Mining Asteroids@Home

An anonymous reader writes "Like the lively discussion on mediation strategies for exterminating asteroids, a six-person expert panel is debating today whether humans exist because of big collisions or in spite of them. Interestingly Mexico's oil (and most of the rest of the world's resources) seem to have arisen from later mining of these byproducts: the luck of geography or the price at the pump for dead dinosaurs."

Comments

Has been cancelled

[QEDog]

The discussion has been cancelled after a meteor crashed into the 6 panelists hotel...

Lets not rock the boat

[EMiniShark]

Regardless of whether we exist because of asteroid collisions, I'd rather not give space the chance to reinvent the planet again :)

At home ? They'll sue you know..

[MosesJones]

I can just see the adverts now

"Did you read an article that encouraged you to mine asteroids in your own home? Did you drag an asteroid out of orbit, or drive to a place in order to catch one, did this vapourise you, your loved ones and most of the state ? Here a Sue, Grabbit and Runne Associates we specialise in extra orbital and terrestrial accidents. Last year we helped Bob who strapped himself to 10,000 fireworks to get into space, Bob sadly died but were helped his widow sue Nasa for 100,000,000 dollars. Phone us now and we'll help you get over your stupidity"

(quick voice over)
"ActualAmountMayNotBeAsAdvertisedHereLevelO fClaimI sNotIndicativeOfAwardChargesApplyAndWeOnlyAcceptSt upidPeopleWhoDon'tReadInvoices"

Your just building yourself a litigation hell Slashdot.

Big collisions exist because of humans

[leonbrooks]

Stands to reason - we destroy practically everything else, it must be the Universe's way of protecting itself against us.

Great Impact Debate I: Benefits of Hard Bodies

[mikeophile]

For a minute, I thought this would be pr0n.

Humans Would Never Have Survived Without Asteroids

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Asteroids, without a doubt, helped our species survive. What else would have filled the immense void in the arcade hall in the years between Pong and Pac-Man?

Regardless...

[AndroidCat]

Regardless if asteroid impacts helped or hindered life on Earth (no so good for the dinosaurs, good for our proto-mice ancestors) I don't think that an asteroid impact would be a good thing today, thank you. Any future life forms that would be helped by an impact can kiss my grits.

Bruce Rules

[sbillard]

strategies for exterminating asteroids

Just send up Bruce Willis, Steve Bushemi, and, Ben Afleck. Billy-Bob will coordinate the whole she-bang from the ground.
Good luck and God speed gentlemen

Re:Bruce Rules

[Niadh]

Just send up Bruce Willis, Steve Bushemi, and, Ben Afleck. Billy-Bob will coordinate the whole she-bang from the ground.
Good luck and God speed gentlemen

I'll vote for launching Bruce Willis, Steve Bushemi, and, Ben Afleck into space anyways.

And I thought it was a new client...

[nairnr]

I was all excited, I was going to work on a new project Seti@home, meet Asteroid@home...

Bah!

[Rayonic]

I've been mining asteroids at home for the past twenty years! How is this "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"?

Wait... hemmaroids are the ones in space, right?

Bush Administration

[sterno]

At the conference, the Bush Administration is expected to seek support for a pre-emptive strike against the Universe. Administration sources were quoted as saying, "The Universe has a long history of unpredictable agression and deterrance of its threats is simply not an option." Donald Rumsfeld went on to state that the US military strategy would bring about a swift and clean victory over the Universe.

Make Material Fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

Take five minutes to read this and it WILL change your life!

All you have to do is send an asteroid to the planet at the top of the list. Then remove that planet from the list, move the rest up one space and add your planet to the bottom of the list. Pass this list around by radio transmissions to other solar systems. Eventually your planet will reach the top of the list, and you'll have more asteroids than you know what to do with!

This really works. It is NOT a SCAM!

Mining asteroids@home

[Anonymous Coward]

Could this be a distributed computing project that combines dig dug, searching for alien intelligence, AND lets me pilot a vector-based shooting triangle through an asteroid field?!?!

Where do I sign up?

Praise to the dinosaurs.

[kkkalen]

Since some of us figure we owe our petroleum resources to dead dinosaurs, it stands to reason that the next form of life on this one-day-to-be-post-apocolyptic planet will filling their gas tanks with dead humans.

Whether humans exist because of collisions

[willpost]

Most Definitely.. Collisions of men and women produce people all the time.

The A.T.A.R.I. Asteriod Extermination System

[ShinmaWa]

Many years ago -- I exterminated thousands of asteroids at home using the Asteroid Targetting And Removal Instrument 2600.

Re:Billions of factors...

[Turbyne]

I have a friend from Boston that helped me on a Lorenz Equations assignment. Towards the end of the assignment, there was a question asking what we had learned from the lorenz equation. He wrote the following:

The Lorenz Equations show that a small change at the beginning _CAN_ drastically alter the ending, just like the title of the assignment. Basically Lorenz showed that weather is random. What I don't understand, however, is why it took a tenured mathematician at a prestigious university to figure this out when all that is needed is a New Englander!

The professor, a native Masshole, gave him full credit on the problem.