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Defending Earth From Asteroids With MADMEN

Posted by simoniker on from the denial-of-armageddon dept.

jolomo writes "A partner of Atlanta-based NASA Institute of Advanced Concepts is working on a concept they call MADMEN (Modular Asteroid Deflection Mission Ejector Nodes), which would launch a distributed attack against large Earth-bound objects. Thousands of MADMEN could be built by many nations and when launched, each would land on the object, drill into its surface and remove enough material to change its course."

4 of 499 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmm, let's think about this for a sec. by StringBlade · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Thousands of MADMEN could be built by many nations and when launched, each would land on the object...

    How many nations have put rockets (with significant payloads) successfully into orbit? Right, I can count them on one hand too. So where do the other 995+ nations come in and what makes us think that any rouge nation that can lauch a rocket into space has the ability to aim it, much less land it on the surface of the asteriod?

    And finally, are we suggesting that we want thousands of nations to have the ability to launch rockets with payloads into outer space (or at least orbit)? I'm not being elitist here, but I think most of use agree that nuclear proliferation wasn't quite the boon we all thought it was going to be.

    --
    ...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
  2. Sagan by leehwtsohg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think that Carl Sagan made a very good point, saying that the chance of an astroid hitting earth is increased when one develops a technology to deflect astroids from their path, not decreased.

    1. Re:Sagan by mikeee · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because you may also be able to use it to aim an asteroid towards earth.

  3. Playing the odds by seniorcoder · · Score: 5, Insightful
    It seems that much time has been spent calculating the odds of a killer asteroid wiping out all life on Earth.
    Has any time been spent calculating the odds of a killer maniac (or group thereof) wiping out all life on Earth?

    As an rough estimate, with the Doomsday Clock as a reference, I humbly propose that the odds of a maniac killing us all are massively higher than the rogue asteroid issue.

    Maybe we should be putting available cash towards world peace as a slightly higher priority.