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Neil deGrasse Tyson Outlines a Plan For Saving Earth From Asteroids
dsinc contributes a link to Neil deGrasse Tyson's short piece in Wired on how we could deal with the very real threat of killer asteroids, writing "In 2029 we'll be able to know whether, seven years later, Apophis will miss Earth or slam into the Pacific and create a tsunami that will devastate all the coastlines of the Pacific Rim." From the article: "Saving the planet requires commitment. First we have to catalogue every object whose orbit intersects Earth’s, then task our computers with carrying out the calculations necessary to predict a catastrophic collision hundreds or thousands of orbits into the future. Meanwhile, space missions would have to determine in great detail the structure and chemical composition of killer comets and asteroids."
We need this Southern guy with three names to come up with a plan to drill into the asteroid . . . never mind!
If it was possible for an asteroid impact to cause a mass extinction, wouldn't it have happened already?
When exactly did Neil deGrasse Tyson become the world's official representative on all things astronomical? Was it the the pluto thing? It's just really weird that every media outlet seems to go to him for everything these days. He's really articulate and informed, but so are a lot of people. I don't get it.
Let me guess, he wants to reclassify Earth as a "Non-Asteroid-Attracting Planetoid" in the hopes of fooling the asteroids.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
An asteroid calculated to miss for 1000 orbits can have its orbit gravitationally altered by a close pass with another small but significant mass object in the Kuiper Belt.
At that point, the next pass by Earth may not be "by Earth"...
hear, hear, lets spend all of our precious energy inventing news ways of offing ourselves, that way when the killer asteroid does impact at some point in the future it will put a nice layer of dust over our dribble.
No, that would be Americans themselves...
Ever notice how the news makes sure to refer to any psychopathic killer by three names?
Neil deGrasse Tyson is a lowdown sidewinder that shot Pluto in the back just to watch it die.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Didn't it?
1 - catalogue all the asteroids likely to pass by earth
2 - analyse their composition
3 - determine which can have their orbit modified so as to be placed in orbit around earth for an energy effort low enough that one will come out ahead either using the asteroid for material in orbit (to construct space stations / satellites, the probe to explore the next asteroid &c.) or have ore valuable enough to be worth returning to earth
4 - profit!
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
wake me up when they actually implement some of that socialism your referring to.
The dinosaurs say hello...
Oh wait, an asteroid impact caused their mass extinction.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
3-body problem --> non-linear feedback --> mathematical chaos --> must simulate, but very sensitive to initial conditions. There is a lot of matter in our solar system for which the orbits are not known. ==> I don't believe 'hundreds of orbits in the future'.
A triangular space ship with vector blasters!!! It worked in the 20th century and it should work in the 21st century!!!
Couldn't Tyson just move all of us to his home planet prior to the asteroid hitting earth? Or is the environment of his home planet inhospitable to earthlings?
Yes this is indeed the need of the hour! Save Earth from asteroids! How about we stop this paranoia and focus on matters closer to home, or what will be left in a few short decades will not only not be worth saving, it would well deserve obliteration by an asteroid or two!
Headline is hyperbolic. Astroid sized impacts aren't going to destroy Earth. It'll be fine. It's the humans for which we need to be concerned.
Evidence for Younger Dryas impact: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/03/01/1110614109.abstract
Note that the YD debris layer covers 10% of the Earth. It is hypothesized it was caused by a comet which broke up some time before hitting Earth, so created a large number of smaller craters rather than one big one.
Given the way the past generations have treated the future ones, there won't be enough time between figuring out the threat and putting together an adequate response in time.
Past performances prove that any previous generation has no qualms at all about making the future generations pay for their own spending and not the other way around, all this is done while paying plenty of lip service to the proverbial 'children'.
You can't handle the truth.
There are 100 planets within 30 light years of us. That is an achievable goal. We are getting close to figuring out fusion technology. Then we'll have the energy to travel to the stars. A lot of barriers to entry still exist, but if we really want to, we can overcome them.
Mark Anthony Collins
Approximations :-)
Hey, it worked for the Voyager probes.
