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Defending Earth From Asteroids With MADMEN
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."
Obviously a project named after the inventors.
Who read that as Defending the Earth From MADMEN with Asteroids?
So... like... a DDOS against a chunk of rock? ... heh. Imagine a Beo... nevermind.
Why, oh why, do they keep coming up with these silly "destory or deflect the asteroid" schemes? Such "inside the box" thinking.
When is someone going to focus on the important alternative: how about moving Earth out of the way instead?
John.
I can see it now
Russia: We pushed left, why didn't it change course?
USA: Why didn't you check first? we pushed right!
Only in Atlanta would an idea like, "Shoot it a bunch of times and see if it goes away" would such a solution be born.
Magic Eight Ball: Outlook not so good., Hmmm, how about Excel and Word?
I can see it now: "Yes, we're about to launch a large number of missiles armed with powerful explosives. All nuclear powers please remain calm. This is only a test. No, really, none of these will malfunction and visit death and destruction on somebody we're having a disagreement with. Honest."
Will the MADMEN be good enough to stop say.... The moon gets hit by an asteroid knocking it off course and towards the earth.
So, maybe I played too much pool as a kid.
Evolution or ID?
In fact, a good sized asteriod could clear up a lot of this country's problems in a snap!
Look out congresswhores! Mama needs a new box a' cooties, and she is mad!
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.
Why not use an Illudium Q36 Explosive Space Modulator?
Are you Corn Fed?
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.
Asteroid (meteor?) strikes are more common than you'ld think; just in 1908 what was probably a comet struck Siberia with the force of a good-sized atom bomb and leveled 1200 square miles of forest. Had an inhabited area been struck, destruction would have been massive.
Our best estimates seem to be this this is likely to happen every few hundred years; given that such an event might kill millions, it seems worth a minimal effort to take out a bit of insurance, and at least as sensible as banning GMOs.
Actually you can do a similar experiment in a boat with a gun. If you shoot out the back of the boat enough times, the boat will move slightly forward. Shooting forward will make it move backward a little. If you shoot up in the air, the boat will move downward slightly before springing back from boyancy.
Once strange thing I've never been able to figure out though, is why shooting downward also makes the boat move downward?!
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
MADMEN diverts a disaster by knocking an asteroid off course.
2 years later, Aliens invade because we "attacked" their home planet with an asteroid.
That's a way to initiate first contact!
Honestly, I'd rather be incenerated by an asteroid collision than be dissected by thousands of Alien Hordes angry because we threw rocks at them.
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.
Dude, when someone tells you to load 300 pounds of rocks into a boat and take it out on the lake he isn't trying to teach you something. He's trying trick you into spending a day moving 300 pounds of rocks and sinking your boat.
I can't believe people would be as short sighted as to say 'the chances are so slim' blah blah blah.
If you had RTFA, they address those odds pretty well. The odds of getting another Tunguska sized impact are roughly 1 per 1000 years. That's an *average* people. To break it down, it could theoretically happen tomorrow. Further, if you had RTFA, you would note that an object of roughly the same size as the estimated Tunguska object (150 meters across) which was first discovered this year just passed within 3.8 million miles of our planet. That's roughly 16 times (two bytes) the distance from us to the moon....or pretty damn close.
These are ideas. If they sit around and come up with 1000 bad ideas for every good one, I still don't care. That one good idea might save my ass...or my family's collective ass.
There's always people who won't believe it can happen to them, though. Look at all the folks who insisted that, because of the SF quake in 1906, that they would be safe 'for their lifetime' since it couldn't happen again. Whoops. Tell that to the folks smashed in their cars when the elevated roadway collapsed. Or, 'Well, we know Mt. St. Helens is a Volcano, but it hasn't erupted since we've been keeping track...so it'll be safe as long as I'm alive.' Tell that to those folks who chose to stay and whose bodies will never be found underneath 100's of feet of mud.
Hell, the odds of being struck by lightning are VERY slim...but plenty of research goes into preventing that, and no one complains. The odds of being shot and killed are miniscule...but look how much money we spend on prevention. But as soon as you begin researching something that could, quite literally, kill millions of people in an instant, you're branded a 'waste of time and money'.
Tell you what. Give me back the taxes I spent that went to teaching your children, and I'll gladly redirect them to fund this type of research.
Actually, painting the entire rock a brighter or darker color significantly different from it's current color would work - if you have enough time, it's the best possible solution, as it's a passive one.
I'm not sure why people seem to think that you only need to paint half. I'm also not sure why other people think that because asteroids rotate this doesn't work - it is actually *because* the rock rotates that it does work.
This relies on a phenomenon called the Yarkovsky effect. It can be thought of this way: Imagine you're standing on the asteroid where it's "asteroid high noon". Light is being absorbed throughout the "asteroid day" and heats the surface, particularly if the asteroid is darkly colored (e.g. a carbonaceous asteroid). After a while, the asteroid rotates and the sun sets. The asteroid then reradiates this heat in the direction of "asteroid evening". As it rotates more, by the time "asteroid morning" rolls around, the area your standing on has cooled down enough to radiate much less. Ergo, there is a differential radiation pressure on either side of the asteroid, which results in a net force over time. If it rotates with the same spin orientation as its orbit, its orbit will get wider. If it rotates with the opposite spin as its orbit, its orbit will get smaller.
By painting the rock, you change this force - the brighter the paint, the more light is reflected, the less thrust, thereby changing the path.
One last comment - the effect is subtle, so it would need to be applied early. It also preferentially favors diversion for small asteroids, since the Yarkovsky effect is a surface phenomena. The larger the asteroid, the smaller the surface-area-to-volume ratio, and the less deflection this thrust will do.
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