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Stopping Killer Asteroids
Drog writes "Earth has had a few near misses with asteroids recently (although "near hits" would be more accurate). It's just a matter of time, though, before we detect one with our name on it. In this New York Times article, experts discuss the various ways that we might go about saving our planet. Remarkably, nuclear detonations are not a good option, as they would break the asteroid into many pieces and merely increase our odds of being hit. And a detonation some distance away may simply be absorbed by the asteroid with virtually no effect. Instead, say scientists who study asteroid hazards, a gentle sustained push is what's needed (slow and steady wins the race). Some of the approaches have been discussed in science fiction for years--a mass driver, an electromagnetic machine which hurls dirt from the surface, an orbiting parabolic mirror to heat up the surface and create a plume of vaporized material. All of these methods require one thing, however. Time. At least several decades warning."
I thought more pieces would have more surface area. More surface area would produce more friction traveling through the atmosphere. More friction would create more heat and thus be able to burn up asteroids that would otherwise not totally burn in the atmosphere.
Is my science wrong?
I was thinking, many of the options we have are merely theoretical. I'd like NASA to spend a few of my tax dollars actually *testing* out 2 or 3 of these ideas on a real asteroid to see if they really work.
For example, will a near nuclear blast really be absorved by the meteor without it changing its course? How much of a force will it be needed to push an asteroid with rockets or the like?
So let's test now so that when the real thing comes and we launch our savior to space, we don't find out in the last minute that it fails.
On a side note, this shouldn't be a NASA-only effort, I think the European Space Agency and many other countries should ship in as well, as this concerns all of mankind.
Haven't we run this topic completely into the ground? I vote we deal with this when it's actually an issue. This discussion reminds me of a bunch of 13 year old geeks sitting around the RPG table talking about what they're going to do if giant robots with photon torpedos take over the planet.
I don't mean to appear as flame bait.. but.. this topic has been discussed here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
There are some useful scenarios we could be discussing. This is approximately none of them.
-- People who hate Windows use Linux. People who love UNIX use BSD.
The earth made it this long, but the dinosaurs didn't, and neither did the trilobites, or the megatheria, or the wixwaxia... Extinctions happen, and I'd like to prevent ours if at all possible.
-aiabx
Just this guy, you know?
It's a hell of a lot simpler to send a robot probe, or even a manned spacecraft with a small crew, into space than it is to establish sustainable colonies on another world. Colonization is all well and good, but some of the options discussed in the NYTimes article are things we can either do now, or should be able to do within a few generations. Colonization, in addition to the logistic and technical diffulties involved, has social problems. If you want a self-sustaining colony capable of perpetuating the race, you need a large population, and you need it to be economically self-sufficient. That means you can't just send scientists - you need engineers, factory workers, politicians, even telemarketers - all the things that make a modern capitalist economy work. And the only way you get people who *aren't* explorers by nature to colonize is for things to be absolutely miserable for them at home, or truly grand in the New World. No matter how bad things get on Earth, it'll be quite a while before life in a pressure dome on another planet starts to even rival the quality of life one can enjoy on Earth, let alone surpass it. I repeat: You need more than just scientists and explorers for a colony large enough to perpetuate the human race if Earth gets snuffed.
I'm the stranger...posting to
The New York Times article is kind of silly. If we ever need to move a large chunk of rock out of the way is a (relatively) short time, there is only one way to do it with current or near-future technology: Project Orion style nuclear explosions.
You park your space ship against the rock, and set off small nuclear explosions against a plate mounted on the other side. The explosions are as small as you want, so the acceleration is as small as you want (to keep the rock from breaking up), but you can hold enough fuel (nuclear bombs) to make it last for quite some time.
The methods suggested in the article might work if far longer time frames are available (millenia). But this is the best bet if you have to move it out of the way a little quicker than that.
Uh Dude, I am NOT talking about nuclear bombs! Thats an entirely differnt thing. Nuclear Rockets are controlled reactions - where the thrust is highly focused and controlled. The exact opposite of a nuclear blast. A nuclear blast would obliterate the asteroid, a nuclear rocket would keep it entact and gently alter its trajectory.
