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Tilting at Asteroids

Posted by michael on from the f-equals-ma dept.

JimPooley writes "The European Space Agency are conducting a feasibility study into a future mission to knock an asteroid off course. A Spanish company are planning the 'Don Quixote' mission to launch a pair of spacecraft at an asteroid. One hits the asteroid, while the other monitors it to see what happens."

2 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This is worthwhile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Our nuclear missles won't even make it out of orbit. They aren't designed to go flying off into space to intercept a rock. We'd have to put warheads on entirely different rockets in order to do that.

  2. Re:Kicking it off course by a few mm takes 1000 ye by Mt._Honkey · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is only a test run. I imagine that if we were to actualy try to save the planet, we would hit it with a MUCH bigger satalite, moving MUCH faster. And paint it white. And maybe hit it with some nukes. Add it all up, and you'll get more than just that

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    Don't Bogart the fish sticks