Slashdot Mirror
Mars Asteroid Impact Effectively Ruled Out
An anonymous reader writes with a followup to previous news noting the possibility that an asteroid would collide with Mars: "Further observations have reduced the odds of asteroid 2007 WD5 impacting Mars to approximately 1 in 10,000. According to NASA this asteroid followed the same pattern of increasing in probability, then finally being ruled out as a threat."
At this point, even with favorable orbits, and a payload already loaded and ready for launch, you still couldn't get there in time. The fast orbit to Mars still takes six months. The slow orbit takes two years. I don't think they even knew about this event six months ago.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I'm going to try really hard not to use a lot of adjectives to describe your thinking on this.
Are you nuts? Nuclear warheads? That is probably the absolute very last thing you would want to try to deflect a large body with. It might fracture, which would make problems much much worse.
You see, the problem with lots of little rocks entering the atmosphere is a little detail called "atmospheric heating". Rocks get warm, transfer their heat to the air. A few rocks, no problem. Lots and lots of little rocks, big problem. Which is why the ending of the movie Deep Impact would have resulted in the end of all life on the planet, not a nice speech by the President.
All it takes is a little push, or as previously alluded to, some paint to absorb solar radiation differently. No nuclear warheads. Maybe an Orion-type or NERVA propulsion system to get out that far.
Moving an asteroid is MUCH easier than solving poverty, crime or homelessness. If you have enough lead time it takes a relatively small rocket attached to the asteroid to steer it clear of the earth. A paper on moving asteroid, with 10N of force! Another simple proposal.
On the other hand, there is already enough food for everyone on the whole planet, but human greed, for both wealth and power, prevents a huge number of people from enjoying peace and prosperity. And no amount of technical or political knowledge is going to help.
In short, it is a very low chance event with very bad results that we CAN do something about.
Anarchists never rule