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How To Deflect an Asteroid With Today's Technology

Posted by Soulskill on from the don't-use-the-phasers dept.

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?"

8 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. Let's get this over with. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Bruce Willis.

    1. Re:Let's get this over with. by Fozzyuw · · Score: 4, Funny

      You're over thinking this. All you need is a wedge shaped ship that shoots square bullets.

      --
      "The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
  2. It all depends on detection... by Covalent · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Obviously it depends on detection time. If we detect the asteroid years ahead of time, then even tiny changes in course will save us from impact. This could be done by simply crashing a small probe into it...something we've done successfully on more than one occasion. But, if we don't detect it until it's nearly on top of us then it may well be beyond our ability to do it. Therefore, the obvious solution is to increase detection technology.

    --
    Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
    1. Re:It all depends on detection... by WindBourne · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    2. Re:It all depends on detection... by purfledspruce · · Score: 4, Interesting
      The moon would be ok. In a Venus-trailing orbit would be much better. One of the problems we have is that we can only see asteroids when they're lit up by the Sun, and asteroids that have an orbit almost entirely inside of the Earth's orbit are hard to see--only the backside gets lit up, so we can't see them very well.

      A vehicle placed at Venus's orbit, though, would be able to see those potentially dangerous asteroids quite well.

    3. Re:It all depends on detection... by blair1q · · Score: 4, Interesting

      We don't only find the monster ones.

      We commonly track asteroids under 500 feet wide; much smaller than a planet-killer.

      It will be comparatively easy to detect a planet-killer sized asteroid and determine its trajectory in plenty of time to launch a deterrent mission.

      A surprise impact by anything with major destructive capability is vanishingly unlikely at this point. Improvements in detection shouldn't be prioritized, but should be allowed to continue at a normal pace.

      Deciding how to minimize the destruction should be the focus, and we don't really know how to do it with a high degree of confidence, yet. So deflection technology should be prioritized.

  3. Spoiler alert by srussia · · Score: 5, Funny

    Bruce Willis died deflecting the last one. It'll have to be Ben Affleck next time... finally.

    --
    Set your phasers on "funky"!
  4. Re:solutions from the article by blair1q · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The ablation thing is inefficient. Use a nuclear reactor on the asteroid surface to melt itself down, melting a portion of the asteroid and directing it through the melt hole into space. You can send up a big reactor, use the asteroid itself as reaction mass, and get much more efficiency than a blast and an ablation.

    As for "rubble pile" asteroids, those would tend to break up and explode in the atmosphere. The more you can disperse them before they hit the atmosphere, the better. So embed a nuclear bomb and explode it when it's a few days out, so it doesn't have time to reform.