Slashdot Mirror
UN Plans Asteroid Response Framework
chrb writes "The Association of Space Explorers, a non-profit group of people who have completed at least one Earth orbit in space, has presented a report to the United Nations titled Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response. The UN will now meet in February to discuss the issue and try to define a global political framework for dealing with asteroid-based threats to the Earth."
Will this be like the original, where if you lose a city then it's gone, or the newer version where you can rebuild a city if you blow up enough asteroids? Also, how are we going to get the east and west to cooperate? Will they only shoot down asteroids that come down on their side of the screen? What if they split up and some come onto our side? Oh, the political decisions...
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
holy shit
The real heroes are the guys (and gals) with the calculators.
On the upside though the debris from the impact will cure global warming.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Flashblock means you don't need to worry about Youtube rickrolling.
I hope it has less holes in it than the .NET Framework....ohhhhh :P No time to apply patches to that thing hehehe.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
I hope this will protect us against comets that have a chemical composition of less than 1.5% the normal level of cyanogen found in normal comets as well as asteroids.
Fifties and Sixties Civil Defense initiatives, 'Duck and Cover' isn't going to cut it.
Sig this!
It's all well and good to have a bunch of people talking together, but at the end of the day, the UN is utterly useless, and ultimately, the world's going to come looking for the USA for a way out, and then the Americans will quietly ask the British what they think, the French will chime in with their opinion whether anyone likes it or not, and after that brief bit of backchannel talking, the USA will wind up doing something that Europe hailed in private and condemned in public, except for the British, and their people will bitch about the Americans do it, not because its wrong, but they will insist that the British would have done it better had they still had their empire.
This is my sig.
Should funding be broken down by %population of the world, or %landmass occupied? However, I see this as "make the US pay for it". If a non-planet killing asteroid is targeting a nation which has not contributed to the fund/program, should we defend it? The security system on my house doesn't protect my neighbor's, (although my tax dollars which pay for the police, do.).
.... everybody knows that killer robots are the real menace.
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
I hope it has less holes in it than the .NET Framework
By the time the UN establishes it's framework, the Asteroid will have been upgraded to version 2.0 and then the UN will have to go back and do a whole re-write.
That is fantastique! :) luv Ricky.
o_O
Not if the federal government bails out the hammer factory manufacturers in time!
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
http://homepage.mac.com/lyford/4umsf/asteroids.jpg
I want to be the one selling the insurance for this! 6.7 billion people need a policy!
Thats the definition of "scream and run in circles"?
How about we put the net ON the asteroids and use their MC^2 to produce clean energy!
It is also a natural occurrence that we are here, able to perceive a threat to our species, and eliminate that threat.
-
Exactly, I say we do away with medicine, and science in general as well :-/
Although I do wonder: Would this more capable species do anything to stop future asteroid impacts? I say we do our best and if we are incompetent and end up getting wiped out, then it's our own fault. To not try at all makes no sense.
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
Actually natural selection has given us the ability to control our astrological destiny. Trusting our destiny to the UN is, of course, ludicrous. We would have better odds selling Asteroid Survival Kits at Radio Shack. What we should do is give money to universities to have students come up with survival ideas for better grades. Masters applicants need more thesis ideas anyway. How about rather than trying to stop an asteroid that conjures up images of Bruce Willis dying for a cause, create ships that can sustain life to hover the earth until the scorching is complete. Fly back down and repopulate. A temporary moon base perhaps? I always enjoyed a good episode of Space 1999. If you can't afford the space ticket my nephew sells bomb shelters (seriously). Relax, it's just an idea. I never did get that masters degree in Asteroid Manipulation.
No insurance pays out for an 'act of god' (whatever that means), so why bother anyway? - we would lose it all with no pay-back.
believe we should be messing with the natural occurances of the solar system. Asteroid collisions are how we got here, how we will end, and how a new smarter, more capable species will come again. Let it happen naturally. End of story.
Tell you what, next time you get critically ill or injured, we should just let you die a natural death so that a new smarter and more capable person can take your place. I say let it happen naturally, End of story.