Jupiter has been doing a good job vacuuming these rocks, if not, kiss your ass goodby, because there is no chance in hell we are going to avoid an extinction event.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
There were no humans around a million years ago, what makes you think there will in a million?
Sentience.
And what makes you think we have the energy to sustain anything close to what we have enjoyed for the past 150 years ????
E = mc^2
Idiot.
Defeatist.
He does seem to be going on about this issue a bit lately.
What are you not telling us, Neil?
So an exact solution does not exist, big deal. There are plenty of things we can calculate numerically with precision which is high in practice and arbitrary in theory.
He is right, we know too little about asteroids today to be able to predict a collision, let alone think of deflection. Before trying to come up with a plan to deflect one, we need to study them much more.
3 - determine which can have their orbit modified so as to be placed in orbit around earth
4 - Oops!
I know, right? Most disappointing "socialist takeover" ever. Where's Eugene Debs when you need him?
With the computing power, the n-body problem can be solved with sufficient precision for the purposes of detecting this particular threat. And it will give us enough fore-warning to do something to prevent it. Whether we can come to a consensus and actually do it is another issue.
Let me get this straight, in the same post you complain that we won't work together and fix the problem and then also chastise "socialism" - Do you think there is a private company who would be doing this save for the chains of government?
His plan...
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Anyone that read Lucifer's Hammer knows that asterioids and comets bounce around in their orbit too much to make anything other than a reasonable guess till they are too close to do anything other than hide The Way Things Work in your septic tank. For those unaware - it's written by Larry Niven and David Pournelle
You are thinking Mars, the Moon, L-5 habitats as additional baskets? They will never be a robust a place for survival as the Earth, but I agree. Species survival is an imperative. And neither our Earth, nor solar system should be the sole home of H Sap.
No wonder they named a Jr High School after this guy.
"Omnis tuus capsa sunt inesse nos"
The earth doesn't need saving from asteroids, it's survived asteroid impacts for 4 billion years. Humans are what we need to save from asteroid impacts and the simplest solution to this problem seems to me to be to move off of objects that routinely get struck by asteroids (the earth) and onto something a tad bit more maneuverable (like an asteroid)
T.Rex's last words were "What's that wooshing sound?"
If by 15 years you mean more then a decade, then yes.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The USAF is looking around for a new bomb big enough to bust those wacky Iranian Nuclear Factory Bunkers. Maybe an Asteroid might be up to the job.
You would just need to catch it, and toss it in the right direction. This shouldn't be a problem for the current state of technology.
Probably.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I mean, come on, after the Earth has collided with an errant asteroid and all life on it has been fried, would you really care that the space aliens are laughing at you? If people are not moved by "You are all going to die!" they are not likely to be persuaded by, "Space aliens would laugh at you!".
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Whether we can come to a consensus and actually do it is another issue.
Obligatory
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
That ain't gonna cut it. Even if the nuke blows up the asteroid, its center of mass will continue on the original trajectory. All the chunks that were displaced in the tangential (to the trajectory at the moment of explosion) will hit the earth. Only the chunks displaced in the normal direction has some chance of missing the earth. Again given the size of the Earth's gravitational well, it would only delay the impact by a few thousand years. So nuking the asteroid is likely to nip in the bud any nascent life form emerging after the apocalyptic impact.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
We should see if we can quickly deplete their list of denial options until they no longer deny the problem and say they simply refuse to act and will bury themselves in deep-underground suspended animation chambers...then I'll find a way to get myself onto the list of people to be preserved, and as an expert dune buggy driver, decent marksman, and could-be-worse boomerang thrower, the cute post-apocalyptic future-women will be mine! :D MUAHAHAHAHA, a flawless plan!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
And the outcome will be? We will know the precise hour when we die.
How do we stop an asteroid anyway? I've heard proposals of nuking the asteroids, but I don't see how we will intercept an asteroid with enough nukes early enough to deflect the asteroid. I don't suppose a nuke would be much better than simply hitting the asteroid with a high momentum slug and hope to change the trajectory sufficiently. How will we accelerate such a slug and set it on an intercept course with the asteroid?
