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NASA Making Plans To Save the Earth

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the deep-armageddon dept.

aluminumangel writes, "Taking a page out of a Michael Bay movie, NASA is considering a manned mission to land on an asteroid, 'poke one with a stick,' and see how feasible it would be to deflect it from its course. Obviously, the application would be valuable in a doomsday situation and hopefully could keep us from going wherever the dinosaurs went." The article makes oblique reference to another goal such a mission could serve: giving us something to do in space, something to engage the paying public, between the time we return to the Moon and the time we get to Mars.

7 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Trust Man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There are some who take responsibility for the world that they live in and others who just hope that everything will work out. Good on those in column a, for those in column b just do everyone a favour and don't get in the way. BTW I think it is worth mentioning that we are likely to kill each other long before an asteroid wipes us out but hey, better safe than sorry right?

  2. Weaponized! by plopez · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you can divert it, you can steer it. If you can steer it you can target an area on the planet.

    Take out a major city, no radiation. Just the threat would be a useful tool of terror and control.

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    1. Re:Weaponized! by Xiroth · · Score: 4, Insightful
      On the other hand, if you could steer it into Earth's orbit you might be able to mine a ridiculous amount of valuable material from it. As someone interested in orbital megastructures, this is one of the big steps. Of course, there's a few more - see if these don't sound like interesting challenges:
      1. Finding some way to extract the ore.
      2. Getting a refinary set up in space.
      3. Creating construction robots that can use the processed materials to build the structure.

      Should be interesting if/when someone tries this.
  3. Itsatrap! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If ever a story deserved an "itsatrap" tag, this story is one of them. Who can say what the result would be? It could have unintended consequences.

    I hope they pick a small asteroid to test on.

  4. NASA planning to save the Earth by noigmn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now all we need is an asteroid for them to save us from.

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  5. Not really by phorm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Deflecting something from a particular course is likley a lot easier than setting it on to a specific new course. All you need is a big enough push (or bigger) to ensure it missing hitting (for example) Earth. Now to have it hit a particular target, you would need much more exact placing and timing of an explosion/rocket/etc.

  6. Re:Don't comets obey the laws of physics??? by guardiangod · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Scientific method -

    1. Define the question
    2. Gather information and resources
    3. Form hypothesis
    4. Perform experiment and collect data
    5. Analyze data
    6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypotheses
    7. Publish results

    Without collecting data, all you get is something akin to String Theory - could be true, could be false, no one knows.