Too Close for Comfort?

What's the cost of not investing?

It shouldn't be very expensive. Aren't our nuclear missiles programmable?

Seems like if we can get one half way around the planet, straightening the trajectory to get it into space should be a snap.

No.

Most of the propellent is used up in the boost stage and the descent is primarily unpowered.

Also, the boos stage only takes the vehicle to the edge of space and not into orbit.

Getting to LEO (low earth orbit) is significantly more involved. Getting a vehicle to escape velocity is even more involved.

Something like an Atlas V booster is required to go beyond the bounds of Earth.

However, we have very little experience (none) with what to do with an incoming rock. We may have a lot of choices, but actually performing what we intend to do is totally untried.

The last thing we want to do is assume that we have a solution (that is untested) and find out it doesn't work when we need it.

Oh well. At the moment, I think we have more earthly problems to work on anyway.

I did see something very cool last weekend.

My wife and I were sitting on the front porch, and she said, 'Look, a shooting star'.

I looked up, and I don't know if it was a piece of space junk or a rock, but it moved across the entire sky with a red/orange flame trail behind it, and disappeared behind the horizon to the west. It was definitely entering or in our atmosphere. Anyway, it was one of the most awesome sights I've seen in the night sky.

yeah they look awesome . used to love sleeping under the stars on a farm when i was a kid

the shooting stars that change direction and move in a circle are more intriguing though

"avoidance strategies" hmmmm. Wouldn't it be a little expensive to try to move the earth out of the way:) Sorry, I just couldn't help myself.

Sounds like a job for those that want to move heaven and earth.

Wait, is moving earth classified as a shovel-ready job?

Who was it that wanted to demolish Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass (Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy)? Hmmmm......

The trick, as I see it, is to locate an object at a far enough distance that altering it's trajectory is not so labor intensive...This, coupled with a high powered laser to zap it, should work well...Plus we could vaporize space junk for target practice...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lasertests.jpg

Wouldn't the slow push on the meteorite also affect the Earth's orbit if the laser is land based?

If it is space bound, we would have to counteract with some trust.

But the beauty of the laser is that it gets there at the speed of light and give us enough time to see if it works.

Maybe moon based....

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/25/life-imitates-art-moon-to-be-equipped-with-frickin-lasers/

If we are unsuccessful at moving it out of earth's trajectory, we could "just" move the moon in its path and use it as a shield. It might reduce the severity of the aftermath. We can worry about tides later on.

We could also try to amass multiple shields made from smaller debris (asteroids) that we would fly in its path to incrementally move it away from us. We just want to move it away without breaking it apart and be stuck with two or three planet killers...

If we lose the moon, I am sure that it would be catastophic for the earth. Not a lot of difference between the rock hitting the Earth or the Moon - just really bad news for us all.....

The Moon is the Earth's "Balance weight" and its loss or damage could send the earth out of its orbit, or cause them both to collide or whatever....

Do remember that the Moon doesn't even have an atmosphere to at least partially protect it......by the looks of its surface, it has been hit many times, maybe working as an Earth "Vacuum cleaner", but one of the seriously large ones may still be too much....

Insofar that I agree that when there is no other choice, get it to hit the moon....but don't expect it to be a lot better than hitting the Earth.....

The moon is probably big enough to take a planet killer hit and survive with a big scar. I don't see how we would loose the moon. Its orbit could be affected which would have some effect on earth.

Or coarse, there could be problems with debris but unlikely to be worst than a direct hit on earth.

there will be software that could run and plot the outcome of a range of variables as far as impacts on the moon , and the affect that would have on earth

changes in gravitation equilibrium

tides

earthquake trigger

influence on the seasons ( megalithic changes to crops and other food sources )

and how do we know if the moons rotation would speed up or slow , if it slowed the moon could come closer to earth , we would have to run around printing new calendars with 23 days in a month instead of 29.5 , or touch the earth even and change the earths rotational speed.

If earth slowed then gravity increases and we would need leg muscles like the terminator and spinal supports to stop our spine snapping.... or earth speeds up and everything on earths surface flies out into orbit . (also affecting pole orientation of earth as well )

imagine if earths rotational speed slowed and the working days were 35 hours long . stuff that ... i would be taking a 3 hour lunch .

.....lets hope so!!!

It will probably be a last resort thing anyway........

Agree...

If anyone is interested in further reading about this subject, start by looking here:-

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/07/close-call-asteroid-near-miss-for-earth-yesterday/

Absolutely it's worth the investment. The problem I see is getting the World's nations to sit down and come up with a program and eventually fund it. Unfortunately, they can't even agree on the simplest of things in the UN, let alone come up with a development program to deflect an Earth-crushing asteroid or an effective search and tracking platform.

Another thing, shooting nuclear-tipped ICBMs at an asteroid will most likely fail because the blast effects of Thermonuclear weapons is highly dependent on having an atmosphere.......therefore they will have very little effect on a huge asteroid or comet in the vacuum of space.

It would be more advantageous to deflect an asteroid by other means far far away from Earth.......

The trick to solving this is early detection. We have already chased comets and actually crashed into an asteroid so we have all the technology needed.

Locate the problem. Launch a craft to rendezvous with it. Then position the craft just off to one side of the incoming asteroid. If we have done this early enough the gravity of the spacecraft will change to asteroids course enough to miss us. You only have to change trajectory by a fraction of a degree if the thing is still months away.

launch hundreds of lumps of play doh into orbit around the earth ( weighing few hundred kg each )

when an asteroid is found approaching earth combine them into one big lump and direct them to impact with the asteroid with some unmanned booster rockets.

deflect the asteroids trajectory without smashing it in to pieces so that its new trajectory can be predicted and altered .

lol

the upside is it will give alien kids something to play with out in space.

and you dont smash the asteroid into hundreds of small pieces which dont have a predictable trajectory.

sigh...... sorry i was bored.

We could pick up some space junk or rocks along the way to bring more mass to the meteorite. There is a good use for those old satellites. They already have control systems. Just refill them, add a boost engine, et voila! A new meteorite displacer ready for action.

We could get Bruce Willis and Forrest Gump er ah Tom Hanks to fly a space ship to the asteroid and blow it up with an atomic bomb. I wonder if the universe would require an environmental impact study? There truely has to be some impact to the universe to change the state of an astroid as well as the effects of the bomb.

If we ignore this, we can go out not with a whimper, but a bang. Total waste land.

--TSE'