Just like clockwork every year the stories abound about meteors/comets/space junk colliding with earth and sealing our fate. Then we hear from bacteriologists that some primordial ooze will threaten to overtake the planet. And on and on and on......... Working in medicine I see this everyday; a constant lobbying for $$$. Cancer vs. heart disease vs. neuro diseases, yada yada yada. I'm not saying that these concerns are without validity, just that this is simply the tried and true method for garnering public support for increased funding.
Even though its good to plan for precuations and deflection efforts, the fact is, humans could survive a Chicxulub sized impact fairly easy, it is completely survivable here on earth. Unlike dinosaurs humans can store away enough food to get through a long period of time without sunlight, and store a seed bank supply containing huge stores of all seeds from food plants and livestock to repopulate and restore agriculture afterward, and libraries filled with the accumulated knowledge of humanity. Unless, we include the entire population of these efforts so the entire population stores away huge amounts of freeze dried and preserved food, the survival facility would have to be secret and heavily protected from the riots and chaos that would ensue in a asteroid winter. There would be many of these facilities located in top secret all over the planet so even if one was destroyed by the impact there would still be others. The people participating in them would have to live nearby and would have to go underground at a moments notice. Some of them would have to be located near fertile, farmable areas for recovery long after the strike. They would be far underground and bult to withstand wildfires, huge winds, earthquakes and all the other stuff that could happen. They would be protected from tsunami, located inland and so on and from any other conceivable disaster.
All of this could allow humanity to survive on earth even easier and with less trouble than on mars. It is actually easier to survive here on earth after an asteroid than it would be on mars.
Wouldn't the significant increase in surface area / volume ration cause a far lower mass to actually hit earth?
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Well, if your bomb is strong enough, you can blow it enough for the center of mass to become irrelevant, as all debris will fly away from it. If it isn't that strong, you can still ensure you blow it into small enough pieces that it's surface to mass ratio is big enough for them to not survive reentry.
But the best option is probably just to propel the thing, you are right.
Rethinking email
Personally, I'm dubious. The technology isn't that hard really, it's the political will. Creating that technology and building things at the scale needed for success requires massive funding, which means a couple guys in their garage can't do it themselves. Here's an Onion article that, while facetious, is pretty accurate. We humans, in groups, just aren't very intelligent, and are completely unable to work together to do necessary things to ensure our own survival. Generally, the only things that work well for us are things which a couple guys in their garage can do, and then after proving it, everyone else decides it's a good idea and jumps on the bandwagon. This is why things like smartphones have worked so well: it's not that hard for small groups of people to build such things and prove they work; then, once the masses see that they can talk to their dumb friends and play Angry Birds, they all want to buy one, making the whole thing highly profitable. There's no clear profit in building large spacecraft and traveling to Alpha Centauri, and once we have an Earth-killer hurtling towards us and it's clear we won't survive, it'll be too late to do anything to either avert the disaster or save the species. What's worse, we're too stupid to learn from history and from the failings of others, so we repeat their mistakes. The dinosaurs showed what happens when you don't invest in a space program. They had hundreds of millions of years to do so, yet they didn't bother (for obvious reasons), and then a giant asteroid wiped them out. Now, we've advanced enough to where we've figured out that this happened to them, yet we still don't take the threat seriously. And unlike the dinosaurs, we don't have the excuse that we're too stupid to develop language, technology, civilization, or even spaceflight.
Personally, I think we're headed into another Dark Ages, where we'll lose most of our technology and go back to living in grass huts and fighting each other in Feudal wars using swords and shields. Maybe after another two thousand years or so, we'll have another technological revolution and develop spaceflight again, and discover that the old myths and legends about humans walking on the Moon were actually true, and that time develop a serious space program and travel to other stars. But if a killer asteroid strikes before then, we're doomed as a species.
the ultimate wave defense game
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
I'm pretty sure that 15 years IS more than a decade, actually...
