series.
Had a thought I've been working on in my head for years since I heard of the Yellowstone super volcano caldera, and that we're overdue for another eruption.
What if you could build a cylinder around the park or even just the caldera to funnel the explosions up into space. The space station is at 220 miles in orbit so if it could go 300-500 miles it would clear that and possibly head into space or get sucked towards the sun by solar gravity.
The idea for this series is, could they manage to turn the dome into a cylinder, or even slightly conical [larger size down] to funnel it better. I realize that just one wouldn't work probably but if you set up 5-10 of them outside the first one maybe at 2-5 mile intervals as redundant back up and reinforcements it might work. And since this is a world with AIs and such have the 'dome' on automatic for when the SV starts erupting, because at the first signs of it starting the nearest 500-1000 miles will probably be evacuated to be on the safe side.
The 'dome' [or cone] could be the size of the caldera or the size of the park itself and maybe 50 miles further just in case. Because if it goes, Jackson Hole and most of Wyoming are going to be gone, if not Denver and Salt Lake City too.
Additionally another dome after the eruption is over a few weeks to months later could contain most of the ash cloud and keep the planet from a nuculear [sp] winter if it didn't all go into space, because gravity might keep some from escape volocity [maybe 1/3 to 1/2 by what I guestamate]
They'd probably want to 'biologically harvest' samples from the area, [ieg bison, wolves, deer, elk, moose, bears, plants and birds etc] so they're not lost. Maybe an emergency dome over Mt. Rushmore so it's not lost also ; )
Love the story, don't want to wait for more [so write faster darn it : ) ]
Thank you
Debra Baschal
dbascha@hotmail.com
