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ESA Plans Test of Asteroid Defense System
vinlud writes "It has been announced by Dutch television ESA has chosen the Don Quijote programme to investigate the possibilities of altering the collision course of asteroids heading for Earth. The program, selected among five other studies, contains two spacecraft: Hidalgo and Sancho. Hidalgo will impact an asteroid of approximately 500 m diameter at a relative speed of at least 10 km/s while Sancho will retreat to a safe distance to observe the impact. An animation of the mission sequence (6.49 Mb) can be downloaded from here."
What's important is a very efficient backup of slashdot so I can still post in the case of a continent size meteor hitting earth.
I RTFA (however, I'm not new here!) and it seems all the other five studies were about observation only missions. This one is the only one to propose an actual 'impact'.
It's definitively more exciting but I wonder if it's not too hard to make such a millions miles away 'bull's eye'. 500 m in diameter is pretty small at this distance...
Iraq: war to save the U
"The full original title was El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha. The adjective "quixotic," meaning "idealistic and impractical," derives from his name, and the expression "tilting at windmills" comes from his story."
The owls are not what they seem
This animation is like something out of high school. Look as the stuff JPL does.
The animation is so poor, and spends so much time on irrelevance (half is spent watching a crude stick drawing of the launch) that the point is lost.
Frankly, it makes the ESA look like its being run by a bunch of amateurs on a shoe-string budget. It does not inspire confidence.
And I say this knowing that the work they're doing is top notch. But this animation is so bad its spooky.
they dont have to convert any units.. don't want them accidentally redirecting anything back this way!
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Don Quixote was a story character (see the book by the same name) who saw things that weren't really there. He was driven insane by reading too many tales of knights in shining armor, and pretended he was one himself. Hmm!
... yes I know, space is big... [grin]
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
[Insert a joke about Bruce Willis crashing on an asteroid at 10 km/s here]
Iraq: war to save the U
Will /. editors never learn?
Did they even read the book before they named this program?
In the English translation that I read, the Don was a bit soft in the head from reading too much trashy fiction and Sancho was a near imbecile.
I see great successes ahead.
...is to send Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis to the asteroid. One could make an animation of this, but it might result in a god-awful, 2-hour-long mistake.
These "asteroid defense" systems are lies told by weapons makers. They are designed to be expensive systems that can be pointed at the Earth. When the "missile defense" lies (eg. that they work) fail, as they always have in Europe, weapons makers turn to another irrational fear: asteroids. The odds of an asteroid damaging Europe are so much lower than many other preventable crises that the entire sham is transparent. The odds of AIDS killing millions is much higher, and more preventable. The odds of climate change killing millions are also much higher. The odds of a generation of people learning to watch TV rather than learning to read or think are much higher. There are known solutions to these likely crises that will cost less, and benefit much more. But they don't play on the kind of irrational fear that lets governments spend billions of people's money without accountability. So we'll pay for these lies once when we fund the sham, and again when the real threats come home to roost.
--
make install -not war
I can flip that game! Where do I sign up?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Guess we are doomed to die by hunger, terrorism, violent climate shift, war or MPAA.
I was really betting it would be an asteroid.
[ I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance ] -- Isaac Asimov
Unfortunately because of the rotating news system of the NOS (Dutch TV) text pages (and the time before the story was posted) the news item already has disappeared :( . I hope other sites will soon release more information about the plans and time table of the project!
Repeat after me: We are all individuals
Try it out here.
is this just a hip way to repackage missile defense testing so that nobody gets mad?
Worst.... codenames.... ever!
Those kind of tests are only for when you know for sure it works!
I'm too young to die, noooooooo
Bet that'll slow ya down.
They work in all SI units. So, no conversions. Perhaps that's why Ariane is reliable.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Perhaps the most famous part of this book is when Don Quixote gallantly charged at windmills, while Sancho watched. In his troubled mind, The windmills were evil Giants, which he sought to destroy to win the favors of his sweethart Dulcinea, wich is a very accurate depiction of what the program is supposed to do.