I hate to burst your bubble, but his branch of our species is the one reproducing the most, while yours is dying out. In a few generations, there won't be many people like you left, and tons of people like him, all burning through the planet's resources as fast as they can, driving giant SUVs and starting more and more resource wars. You might have the will and foresight, but you don't have the finances and power to carry out your plans; you can't get a handful of guys together in your garage and build a generation ship or a large Moon base.
I read the title as 'a plan to save earth from assholes'. I'd be more interested to hear his answer on that one.
They can't even calculate it's trajectory close enough to determine if it will hit one on of the few key windows in 17 years that might put it on a collision course in another 7 years. Why should I think the projection out 24 years from now (appx) will actually hit a target only a few thousand miles across and in a window of less than half a day with that level of imprecision?
I think either he's been watching too many Hollywood films, or the reporter didn't correctly quote the statement.
I think it depends on which way the winds carry the ash. Seriously, Californians would be better off if they eliminated the power the east coasters have over them, and California (actually, the whole west coast) is where all of America's remaining technology is. Where do you think your smartphone, computer, etc. were all designed? Certainly not in Detroit, NYC, or DC. The east coast cities don't really produce anything of value, and in the case of NYC and DC, they do nothing but cause harm (from the banksters in NY and the politicians and lobbyists in DC).
This is no joke.
Yes it is. Orbits, unlike the weather, are not chaotic. For those who don't know, chaotic means "sensitively dependent on initial conditions", which in practice means that the error in your output calculation is not proportional to the error in your measurement of the initial state. This is why accurate, non-probabilistic weather predictions will never be possible beyond the very short term.
Orbits are not chaotic. The error in the calculation of the orbit is proportional to the error in our current measurements of its position and velocity, and any relevant masses that could affect its orbit. The more we study the object, the more precisely we know its orbit, and the more precisely and the farther into the future we can predict its orbit.
We don't need to solve the 3000-body problem, because the vast majority of bodies in the solar system have a completely negligible effect compared to the solar wind.
There is still uncertainty in the orbit of Apophis. That's why you still hear the odds of it passing through the 'keyhole' that will send it on a collision course with earth, rather than an explicit "yes" or "no". Yet with precise enough measurements, we could say that, and eventually will be able to.
So, yeah, the butterfly effect is just a joke in this context.
The enemies of Democracy are
We can't even calculate all of the digits of pi! Whatever shall we do!
AHHHH!
If scientists were in charge we may have a chance at survival as a species. Unfortunately our country (USA) is run by a bunch of corrupt money grubbing idiots that still believe in creationist theory (god WILL protect us). What's worse is that we voted these fools into power.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
Yes it is. Orbits, unlike the weather, are not chaotic.
An orbit is not chaotic. Solving two orbits (three bodies) is the exact problem that lead to the development of chaos theory.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
[1] Any mathematicians reading this are probably going to crucify me over my abuse of terminology there, sorry...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Well, you're a basket case if you think anything resembling the "species" will still be around in cosmic time scales. There were no humans around a million years ago, what makes you think there will in a million?
You're right. So instead, let us not talk just about preserving the human species, but whatever species our descendants will become.
The enemies of Democracy are
It depends on what you count as human. Modern humans are generally thought to have been around for about 50,000 years, with anatomically similar ones (but without the same behaviour range) extending back 200,000 years. The first members of the homo genus appeared about 2.5 million years ago, so there were a lot of vaguely human-like things around a million years ago, but probably none that you'd invite over for tea. Wikipedia has a nice timeline.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You can numerically integrate from initial estimates of known objects. Uncertainties get magnified when any two get close enough. Rotations come into play, mass can get redistributed. And of course a new object could always appear, don't forget the solar system shifts to entirely new space every 316 days.
That's irrelevant: the US already has bombs plenty big enough to bust those Iranian nuclear factory bunkers; the only problem is that they're nuclear themselves. What the USAF is looking for is a really big conventional bomb, because it's not politically feasible to start dropping megatons of hypocrisy on the Iranians.
With an asteroid, on the other hand, there's no problem using a nuke.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Unfortunately our country (USA) is run by a bunch of intelligent, alpha sopciopaths, some of whom claim belief in creationist theory in order to get votes from the actual stupid people. What's worse is that we voted these fools into power because even by the primaries we have no choice except evil lizard A and evil lizard B.