Shit happens and it's usually caused by assholes
Our most capable politicians in charge of determining how to deflect and asteroid. How reassuring!
Brett
At least we can count on the UN sending that asteroid a strongly-worded letter!
What if we are the new smarter, more capable species?
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Of course. We can use Ruby on Railguns...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
believe we should be messing with the natural occurances of the solar system. Asteroid collisions are how we got here, how we will end, and how a new smarter, more capable species will come again.
Let it happen naturally. End of story.
You're trolling, I know but look at it this way. If humanity survives long enough we have essentially Godlike levels of technology. No species before humans was as good at maths or science as we are, and there's no reason to assume that post asteroid impact one would ever evolve. Intelligence at a human level is probably some sort of evolutionary fluke as most organisms could get by perfectly adequately without a sense of self, and without the mental hardware to be able to handle maths or complex languages.
Humans aren't perfect, but they're good enough and far superior technologically to anything else that has ever existed on this planet, and as far as we can tell, anywhere else either.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
World-burning asteroids of the type we're starting to see are part of a rather large cluster which has been studiously not-discussed since it began its inbound solar trajectory a few years back from where it was unceremoniously nine-pinned from the Kuiper Belt by a brown dwarf. I suspect that even if we had put some kind of defense into place years ago, it might find itself sorely taxed.
Instead, I believe the response to an impending asteroid pummeling anticipated by our mighty world leaders involves a great deal of tunnel digging and strict population management measures of the sort we are seeing being rushed into place --so that the remaining human debris can be sorted into convenient work groups.
A grim theory. Me. . , I'll invest in a nice lawn chair.
-FL
I'm sure that if an asteroid wiped out the capital of some tinpot dictator that the UN would respond. They would have no trouble building enough consensus to write the Oort cloud a stern letter.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
For true disaster preparedness the only solution is a backup hot site. Mars would be nice.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Bullshit. Mankind hes appeared as a "natural occurance of the solar system" too... It would only be normal to kick any ass that could threaten our survival.
I don't think this is going to be the UN General Assembly.
I doubt it'll even be the UN Security Council.
I'd half expect it to be the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs, which handles the treaty on the peaceable use of outer space, and does things that are actually useful, like maintaining the registry of what's been launched and is whizzing around up there... but this sort of thing is a bit different than what UNOOSA has been doing.
My Christmas-vacation homework will thus be:
1. Ask friend at UNOOSA whether they're involved, and
2. Ask Dave Tholen (Apophis discoverer) whether he knows anything.
Optionally:
3. Report back.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
then the only thing you can do is say good bye because it is game over for humans on earth, you cant blow up a Everest sized asteroid, you might knock some chunks off even with a nuke...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
No, there are many things the UN does well. Also, the Oil For Food Program did accomplish its humanitarian goal, despite the corruption. The UN had no authority or the resources to stop smuggling, although it did warn about it. The nations responsible for it, among them the US and UK, didn't do much about it at the time, however.
I'm not sure that I'd like men in blue helmets watching the skies, but their incompetence and corrupion is exaggerated.
Do I detect uncertainty in Uranus?
Libra: You will find yourself undecided as to whether to die in the initial fireball or in the tsunami deluge that follows.
Taurus: That unhappy time at home will come to an abrupt end towards the end of the month.
Capricorn: That tall dark handsome stranger will turn out to just be a handsome stranger in a very large shadow. Briefly.
Virgo: You can look forward to not having to look forward ever again.
Sagitarius: You may be promised promotion at work during the next quarter. Don't hold your breath. Or do - it won't actually matter.
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
What exactly does 'perceive a threat to our species' and 'eliminate that threat' mean? In your context, it means asteroids. However, the greatest threat to our species isn't from space, it's the way we treat each other. So why the hell are we more worried about random rocks from space, when it's exactly that mentality that leads to all the wars and conflict on earth? Perhaps instead of trying to dominate, crush and otherwise cause further separation, we need to be figuring out how to live co-operatively on earth.
