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."

Comments

Bull's eye!

[zeux]

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...

Re:Bull's eye!

[arivanov]

Not very hard. After all there will be multipple course corrections over the length of the mission. So it is likely to be as hard as it was for the Hidalgo to hit one of the Wind Mills. With similar results.

All I can say is hats down and apploads to the cynicist who thought of the name for this program. It is a near perfect description of our current technological ability to change the orbit of a NEO.

Re:Bull's eye!

[Tim C]

It is a near perfect description of our current technological ability to change the orbit of a NEO.

You know what they say - practice makes perfect.

Re:Bull's eye!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your small wimpy-ass chemical rocket doesn't exactly transform into a huge one that's needed to change a course of gigantic asteroid no matter how much you practice with it.

Practice may make your skills perfect, but skills aren't the problem here, technology is.

Low expectations?

[October_30th]

Do they have low expectations or why is the project named after a fictional character who was rather bonkers and fought windmills?

"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."

Re:Low expectations?

[joeykiller]

Well, Don Quijote believed he were fighting knights, while he actually was fighting windmillds.

Most people would say that it would be impossible if not futile to attack windmills and believe you could win over them. But Don Quijote never doubted his abilites, no matter what Sancho Panza thought.

Maybe this is what ESA has thought about when they named their mission: Keep hope up, no matter how impossible the task seems.

Re:Low expectations?

[ttsalo]

Do they have low expectations or why is the project named after a fictional character who was rather bonkers and fought windmills?

Well, since the impactor weighs nearly nothing compared to an 500m asteroid and is going to have negligible effect, it's named very accurately. The whole point of this thing is that it's easier to scale up from something than to start completely from scratch.

--

Re:Low expectations?

[AKAImBatman]

Most people would say that it would be impossible if not futile to attack windmills and believe you could win over them. But Don Quijote never doubted his abilites, no matter what Sancho Panza thought.

Personally, I love the name. It's good to know that the ESA scientists have a sense of humor. Especially when Sancho sits back and watches the fireworks while our brave hidalgo charges into battle! :-D

Re:Low expectations?

[Black Copter Control]

Do they have low expectations or why is the project named after a fictional character who was rather bonkers and fought windmills?

This makes perfect sense to me. now that I've actually read a summary of the story written by a Spaniard,

• The mission has two main players: Hidalgo and Sancho. Hidalgo is the (fictional) title of Don Quixote (the lowest rank of nobility). Sancho is his squire and, at a critical point in the story, the source of the narrative switches to him.
• Don Quixote tilts at imaginary enemies...
  The enemy that Hidalgo 'attacks' will also be imaginary in that the asteroid that gets 'attacked' will probably *not* be a threat to earth.
• Hidalgo Don Quixote mistakes the windmill for a giant.
  The relative sizes fit here.
• Don Quixote was pretty much trashed by his first encounter with such a giant.
  We can expect much the same here.
• In the original, it would appear that Sancho is the brains of the outfit, and the scribe of the adventure In the modern version of the tale, Hidalgo, will have just enough brains to fly head-first into his imaginary enemy.
  Meanwhile, Sancho will stand back at a safe distance chronicling the setup and the aftermath.

Re:Low expectations?

[barakn]

What do you suppose tilting is? Aiming or thrusting (a lance) in a joust. Hidalgo will tilt at an asteroid exactly like don Quijote tilted at windmills. They have not low but high expectations that Hidalgo will not survive the experience, much like one would expect someone tilting at a windmill to have an unpleasant experience (imagine having your lance shatter in your hands). The mission is beautifully named.

Hope they don't knock it *into* our path

[Space cowboy]

... yes I know, space is big... [grin]

Simon

Direct link to 6MB file - clever

[Sanity]

Will /. editors never learn?

LIES about space weapons

[Doc Ruby]

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.

Re:LIES about space weapons

[Doc Ruby]

Are you saying that the odds of the Earth suffering nation-scale damage from a meteorite are higher than the odds of crippling illiteracy, plague, drought/flood, or any of a number of other affordably solvable problems? You clearly know nothing but the exotic details of your planetoid fetish. Don't expect the rest of us, more interested in our home planet's fortunes, to be similarly dazzled.

Re:LIES about space weapons

[tgibbs]

How do you propose fixing worldwide annihilation of human life by plague or Greenhouse after the fact? When you are dead, you won't care about the rest of the planet, but while you're alive, you can do something about the real threats.

It is highly doubtful that either plague or Greenhouse effect could kill off all human life. There has never been a plague that was anything close to 100% fatal, and it is biologically doubtful that such a thing is possible, given the large diversity and wide distribution of our population. As for the Greenhouse effect, plausible worst-case projections are on the order of a few degrees warmer, occurring over a fairly long period of time, and possibly an increase in severe weather. No plausible projection has the Greenhouse effect producing more than a modest effect on the size of the human population. I would place the probability of annihilation of human life by either of these events essentially at zero.

On the other hand, large asteroid impacts clearly have occurred in the past. There is credible scientific evidence that they have wiped out widely-distributed species in the past. Projections of consequences of a large impact suggest that it is plausible that such an impact could kill all human life. Asteroid impacts are the only known, credible, avoidable event that could potentially wipe out humanity. This would seem to justify significant investment in protection.

Re:LIES about space weapons

[Jeff DeMaagd]

In my opinion, AIDS is not a government problem.

In many ways, AIDS is completely preventible and needs no government money. So many people are fully aware of the risks and yet continue to have unprotected sex and share needles. I don't see the point in spending government money to protect people from themselves.

IIRC, auto accidents kill more people than AIDS does. I don't see the point in halting space research just because people are still willing to kill each other.

Missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

And to prove God has a twisted sense of humor

[Anonymous Coward]

the impact will push the asteroid's orbit enough that it will hit the earth.

I disagree on the Count of Montecristo

[Kinniken]

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.

why democracy is such a bad idea

[SmallFurryCreature]

Guys like this get to vote.

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.

Good for the toolbox.

[wrc]

It's about time our species started putting together and testing serious contingency plans against this sort of catastrophe.

Re:Playing with fire

[sploxx]

This is essentially the question about the "stability of the solar system".

Google for that, or if you're too lazy to do it, here is a very short summary of what you can get by reading a bit:

- According to newton, every body with mass sees a force from each other body. A so called N-body-problem. (You should know that already =:)

- The orbits of all gravitating bodies (sun, planets, moons, asteroids, spacecraft etc.) in the solar system are chaotic, i.e. a small change (for example a displacement in the estimated position) will grow exponentially into a big change, maybe the crash
of two objects.

- BUT: The orbits may be bounded. I.e. they wobble in a chaotic way, but do not cross certain values. Of course, everyone hopes that this is the case :)

Now, earth remained relatively impact free for the past billions of years, i.e. the past billions of numbers of orbits around the sun!
- "relatively" since there are many impact craters on earth today, you can even visit some of them :)
But no object the size of a small moon impacted earth, else we would not be here.

Of course, people think about the reason why earth orbits so undisturbed since a long time.
There're models that describe the more massive bodies in the solar system (jupiter, saturn) as vacuum cleaners for asteroids. But don't ask me about that, I'm not a scientist (yet), just a student.

There is no reason to believe that the current system will be stable or that starting rockets spaceprobes or even walking around on earth (since you're also one of the above-mentioned bodies!) won't change if saturn and jupiter crash in a billion years!

How eloquent

[Gothmolly]

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.