How To Deflect an Asteroid With Today's Technology

Matt_dk writes "Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart is among an international group of people championing the need for the human race to prepare for what will certainly happen one day: an asteroid threat to Earth. Schweickart said the technology is available today to send a mission to an asteroid in an attempt to move it, or change its orbit so that an asteroid that threatens to hit Earth will pass by harmlessly. But what would such a mission entail?"

Comments

Re:It all depends on detection...

[WindBourne]

Oddly, we are doing detection totally wrong. We have several scopes out there looking for asteroids. But they will be picking up monster ones. The ones that are far more likely to hit us will not be picked up as easily. So what is needed? A cheap cheap telescope that can be roof mounted, and uses POE to provide data/power. In doing that, it will encourage a number of geeks around the world to install these. Then the scope relays data back to a central server where pics are compared. In particular, if one gets a flash, not a big deal. OTH, if several spread around the world get a flash in the same area (basically sunlight glancing off an asteroid as it slowly turns), then it says that the area should be looked at. This approach will enable us to know WHERE to look for small to medium asteroids.