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Planetary Defense: Protecting Earth from Asteroids

Posted by michael on from the insert-one-credit-to-continue dept.

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."

6 of 342 comments (clear)

  1. Defense from asteroids? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    1. Re:Defense from asteroids? by FattMattP · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      --
      Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
  2. Re:Low priority? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  3. Tractor beams by Amiga+Lover · · Score: 5, Funny

    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...

  4. This is a non-story by tarzan353 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  5. Re:Low priority? by Ralph+Yarro · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --

    The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.