I find that the depiction, regardless of the obvious fact that in the book it was a hopeless cause; is a romantic metaphore, rather than an endorsement of failure, poor engineering or idealistic but unreachable goals.
As a side note, this book (El ingenioso Hidalgo, Don Quixote de la Mancha) is to the Spanish Language as The Count of Montecristo is to French, Luther's New testament translation is to German, and the works of Shakespeare are to English.
*shower*
What the hell? Did my calendar crash again? Is today April 1st??
Skivvy Niner? Email me!
HEY! Look left just ONE MORE TIME!
So we are going to star defending asteroids, eh? Boy things are really getting to PC. Ass turd oids. Ha Ha. I made a funny. What do the Enterprise and toilet paper have in common? They both wipe out Klingons. Ha Ha. I crack me up. Me so funny.
After watching the animation, my understanding was that the experiment was going in the followiing phases:
1. Launch
2. Sancho gets into observation trailing pattern on the NEO
3. To develop a certain amoung ot destructive inertia, Hidalgo slingshots around earth, sun, mercury and then comes back at a much higher speed to ram into the NEO
4. Sancho observes and reports
Any physics PHDs wish to comment?
But Neo is The One!
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
and nice attempt at syncing the music. I can just see it now though... the impacting satellite accidentally hitting the observing satellite on its way i to the asteroid. Pretty cool none-the-less.
I can see that most slashdotters are trolling on the actual mission of the spaceships. Their purpose is to impact the asteroid to determine its composition, structure, ect. to then, determine an appropiate course of action.
And the names do fit. They fit because Don Quijote tried to bring back the idealized lifestyle of chivalry. His desire was to protect the good cause and perhaps slay a dragon or two in the way. He was mocked by people because they believed such perils were nonexistent. Just like we mock this far fetched perhaps, but still necesary project that aims to be our first line of defense in case of a possible, if not improbable event.
I fail to see how people can criticize this and yet run SETI at home on their computers.
Godspeed Don Quijote, and Sancho Pansa, I for once, am gratefull of your so much needed lunacy.
If google can stand to provide 1GB email accounts it can stand a slashdotting.
;)
Lets use the Internets natural resources wisely
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
the impact will push the asteroid's orbit enough that it will hit the earth.
We can't even find the Weapons of Mass Destruction that we're saving the world from, let alone an asteroid out in the middle of space.
Assuming that the Hildalgo probe masses in at 25 kg (the same as Sancho - it might be less) and is moving at 10km/sec and assuming the asteroid has a density of 3g/cc (giving a mass of 4x10^10 kg, and if the probe is absorbed into the asteroid and no material is lost from the asteroid, then the change of velocity for the asteroid will be about 6x10^-9 km/sec.
For comparison, the asteroid probably has a velocity somewhere on the order of 5-10km/sec.
If the asteroid and probe hit head on with both having a velocity (relative to the sun) of 10km/sec, then you can double the change to 1.2x10^-8 km/sec
It's probably a good idea to check my work. Here's how I did the calculation:
Let m1 be the probe and m2 be the asteroid.
v(center of mass)=(m1*v1+m2*v2)/(m1+m2). v2=0 for this reference frame and m1+m2 essentially equals m2. Since we're in the reference frame of the asteroid being stationary, the combination of probe and asteroid will still have the same velocity for the center of mass.
I hope I didn't botch this estimate....
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
Except it's not Quixote, not Quijote.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
in the video is the same music from Barney Bear goes to space! Anyone else remember that old educational dos game?
Sig: I stole this sig.
The sensible thing to do (which the US administration preferred) was to ignore public debate in favour of the element of surprise, in the interests of national security. You can't go to war with someone and let them know in advance, right down to your tactics and objectives, doh, but that seems to be what Europeans wanted. So now we have a situation in which International security can never again be, uh, secured, because of silly demands for endless public debate and justification, and to hell with getting the right thing done.