FTFY. :-)
Thanks! And I do it without chemicals!
The problem with the Yellowstone supervolcano is that it probably won't wipe out California and the East coast
Don't worry, the flood of refugees will.
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Well, you're a basket case if you think anything resembling the "species" will still be around in cosmic time scales. There were no humans around a million years ago, what makes you think there will in a million? And what makes you think we have the energy to sustain anything close to what we have enjoyed for the past 150 years ???? We'll all be right here, on this "basket". Idiot.
Well, there were our ancestors around a million years ago, stands to reason that our descendants will be around in another million years. Unless, of course, you're claiming we're only 6,000 years old and the apocalypse is coming.
There will still be a sun in another 150 years. There's plenty of energy coming from it to supply us with what we'd need for a decent life. It already supplies a large fraction of the earth's current energy budget through hydro (1/5 for the US). Then there's wind followed by other types of solar. Coal looks like it will last for another 150 years. Then, if we wanted to go to space based energy gathering schemes, there's effectivly limitless energy. Even if we reduced out energy usage to 20% of what it is now, I'm pretty sure we'd have a better sustainable standard of living than 50 years ago, let alone 150.
We are all in this basket, and lots of things, both good and bad, can happen in cosmic time scales, but your outlook on things seems to be lacking any sort of sustainable argument.
I came up with a drinking game where you take a drink every time there was a scientific inaccuracy in "Armaggeddon" but I would always pass out drunk by the end of the opening credits.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
That's the second anti-Tyson post (really, why are you so exercised about this educator?) in which you accuse him of "pondering to the crowd".
Pondering. I don't think that word means what you think it does.
The technology isn't that hard really, it's the political will. Creating that technology and building things at the scale needed for success requires massive funding
But that's exactly why the technology is hard. Given unlimited sums of money, there are many scientific and technological endeavors that become technically feasible or even trivial: fusion power, Mars colonies, cancer cures, eliminating dependency on fossil fuels, etc. The problem is that we don't have unlimited sums of money, and we don't know in advance of any shortcuts of miraculous developments that would make something like interstellar travel affordable (let alone profitable).
Some actual numbers are required to really understand how far away we are. The best study of interstellar travel that I'm aware of is Project Daedalus from the 1970s. The hypothetical spacecraft - unmanned - would have been powered and propelled by D/He3 inertial confinement fusion, and would take 50 years to reach Barnard's Star, where it would release several probes. The fuel would be obtained by siphoning He3 out of Jupiter's atmosphere over a 20-year period. Estimated cost was $100 trillion. This is for an unmanned probe that would take most of a human lifetime to reach a very close star. To give you some perspective, the annual US budget is $3.6 trillion, and the entire global GNP is around $70 trillion. We do not actually know how to build most of this technology (although ICF may be almost within reach) - we only know that it is probably technically possible. More importantly, we do not know how we might build it cheaply.
I'm all for continuing research into nuclear fusion, new propulsion systems, industrial automation, exoplanets, etc. But the idea that we could have an interstellar spaceflight program if only we found the "political will" is utterly detached from reality. The problem isn't that people in general are stupid: the problem is that people don't want the government to redirect a massive portion of their economic output towards a project that we don't know how to build, won't be completed in their lifetime, and won't improve their lives on Earth. (And still wouldn't ensure the survival of the species, for that matter.) That's not stupidity, that's common sense.
The dinosaurs showed what happens when you don't invest in a space program. They had hundreds of millions of years to do so, yet they didn't bother (for obvious reasons), and then a giant asteroid wiped them out.
This comes up in every single thread on this topic, and the response is always the same: if we suffered a similar impact, Earth would still be a vastly more hospitable environment for humans than anywhere else that we know of, including Mars. It would undoubtedly result in mass extinction, and a large fraction of the human race would probably die from starvation, but we could still sustain millions (if not billions) of lives indefinitely, albeit at a greatly reduced standard of living. The dinosaurs died out because they lacked technology and food cultivation altogether.
