Planetary Defense: Protecting Earth from Asteroids

securitas writes "Space.com has published a feature about developing a planetary defense against catastrophic comet and asteroid impacts. The story arises from the aptly named 'Planetary Defense Conference: Protecting Earth from Asteroids' held in California February 23-26. The article discusses potential methods to prevent an impact, the need for study missions to comets and asteroids, the to-date haphazard approach to monitoring Near Earth Objects (NEOs), and the NASA/US Air Force Spaceguard Survey, which aims to discover and track 90% of 'Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) with a diameter greater than 0.6 miles (1-kilometer) by 2008.' Some ideas for anti-impact technologies to develop include gas blasts, nuclear detonations, ramming microsatellites, lasers, mass drivers and gravitational tractor beams. The most disturbing message from the conference? 'It may take a celestial body hit to Earth' before governments take any meaningful steps to address this danger. Mirror at USA Today."

Comments

Defense from asteroids?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could we eliminate any risk of being hit by an asteroid by reclassifying everything as a planet?

Re:Defense from asteroids?

[Capt'n Hector]

I think I'd much rather be hit by an asteroid than by a planet.

Look Ma, it's raining planets!

Re:Defense from asteroids?

[FattMattP]

Expertly done. There's a job waiting for you in government.

Re:Low priority?

[Anonymous Coward]

But how important will famine, disease, and war be when 90% of the population has been wiped out by a massive asteroid and the effects after the collision?

So an asteroid could actually be the solution to these serious problems! I like your thinking.

Unfortunately someone has to say this...

[Yoda2]

With Bruce Willis getting older and Ben Affleck not as tough as he used to be, its good that we're researching out other options. Yuck. Yuck.

Re: Unfortunately someone has to say this...

[Black Parrot]

> With Bruce Willis getting older and Ben Affleck not as tough as he used to be, its good that we're researching out other options. Yuck. Yuck.

Don't forget Sean Connery.

Tractor beams

[Amiga Lover]

gravitational tractor beams.

Personally I don't know why this wasn't thought of first before all those silly ideas like just blowing something up

A nice large tractor beam from a high orbiting satellite to repel or attract any asteroid or other thing that's going to hit the planet, and problem solved.

Of course, there's the technical side...

Re:Tractor beams

[Ralp]

Because, blowing things up is not only something we are already very good at, but it's also a lot of fun.

This is a non-story

[tarzan353]

Come on, editors- this is news? We have already researched laser technology, so SDI defense is available. It should only take 2 or 3 turns to equip all of our cities with this technology.

Stick with what works.

[Dr. Bent]

I think we should simply rely on older technology to solve this problem. Don't fix it if it ain't broke...

Famous actors with family attachments

[Operating Thetan]

AFAIK, it's been scientifically proven that they can stop asteroids, although they sometimes die in the attempt. Perhaps a reserve of actors could be established, similar to the national guard?

Re:Bad idea?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>a rouge government or terrorist organization could use technology like this t

The Soviet Union's collapse discredited Red governments forever, and rouge ones got caught in the riptide too. So there's no need to feel blue about rouge governments, even if you're a Green yourself.

Re:Low priority?

[Ralph Yarro]

But how important will famine, disease, and war be when 90% of the population has been wiped out by a massive asteroid and the effects after the collision?

War would still be a crucial issue. We cannot allow a mineshaft gap.

Well...

[HarveyBirdman]

I, for one, root for the asteroid.

First Target

[CuriousKangaroo]

The first thing they need to do is shoot down Sedna so that our textbooks don't need to be changed.

Re: What we will do

[Black Parrot]

I am a MUFON field investigator. I happen to know that "stargate" technology is real, and our government has been using it to travel to other planets since the mid-70's.

The reason it isn't being addressed is because those in power already have a means of escape - the stargate.

No, this isn't an attempt to be funny or some unfounded conspiracy theory. This is real.

I am withholding my name and posting anonymously for obvious reasons. I would suggest that anyone who responds do the same.

I see that you're spilling the story we 'leaked' to the janitors.

Re:Perspective

[JoeBaldwin]

I dunno. If your definition of "car" is loose enough to include "convoy of ICBM launchers" then the probability goes significantly higher...

Well...

[HarveyBirdman]

Well, I've met the CEO of the weapon maker I work for, and he's hardly ruthless. Good pool player, though.

Re:Yep.

[pizza_milkshake]

dont you just love how everyone in the world only concerned with themselves. I mean this is a clear example of why Earth should be more united because our petty differences wont mean anything when a big ___ rock is hurling at us.

don't worry, the U.S. military is working on the ability to take a huge asteroid and redirect it so it hits the Middle East.

We need to upgrade our citadel...

[drenehtsral]

and include a Quasar Cannon! Yeah, that's it =:-)

Re:Perspective

[NanoGator]

"Risks of dying in plane:1 in 20,000"

The chances of boarding a plane with a bomb aboard are approximately a million to one. The chances of boarding a plane with two bombs aboard are a million x a million to one. Reduce the risk, bring your own bomb!

less competition

[pizza_milkshake]

getting hit by an asteroid might not be so bad... for those left it will be much easier to get "first post", for instance.

Re:Perspective

[Texas Rose on Lava L]

1. Meteorite hits Earth. It hits an empty lot, so nobody is hurt or killed.
2. Unfortunately, the empty lot is in downtown Islamabad. Pakistani government mistakes it for an incoming nuclear strike from India, and retaliates with missile strikes on Bangalore and Calcutta.
3. Indian government sees incoming missiles, retaliates against Pakistan.
4. Lather rinse repeat.
5. One of the missiles goes off course and hits North Korea.
6. North Korea thinks it's from the US, and hits Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.
7. Bush assumes the missiles are coming from France, and orders nuclear strikes on Paris.
8. World War III goes on like this for 24 more hours.
9. Human race (and everything else except cockroaches) extinct.
10. ???
11. Profit!

Waiting will solve the problem!

[antarctican]

But once one hits we'll be safe again for another 100,000 years, right? ;)

Star Trek has the answer

[CrackedButter]

GEORDI: You have a better idea... ?
Q: I would certainly begin by examining the cause and not the symptom.
GEORDI: We've done that, Q... and there's no way to determine...
Q: This is obviously the result of a large celestial object passing through at near right angles to the plane of the star system...probably a black hole...
DATA: Can you recommend a way to counter the effect?
Q: Simple. Change the gravitational constant of the universe.

Next project...

[arose]

Destroying black holes by pouring money into them.

Re:Low priority?

[RogueProtoKol]

Only 90% of the patient though!

Bruce will save us...

[Wolfcat]

The easy way to protect earth is simply to ensure that Bruce Willis never dies... freeze him if we have to. Then thaw him out, and he can go to the rock and blow it up with three minutes to spare, and none of us need every worry again... having Tea Leoni won't help, she will just go to the beach and die... so its Bruce all the way.

Miss or false positive

[dr. electron]

1. INCOMING!
2. Fire nuke
3. Oh, just a false positive
4. Nuke comes down on (afghanistan|iraq|...)
5. Oh, well ...

online simulator - not that dangerous, see?

[the_REAL_sam]

this asteroid simulator
(developed by NASA) shows just how easy asteroid defense can be, given timing, positioning, thruster movements, etc.