As a side note, this book (El ingenioso Hidalgo, Don Quixote de la Mancha) is to the Spanish Language as The Count of Montecristo is to French, Luther's New testament translation is to German, and the works of Shakespeare are to English.
As a Frenchman, I can tell you that while Montecristo is certainly the best book written by Dumas and probably in the fifty most important French books written, it is not "The Book". That honour would probably go to Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables".
I'm pleased by the naming choice BTW - it shows some humour and imagination, particularly with having Sancho stay behind and watch... they may be top notch engineers and scientists, but they have read their classics and can joke about their work. I like that.
What do you know about World Politic? Find out in this quiz
Not only does it accurately represent the potential effectiveness of this particular program, but also the necessity for an asteroid defense program in general. But I suspect the technology could be useful someday, likely for something other than the defense of the Earth from asteroids.
Modified ICBMs would be a more plausable way of defending the Earth from possible impact from a large meteor or comet, adjust the timing of the detonation of the nuclear blast just a moment before contact so the blast will knock it off course. we already have the resources.
Anyone else think this is not a great idea.
Why would anyone even try to alter objects in space. They have been there for billions of years, and in there current orbit ALL IS GOOD. If we go and start changing any thing. we would actually be increasing the chances of collisions, something this is suppose to be a solution for.
Basicly we don't know enuf to change things, and if we change things with out knowing enuf, then we can crash the system. We will never know enuf. This would be like throwing a monkey wrench into a running engine, and thinking it will keep running.
maybe Don Cajones
So politicians should get free reign? I don't think so. They should have learned by now to have justifications ready to hand before announcing something like that to the public. If they don't have any then I see even more reason for debate on the issue.
Also, don't you think moving a load of weapons around is going to get spotted? Do you have that little faith in the intelligence community not to think that they were watching for that kind of behaviour?
I think the element of surprise was lost when troops were sent to mass on the boarders before the war started.
Most of the bodies in the solar system are on orbits that bring them close to other objects of similar or larger mass, thus their orbits are always being perturbed without us doing anything.
I think we'll all agree that NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab has one of the, if not *the*, best planetary empherides ever created anywhere at anytime. And they won't project the orbits of major planets too far into the future because of the natural uncertainties of orbits.
--Rob
Hellfire, I always knew I wanted to go into exile;
but Luther represents the best we got? I doubt that.
Sure one can question the wisdom of altering the course of an asteroid that is currently not on a course to earth as there is a risk that the new course might be a problem. Except that it would be reasonable to assume that the people at ESA have thought of this too.
The trajectories of space objects are something we actually understand really really well. It is simple math and the bigger objects have had their path calculated very accuratly centuries ago.
If we follow the advice of people like the above poster the human race would still be stuck up a tree worried about the dangers of the forest floor. Luckily we didn't and some of the monkeys got eaten but others survived and thrived.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
...courtesy of Project Gutenberg..
Can anyone provide info on how to download the proper codec to view this with the windows media player?
Asteroid impacts are the only known, credible, avoidable event that could potentially wipe out humanity.
What about a total nuclear war between say the US+EU vs Russia+China? It would not be enough to kill everyone on the planet straight of, but the mid term effects would be comparable in severity to a massive asteroid crash...
What do you know about World Politic? Find out in this quiz
http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov/
DI will spank a coment with an impactor the size of a volkswagen beetle while a flyby spacecraft watches and records the event. Should dig a crater the size of a football stadium.
The relative rate of closure for the impactor to the comet will be over 22,000 Miles per hour.
And DI is in the final stages of fabrication and prep for launch, not some pie-in-the-sky wet dream of the ESA.
I think the point here is that they don't spend any time or money on irrelevancies such as fancy animations.
They probably gave one person who was not neccesarily a paid professional animator a few stock meshes and CAD diagrams and said "You've got a week before we need you back on the *real* R&D".
