International Organization To Assess Earth Defense From Space Dangers

arisvega writes in with a story about an international organization that is trying to come up with options to save the planet from a large asteroid or comet collision. "NEOShield is a new international project that will assess the threat posed by Near Earth Objects (NEO) and look at the best possible solutions for dealing with a big asteroid or comet on a collision (PDF) path with our planet. The effort is being led from the German space agency's (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin, and had its kick-off meeting this week. It will draw on expertise from across Europe, Russia and the US. It's a major EU-funded initiative that will pull together all the latest science, initiate a fair few laboratory experiments and new modelling work, and then try to come to some definitive positions. Industrial partners, which include the German, British and French divisions of the big Astrium space company, will consider the engineering architecture required to deflect one of these bodies out of our path."

Comments

Re:Armageddon!

[lightknight]

And that's not a refutation of what I've said.

The issue with using nukes, as pointed out by yourself earlier, is that for rocky types of asteroids, they can break apart in a great number of pieces which will not burn up in atmosphere. However, for solid types, it may be possible to use a nuclear weapon to alter the trajectory of an oncoming asteroid; the point here is that the asteroid would absorb the vast majority of the energy, and not break apart; or if it does, it will be into several manageable pieces. Hence the importance of finding a threat early on, and making a decent plan.

"Last I checked, the law of gravity worked the same no matter what you are made of. A hammer made out of feathers is just as heavy as a hammer made out of the same mass of metal." -> Well, sort of. Gravity isn't 9.8 m / s^2 everywhere in the universe, but I'm sure you knew that; but then, you seem on a quest to troll, as opposed to learn, so feel free to misinterpret my former statement.

"And it falls at the same rate." -> Yes...and remind me, what does Gravity have to do with an Asteroid a fair ways away from the Earth? In this context (of using nuclear weapons to redirect an oncoming asteroid's trajectory, in case you forgot), I mean.

"Nuking asteroids is stupidity." -> It's considered a viable option by a number of scientists.

  "No, I do not think you understand what the fuck you are talking about at all." -> I can understand why you feel that way. Math is hard, isn't it?

"This isn't a cartoon." -> Scooby-dooby-do!

I believe we're done here.