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Russia Plans To Divert Asteroid

Posted by samzenpus on from the Bruce-Willis-approved dept.

CyberDong writes "Roscosmos, Russia's Federal Space Agency, will start working on a project to save planet Earth from a possible collision with Asteroid Apophis, which may happen in 2036. NASA specialists believe that the collision is extremely unlikely. Russian specialists will choose the strategy and then invite the world's leading space agencies to join the project."

14 of 305 comments (clear)

  1. If it's not broken, why are you fixing it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When they take an asteroid that's not likely to hit Earth, and accidentally divert it onto a path directly at Earth, I'm going to do an epic facepalm.

    1. Re:If it's not broken, why are you fixing it? by Trackster · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When they invite NASA and ESA to join in, I'm confident that cooler heads will prevail. I can easily trust a decision that results from these 3 putting their heads together.

    2. Re:If it's not broken, why are you fixing it? by Tynin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When they take an asteroid that's not likely to hit Earth, and accidentally divert it onto a path directly at Earth, I'm going to do an epic facepalm.

      Orbital mechanics have a funny way of making an object return to its point of egress. Given how close it is, it is a bit concerning they want to adjust its orbit.

      That said, I feel this is something we need more experience in anyhow. Their is already an asteroid out there right now with our name on it, it is just a matter of time before it shows up. We will lose out if we don't take this opportunity to field test our idea's as we have the tech to do so now. As an economical side point, one day I'm sure we'd like to know how to slowly adjust their paths to bring them into an more contained/slower orbit around/near Earth so we can begin mining them for untold trillions of $ worth of materials they contain.

    3. Re:If it's not broken, why are you fixing it? by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Funny

      Indeed. There's a lot of exciting lotteries out there and we've got tickets in all of them.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    4. Re:If it's not broken, why are you fixing it? by geckipede · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly so. It doesn't matter if Apophis is going to hit us or not, the point is that this is a perfect opportunity to practise deflection strategies in advance of the real life-or-death event. There are going to be flaws in our thinking, every single asteroid shunting plan we have is untested and will be less than perfect when put into practise. We absolutely need to know whether there are critical mission failure flaws in these plans, or just minor irritations that won't ruin things.

      When it finally comes to the point when an asteroid is on a direct collision course, we might not be lucky, we might not have seen it decades in advance, and so a test run and lots of arguing about methods might not be an option.

  2. The one thing that'll guarantee an Asteroid strike by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is the ability to divert asteroids.

    Wonderful weapon, just massive blast damage and no residual radiation.

  3. Extremely unlikely by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    NASA: Listen, there's no way that thing is going to hit us.
    Roscosmos: Naturally, since we're diverting it. Thank you for your vote of confidence, American pigs.

  4. In Soviet Russia. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You hit Aster... wait.

    In Soviet Russia, Asteroid hits Y...

    I've been defeated.

    1. Re:In Soviet Russia. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      On Asteroid, Soviet Russia hits YOU!

  5. Re:thats what they hope by maxume · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Last year's inch is next year's mile.

    --
    Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  6. Re:Sounds Fishy by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is everything currently known about the orbit of 99942 Apophis.

    http://aeweb.tamu.edu/aero489/Apophis%20Mitigation%20Project/Predicting%20Earth%20Encounters.pdf

    We'll know more in 2012/2013 when radar returns can be collected. Anyone who says that there is "no chance", "nearly no chance" or anything other than "we don't have enough data yet" is just trying to stem public panic by treating you like a child. Read the scientific papers, make your own decision and for god sakes, don't criticize the people we may be calling on to save lives in the future.

    The fact is, asteroid detection systems (let alone mitigation systems) globally are woefully inadequate. We need at least a dozen radar telemetry satellites in solar orbit and improvements in the deep-space-network to handle that kind of data through-put. Total cost is likely in the tens of billions, and most of that will go on the telescopes, not the radar sats, and traditionally that's the most starved part of all national budgets diverted to space.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  7. Even if it did hit... by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 5, Informative
    From the Wikipedia:

    Any impact would be extremely detrimental to an area of thousands of square kilometres, but would be unlikely to have long-lasting global effects, such as the initiation of an impact winter.

    Also, this. Looks like Russia has a lot more at stake then America does.

    ( In before [citation needed] )

  8. Test drive by slasho81 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even if this asteroid is not going to hit Earth, I think it's time to test drive some solutions to an inevitable problem with terrifying consequences.

    As a bonus, we might actually advance science and technology!

  9. Why limit yourself? by Mathinker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The question to me is: is there a bigger chance of Apophis hitting Earth than the chance of catastrophic climate change due to anthropogenic global warming? Because that has the western world's attention and money, and Apophis does not.

    Why does everyone focus on the anthropogenic and not on the catastrophic? I mean, isn't it worth our while to research ways to prevent/ameliorate catastrophic climate change no matter what the cause?