After all, animations such as these are mid-project and just aimed at the dimwits in the press who can't get their heads around these kinds of projects.
At this stage where funding will have been agreed a year ago, they won't glean any extra thru fancy animation so they spend no time/money/effort on it.
One last point is that all space agencies have been shy of realistic animations since they realised that the dimwit public sometimes take an animation as being the Real Thing(tm)
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
"I saw that movie... It hits paris" :-)
- Colonel "Jack" O'Neill, SG-1
The mission has a very high scientific value, but it will also help in testing technologies required for future deflection missions and raise interest in people for space exploration. The mission will in particular: measure the mass of the asteroid, the ratio of the moments of inertia and the low order harmonics of its gravity field. model the asteroid shape before and after the impact, to detect changes (if any). determine the asteroid internal structure, especially the size the main solid pieces, the average particle size and thickness of regolith and of the debris layers in the space left between the main pieces. constrain the mechanical properties of the asteroid material. measure the orbital deflection of the asteroid as a result of the impact of Hidalgo measure the asteroid rotation state before and immediately after the impact. detect the dissipation of the non-principal axis rotation after the impact. determine the asteroid large scale mineralogical composition.
SHE does throw dice.
first, I agree on the asteroids. It could happen, large and semi large "new" ones show up with enough regularity to prove they have no idea what's out there, that at best it's informed speculation based on what data they have, and that's it..
But some more that might occur are extremely huge solar flares, pole shifts, and the mundane but most possible,and most probable, merely running out of oil within the next two decades leading to global chaos and warfare, including extensive NBC warfare, which would in turn lead to a very long lasting and extensive global winter on top of it, from the dust from hugeparts of the world burning down, especially in the northern hemisphere.
Whether or not that means all human life being extinct is a moot point, dropping the worlds populations to just some thoudands total survivors would have basically the same effect. Most technology would be lost within the first new generation then, and no one here really knows what's inside all the worlds advanced bioweapons labs, best we can do there is again, speculate. Naturally occuring mutations of virii and bacteria can be bad enough, the biotech they have now...well... you feeling lucky? A certain percentage of infectees can live through smallpox or anthrax. Some can beat plague. More can beat measles, but still it can be lethal. Tularemia,ebola, and etc, etc, and who knows what engineered nasties they have. And a cocktail or warfare experience of all of them virtually simultanousely? Nope, nary a human could live through that if exposed, especially if they had to dodge strontiuym 90 all the time and find some way to grow food with the weather borked and no way to rely on surface water or rain to be non poisonous.
It's about time our species started putting together and testing serious contingency plans against this sort of catastrophe.
As a side note, this book (El ingenioso Hidalgo, Don Quixote de la Mancha) is to the Spanish Language as The Count of Montecristo is to French, Luther's New testament translation is to German, and the works of Shakespeare are to English.
And don't forget this project is from a Spanish contractor, Deimos Space. Find more information in their site (in English).
I realise this seems like flamebait No, not even that, it's blatant bullshit.
Hehehe, as long as your allmighty America is based on a population of dolts like you, we'll keep looking after ourselves in space as well, thank you.
Why even bother? Whenever anybody finds an asteroid in an Earth-crossing orbit which is likely to bring it very close to us, hundreds of reputable scientists and others are always quoted by the media as saying THERE'S NO RISK OF AN IMPACT!
Obviously such a thing is never going to occur, so I say they should just give that money to me.
Here are some odds and probablities as compiled by the oddities who write The Edge for The Oregonian (Portland, OR newspaper). Short version: it is actually more likely that the Earth will be smacked by a large asteroid in your lifetime than you becoming a professional athelete.
And remember, before you try to beat the odds, make sure you can survive the odds beating you.
See my journal. That's all I have to say about asteroids.
Music speeds up when you yawn, but does not change pitch.
Am I the only one whose first thought on seeing the topic was, "If they're testing the asteroid defense, wouldn't that require an asteroid coming toward Earth?"