Planet P - Liberationg Through Technology.
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I disagree with your assertion that a barrier to colonization is 'social' problems, or capitalist issues, or attitude. If you build a road to Mars, people will walk it. Even if the only people that ever left were living in absolute misery, you would garner an enormous number of people. The idea of shaping a new colony is not one that comes around every day, either.
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The attitude that "it doesn't benefit us now" is the same attitude that keeps people from buying insurance. One may never need insurance, but you can rest assured that if your house burns down, it is well worth it.
But extending that attitude to the existence of the human race, is obtuse to the point of being offensive. We have one chance, one single point of failure, one instance of probability defining the satisfaction of our continuation as a species. If we fail that dice roll, we all die. Forgive my presumption, but that warrants investigation. This dice does not have enough faces.
Your assumptions about large population, economical self sufficiency, and capitalism are not validated. Your assertion that people will not go is not qualified (it is evident from the colonization of the Americas that people desire to go into the unknown, as refected in the popularity of Star Trek and other similar exploration entertainment). If you don't want to go, that is ok. I assure you that other people may; it is not your place to belittle their opportunities. It may be your will to undermine the will of the continuation of the species through this means, but I suggest giving it more thought first.
You have not demonstrated that colonization is any less viable than the multi-generational solutions proposed by the NY Times, none of which solve the problem that Earth is a single point of failure.
For some reason, I am reminded of telephone sanitation workers
Let's stop trying to figure out solutions for possible scenarios, and start building a world that's actually worth saving.
If the world is not worth saving why don't you just kill yourself? Seriously, this is not a troll or flamebait. I really want to know the answer. Why not?
Sports heros are paid millions of dollars a year... each... and most teachers are living hand to mouth.
Why don't you stop comparing apples to oranges? Due to union contracts, some teachers are extremely overpaid compared to others who get screwed. Why don't you fix that problem first? Teachers teach our children that once High School is over, your life is going to suck. Work is going to suck. The only thing you'll have to look forward to after the prom and the homecoming football game is the weekend on the couch with a beer and sports on TV. Nobody teaches children that a job can be fun. You wonder why people choose to give their money to athletes instead of teachers? Please, spare me. This is not a wealth redistribution problem like you imply. It's a social engineering problem, and any solution will take generations to work. If you treat it as some moral injustice you'll just perpetuate the cycle or move the problem elsewhere.
Doctors are taught never to identify with the person behind the disease they're treating.
I fail to see how this is bad. Would the world be a better place if all of our doctors were clinically depressed and in institutions after a few years of service? Due to human nature our society depends on objectivity to survive. Sometimes you have to make hard decisions. Sometimes an individual has to be sacraficed for the good of the many. Sometimes you just can't save sombody. It sucks, but that's life. You have to distance yourself at a personal level from the reality if you want to maintain your sanity and continue to make good decisions.
Racism is rampant, keeping certain people from getting ahead just because of where their family comes from. In Ireland, people are killed over how to worship the same god.
Hard work can solve this problem? I doubt it. We've worked at it hard for centuries. These problems will not go away until people are willing to throw away their culture. Ironically, the same people who are interested in seeing problems like this solved are the same types of people who go out of their way to preserve cultures that are dying. Racial and religious barriers that have been overcome have been overcome at the expense of the culture of both sides. I think it's a great tradeoff, but do you? Does everybody?
In China, female children are thrown in the river because of a phallocentric ideology.
Here's another one where you have to make a choice between forgetting a culture to save lives, or preserving our history. No, you can't do both. Does the answer seem so obvious anymore? How many lives would be lost to get people who are so bound to cultural expectations that they would drown their own child to abandon that culture?
Now that I've been antagonizing you, here's the real point. Even with all those problems, do we still need to give up on stopping big rocks from killing us? Aren't there enough people on this planet such that plenty of people can work on all the problems? Can we a s a society persue multiple goals at the same time? If not, why not tackle the problems we know we can find an answer to (moving big rocks) while we're still coming to terms with the realities of the problems that don't have answers everybody will agree with (see above).