Nukes Not the Best Way To Stop Asteroids, Says Apollo Astronaut

MajorTom writes "Right now, we are not tracking many of the asteroids that could destroy earth. But within the next decade, new telescopes will make that possible, and leave us with the tough decision of what to do about objects with an alarming chance of hitting our planet. Last year, NASA said that the best option is to nuke them. This week, Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart, explained that there are far better options, and he has started an organization to prove that they can work."

Comments

TFS

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To save you all the horror and pain of reading TFA (since TFS doesn't state), Schweickart is suggesting we either push or pull them away with unmanned spacecraft.

Re:TFS

[AKAImBatman]

I hope you realize that Pournelle and Niven didn't just make that up? Project Orion was a very real attempt to develop nuclear pulse propulsion. It is still a viable option for space travel, as long we're not talking about a ground-launch using nuclear pulses. To get the sucker into orbit, we might have to resort to something a bit more mundane. Like a dozen SRBs or somesuch.

Re:I always wondered

[Sibko]

Oh man, oh man. I'm literally facepalming right now. Facepalming SO HARD.

Nuclear explosions follow the inverse square law. The further you are from the source, the less radiation is hitting you. Nuclear weapons on Earth derive most of their destructive power from the shockwave they create in our atmosphere. However, they are still incredibly powerful reactions, and if you're close to one in space, it will still fry you.

Project Orion would not 'take years to accelerate.' Unless you meant to add 'to a tenth the speed of light' at the end of that sentence. As it stands, Project Orion is the fastest, most practical spaceship would could design and build today. Chemical rockets don't even come close to what Project Orion is capable of.

And the Orion doesn't have a 'reflector', it has a pusher plate. It's a heavy metal plate, on the end of a gigantic shock absorber, coated in oil or similar [To reduce ablation.] that absorbs the energy from the nuclear explosion so that everyone on board the ship doesn't get splattered by the intense acceleration. The ship is ultimately pushed by a plasma wave created by the explosion.

An asteroid would be no different. Except that the surface might vaporize and act as additional reaction mass. The biggest problem I can envision with using a nuke to propel an asteroid is the difficulty you might have in predicting its new course.