Centralization breaks the internet.
Bogus odds: their first factoid is "Grow up to be President: 10M:1". that would mean that of the 293M USA population, 60.836M , 6 will become President. No president has ever been >80y, so those odds say that 6 people will become president in their cohort's 65-80 years of eligibility, during which there will be between 12-20 presidents, not counting the lifetime extensions expected in the next 65 years. Add up the margins of error, and a kid's chances to grow into the Oval Office are a lot better than they think in Oregon. The rest of the odds seem wrong, too, but not as much fun to correct. And the odds of meteorite catastrophe at all are different kinds of odds when talking about a "certainty" like a presidential inauguration. So I'm not willing to commit to antiasteroid defense on their say-so.
--
make install -not war
once we discover that the asteroid was indeed a camouflaged research vessel from an alien civilization. This "research project" could plunge Earth into an intergalactic war!
Ok, so why exactly do we not need a defense against asteroids? Do we just sit back and hope for the best or what?
whoever modded parent offtopic should be modded unfair in M2. don quixote= don quijote= name of mission mentioned in story.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Yes, that's right, just like we have for the last couple hundred thousand years. The odds that we'd ever need use one are so miniscule that it's practically guaranteed to never be used for it's intended purpose. On the other hand, the technology probably has many potential applications.
Basicly we don't know enuf
Ah, thank you Mr. Hume, for destroying philosophy, and thank you modern education, for destroying poor Grimace1975's ability to spell.
Just because you do not know, doesn't cast doubt on the validity of the science behind this. It just means that YOU'RE ignorant.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
What a dumb idea! Disintegrate a potentially deadly asteroid so the earth can be showered by the debris instead. Hope there aren't any big chunks! Since it is likely any large asteroid collision will be detected years in advance a very slight course correction using a chemical rocket would suffice. If bombarding an asteroid with a projectile has scientific merit, great. But don't pretend the activity has any relevance to asteroid hazard avoidance.
an ill wind that blows no good
Is it just me or did the impact vehical rely entirely too much on the circumstantial positioning of other celestial bodies to build up its kill velocity? Given all the slingshotting, it also looks like it would take a considerable amount of forewarning to achieve the desired result. Given the average detection time we've been seeing lately, I'd feel better if we didn't have to send the damn thing around a the sun first, y'know?
And PLEASE, drop the Space Odessey soundtrack, already. You're killing an asteroid for cryin out loud. At least try the Black Hole suite or the theme for T2... ANYTHING but monoliths in space.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Of course now that someone has the technology to move asteroids there had better be several able to do so. So we can all vote where we want the asteroids to go.
Here's my suggestion for asteroid defense: http://www.thomastannahill.com/jousteroids/
Maybe you are not aware that the Spanish language has evolved a bit in the last 400 years. In modern Spanish it is spelled "Don Quijote". México has kept the spelling, maybe because of the distance, but the "Méjico" form is also correct.
Impact Effects Robert Marcus, H. Jay Melosh, and Gareth Collins
Your Inputs:
Distance from Impact: 100.00 km = 62.10 miles
Projectile Diameter: 500.00 m = 1640.00 ft = 0.31 miles
Projectile Density: 3000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 10.00 km/s = 6.21 miles/s
Impact Angle: 45 degrees
Target Density: 3000 kg/m3
Target Type: Competent Rock or saturated soil
Major Global Changes:
The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and remains intact.
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the Earth's rotation period or the tilt of its axis.
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably.
Energy: 9.82 x 1018 Joules = 2.35 x 10^3 MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth is 4.3 x 10^4 years
Crater Size:
Transient Crater Diameter: 4.59 km = 2.85 miles
Final Crater Diameter: 5.63 km = 3.50 miles
The crater formed is a complex crater.
