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The Social Difficulty of Saving Earth From an Asteroid
mantis2009 writes "When it comes to stopping a cataclysmic Earth vs. asteroid event, social science and international political leaders have more difficult questions yet unanswered than physicists do, according to report delivered at this week's American Geophysical Union meeting. Wired has a discussion of an analysis authored by former astronaut Rusty Schweickart, who worries that the international community is nowhere near ready to begin the complex and inevitably controversial task of deflecting an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Among the questions to be answered is whether to modify the Partial Test Ban Treaty to allow nuclear weapons in outer space. Another possibility to avoid the destruction of civilization would require the international community to choose an area on the globe where an asteroid might be 'aimed.' Who would decide which nations get placed in the asteroid's crosshairs?"
The problem with global warming is that everyone has something to gain by cheating on any agreement that might be made.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
France.
I believe Isaac Newton worked out the laws of motion and gravity three hundred years ago, and his equations have served astronomers well enough to correctly work out the orbits of every object in space that they could observe. Celestial mechanics is a mature branch of science, and it will doubtless work for determining whether an asteroid or comet that astronomers have observed will hit the earth. It worked well enough for predicting that Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was going to hit Jupiter in 1994. The real problem here is that one has to detect the object first, of course.
Its all about timing. You aren't going to blow up an asteroid of any size worth worrying about. But due to there being no friction in space, we could adjust its trajectory by providing a force on it. Basically just build giant engines on it and burn them for long enough it would be pushed out of the way. The trick is to find the asteroid that would hit earth in time- the earlier you set this up, the longer your force has to work.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
If you could aim it towards eastern Antarctica, that might be ok - but I'd rather you didn't, as I'm currently living there!
I may be a new Pastafanarian, but I thought FSM was cool with people not believing in It? Per the first of the Eight I'd Really Rather You Didn'ts:
I'd Really Rather You Didn't Act Like a Sanctimonious Holier-Than-Thou Ass When Describing My Noodly Goodness. If Some People Don't Believe In Me, That's Okay. Really, I'm Not That Vain. Besides, This Isn't About Them So Don't Change The Subject.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Exactly, it's estimated that there are up to a billion asteroids in our solar system, of which an estimated 100 million are larger than 10 metres across and likely to cross Earth's orbit at some point.
It's also worthy to note that even a small asteroid (i.e. about the size of a house) is enough to destroy a city, and a larger one could wreak havoc globally, regardless of where it lands.
Also, to quote Bill Bryson, "the number of people who in the world who are actively searching for asteroids is fewer than the staff of a typical McDonalds. (It is somewhat higher now. But not much)."
And we couldn't do anything about it even if we detected an asteroid that was going to hit earth, as we don't have any rockets that could reach it in time. The Saturn V rockets were retired in the early '70s, we (as a species) now have no replacement that could even reach the moon.
Take a dose of reality yourself. Before the Iraq war, U.S. intel, Jordanian intel , UK intel, Russian intel, French intel, et al all said that Iraq had WMDs. The disagreements were centered around how much, where, if any were in the hands of terrorists etc. Everyone agreed they had WMDs.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Per Lucifer's Hammer, learn to surf.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
You are aware that local space IS pretty two dimensional, at least where it counts? Nearly all of the objects in the near solar system are on the ecliptic, so they generally WOULD come "straight in".
That being said, the earth IS tilted, and for about half the year the Antarctic is pointing "out".
Besides which, those penguin movies were starting to get pretty damned irritating.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Actually we do kill the vast majority of our cows and then eat them. However their farts are not the source of problematic methane levels, that would be melting permafrost. The problem with cows is a land use issue not a flactuance issue. Melting permafrost releases vast quantities of methane, the reason methane and CO2 coincide in the geologoic record is because methane breaks down into CO2 and H2O in under 150yrs (150yrs is basically instantaneously on a gelogic scale)
The memo you speak of was posted in the 90's by "skeptics" who claimed that the term "global warming" was a conclusion rather than a phenomena.
I suggest you ease up on the mercury tainted fish, it's known to cause brain damage.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Your lack of confidence in the nuclear option is... misguided.
http://www.aere.iastate.edu/no_cache/events-seminars/article/article/2806/2506.html
When scientists talk about using nukes to move asteroids, they are usually talking about using the enormous heat and other radiation from the blast to ablate one side of the asteroid; this will cause the asteroid to move in the opposite direction (per newton's third law).
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.