True elimination is digging out the seeds that grow ideas of conflict. Otherwise the weedwhacker of war is just spreading more.
Neutiquam erro
one of the only reasons that we are not still simple bacteria and stromatolites here on earth is because of the astroid/comet/massive volcano "reset button". every time a large "catastrophe" has taken place, evolution advanced. the strong survived and it spawned, or allowed for, change in our environment to what it is today. the same reason they purposely set forest fires, to allow for new life to seed. Are we advanced as we can possibly be? In the early 1900's the US patent office was almost closed because they thought everything we possibly could ever need was already invented. I think we are a bunch of whiny twats and a reset button might be good for the earth.
[...] Either way, I have zero faith in the UN being able to put together anything bigger or more complex than a boy scout weekend camping trip without massive corruption, waste and/or bad blood being created between member nations.
You, sir, are an optimist. I'd set the bar at a boy scout picnic, and would be pleasantly surprised if they managed to pull it off.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Does "asteroid-based threats" mean threats issued while the party making the threat is on an asteroid, or threats that indicate the use of an asteroid?
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
I prefer Python on a Shuttle myself.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
who's the tosser who flagged this as flaimbait ?
"Senior U.N. officials said they hope that Volcker's fourth and most complete report will bring an end to a painful 18-month probe of the $64 billion program, which investigators concluded was so poorly managed that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein raked in $1.7 billion in kickbacks from participating companies and $11 billion in oil-smuggling profits. "
The Oil for Food program was possibly the single most corrupt administrative activity that the U.N. ever enagged in. Aside from NOT accomplishing AT ALL what it was designed to do, it poured money into the hands of the one man who it was intended to circumvent. It also showed just how corrupt senior U.N. administrators were, including the Scty. Gnl.
It is a classic example of why the U.N. should be shut down.
Even if you don't agree with these sentiments, you can hardly call my post flamebait. Wanker !
First off, I feel your post veers somewhat from the original intent of the parent. The parent states that we should naturally let things happen, which includes letting an asteroid destroy earth, so that other, smarter species can arise. I simply added to that same part of the Venn diagram the notion that we have also arisen naturally and from that have a natural instinct for survival through perception of dangers (in this case an asteroid that could obliterate earth) and we have naturally evolved the ability to deal with the threats we perceive.
So, if we're going to talk about letting things happen naturally, all that has arisen from mankind is perfectly natural. Are those actions best for us as a species is another question completely, but the idea that we should somehow let our species be destroyed simply on the pretense that it is natural seems less than helpful, though I could be missing something (I'm not the smartest cookie in teh shed, as the kids say)
Now, if it can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that humanity can only do harm to the universe (another very abstract and difficult concept to get a conversation around) then I will bow to that and conceed that humanity ought to be destroyed.
Basically, it seems like we ought to look at the survival of our species as good, and the opposite as bad. How we do it can be (is?)a moral question, but any true argument against the survival of mankind over the long term is something that needs much more rigorous argument than simply "we kill each other and we're stupid so we should all die." If you feel that way, back it up with something. Also keep in mind you're on a science and technology site. Science and technology look to the future and dream of a better tomorrow where everyone's lives are better for the things we think of and create. It is a solid form of that endless spring many like to call "hope".
Of course there's Buddhist idea that neither good or bad exists, and we ought to just let things happen. That colors the argument differently perhaps, but we can leave that for another time.
-
I'm sure the UN will come up with an efficient solution to the problem, which all member nations will immediately ratify. Just like the UN always does.
I take it that you are familiar with the Space:1999 episode Collision Course? Due to treaties, there is a dearth of data on the characteristics of REAL nuclear explosions in interplanetary space. It may be possible to extrapolate data from the DEEP IMPACT mission. Hurling a grand piano sized hunk of metal may work for a dirty snowball, however for the city sized cannonballs of nickel-iron will require copious numbers of TellerToys(tm).
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
Just like the environment guy, these guy are too clever.
Do play god. Study more, after you really know what you are planning, until then.