Thermal Radiation: Time for maximum radiation: 0.43 seconds after impact
Visible fireball radius: 3.5 km = 2.2 miles
The fireball appears 7.9 times larger than the sun
Thermal Exposure: 3.60 x 104 Joules/m2
Duration of Irradiation: 6 seconds
Radiant flux (relative to the sun): 6.5
Seismic Effects:
The major seismic shaking will arrive at approximately 20.0 seconds.
Richter Scale Magnitude: 6.9
Mercalli Scale Intensity at a distance of 100 km:
VI. Felt by all. Many frightened and run outdoors. Persons walk unsteadily. Windows, dishes, glassware broken. Knickknacks, books, etc., off shelves. Pictures off walls. Furniture moved or overturned. Weak plaster and masonry D cracked. Small bells ring (church, school). Trees, bushes shaken (visibly, or heard to rustle).
VII. Difficult to stand. Noticed by drivers of motor cars. Hanging objects quiver. Furniture broken. Damage to masonry D, including cracks. Weak chimneys broken at roof line. Fall of plaster, loose bricks, stones, tiles, cornices (also unbraced parapets and architectural ornaments). Some cracks in masonry C. Waves on ponds; water turbid with mud. Small slides and caving in along sand or gravel banks. Large bells ring. Concrete irrigation ditches damaged.
Masonry C. Ordinary workmanship and mortar; no extreme weaknesses like failing to tie in at corners, but neither reinforced nor designed against horizontal forces.
Masonry D. Weak materials, such as adobe; poor mortar; low standards of workmanship; weak horizontally.
Ejecta: The ejecta will arrive approximately 144.2 seconds after the impact.
At your position the ejecta arrives in scattered fragments
Average Ejecta Thickness: 4.6 mm = 0.1822 inches
Mean Fragment Diameter: 3.5 cm = 1.37 inches
Air Blast:
The air blast will arrive at approximately 333.3 seconds.
Peak Overpressure: 19232.2 Pa = 0.1923 bars = 2.7310 psi
Max wind velocity: 38.2 m/s = 85.4 mph
Sound Intensity: 86 dB (Loud as heavy traffic)
So let's see - you're 100 km away - first you experience a 6.9 earthquake, and the red hot 4.6mm fragments arrive 144 seconds later? Great - that's like 250 km per hour... Nice. Anyone in the open is DEAD, and your house might not survive that either. Then after being weakened by a major earthquake and a barrage of highspeed rocks, an 86 mph wind comes to visit.
Great. Sounds pretty crappy to me. I doubt that it would be the end of the world (Except for LA, but who cares?) but I think that even a smallish rock like that would produce some MAJOR damage, and should be avoided at all costs - alomst as much as voting for GW should be avoided.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I don't know where you're from, but where I'm from, Mexico is right here. :-)
It is ironic that you went through the trouble of typing that acento on the E, but didn't bother to grow a set and post with a real account.
I really think that while the j form is considered correct in some odd places, over here, many words that contain an X are still pronounced and spelled the correct way (ex., Oaxaca). X simply makes more than one sound, as do c and g. You won't change the spelling of gente to jente just because someone decides that it's confusing to have two different sounds for g, will you?
Orale.
it's intended purpose
"its".
Wrong
The original spelling was with X, just look at a facsimil edition.
The parent poster was right, castilian as almost every other language has changed on those 400 years.
What's in a sig?
forgot the link to the modern castilian form of quixote, search 'quijote' in the Real Academia" (on Dicccionario de la Lengua) using the 'busqueda escalonada' option, and then search 'quixote'.
What's in a sig?
Yes, Slashdot folks I said it. Star Wars is a horrible waste of time, yes this is a troll but someone had to say it.
I think the original, exact Spanish title is "El ingenioso Hidalgo, Don Quijote de la Mancha". In old Spanish, 'x' was the same as 'j' (e.g. Mexico is the same as Mejico), but nonetheless I think in the original book, it was written Quijote.
Make some sense you crazy person!
Here's a relevant quote on the dangers of elevated carbon dioxide levels:
Debunking the "59 Deceits"