Okay, you made your point earlier. You *really* don't like Tyson and are, for some reason, very, very bitter about/toward him. For whatever the reasons, of which you seem to disapprove, he's successful and famous and you're not; take a deep breath, get a drink and get over it.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
There are 100 planets within 30 light years of us.
The issue isn't the number of planets, the issue is whether they are habitable for us. I don't know about you, but while I prefer my temps on the slightly warm side, I don't fancy living on a planet where the normal daily temp is 300C.
Nor do I wish to attempt to live on a planet without either water or some semblance of soil.
Finally, 30 lights years is only near compared to the overall distance to everything else in the universe. Even if you achieve speed 1/10 the speed of light, you are looking at a time to travel of 300 years, minimum. That's assuming you instantly achieve that speed. However, instantly accelerating to that speed from a standstill tends to do bad things to the human body such as squish it into a fine paste (Star Trek and Star Wars aside).
Then there is the issue of supplying yourself and your offspring for those centuries and hoping that during your travel you don't run into a grain of sand or other space debris which would turn you into swiss cheese.
Others more knowledgeable than I have been thinking about this idea for decades and can give you encyclopedias on what is involved in long-term space travel. Imagine the number of books/manuals/whatever that were needed just to get three guys to the Moon and back. Now multiply that out by an order of magnitude.
As an aside, I've been contemplating attempting to write a book on this subject and came to the conclusion it's easier to bypass the travel mess and just go about describing the conflict that will ensue between the offspring of the travelers 300 or so years after the landings. Think Science v. Religion but on a planetary scale with the usual SiFi bent. (And now tell me what I already know. That other, more talented, writers have already done this.)
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I think that's a very succinct and appropriate quote, and I shall use it elsewhere to make myself seem more intelligent. Thank you.
We all have our brain farts. :D
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A starship would be the biggest project in the history of man, it would dwarf the "great wall" and the pyramids and everything else put together, it would require the output of the entire planet for decades, it would cast trillions with no return on investment!
Who will pay? Who will build? Who would design? Where would the materials come from?
It's a swell idea, and like all purely theoretical exercises, fun to think about, BUT it's NOT GONNA HAPPEN!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
I wonder what would happen if someone would start a Kickstarter project around this: "Save the Earth! Target funding: $1,000,000,000,000. The more you contribute, the greater the chance you will survive."
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
It would be midly entertaining, but because they wouldn't hit their goal, the funds would not be released...
Remember when the Republican party used to be sane? Today's Republicans are the gift that keeps on giving to the Onion writers.
Yes, 15 years usually is more then a decade ;-)
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Maybe, but another factor is that technology is (almost) always improving, so advances in one area can affect other domains. So, for instance, if fusion power were researched more and improved, this might drastically change your $100T estimate, which as you say, was made back in the 70s based on the technology (and understanding of what might be possible technologically) of the time. Things have already changed a fair amount since that time. Even back then, most people probably couldn't imagine the internet and smartphones, and sci-fi movies and shows of the time never show these things (even though the internet already had started by that time).
So no, if we try to immediately start a project to send a giant probe craft to Barnard's Star right now, it's going to be expensive as hell. That's why we need to start a little smaller and work on other things closer to home, such as better propulsion systems (probably fusion power), a space elevator, artificial habitats at Lagrangian points or on the Moon, etc.; after a few decades of serious work in these areas, and the improved knowledge and technology all that would bring, an automated probe to a nearby star wouldn't be such a giant undertaking. But the problem is we aren't working seriously on any of these things.
Just like every civilization before us since the dawn of man, yes. And we've survived despite it.
Let me get this straight, in the same post you complain that we won't work together and fix the problem and then also chastise "socialism" - Do you think there is a private company who would be doing this save for the chains of government?
He's probably American. They haven't a fucking clue what socialism actually is. To them it's just a word that appeared in the English language during the 2008 US presidential election campaign when the bimbo-in-chief started bandying it around to refer to any Obama policy she didn't like.
sounds more like the media whore physicist full employment act to me.
This new learning fascinates me. Tell me again how we can prevent asteroid strikes with just computers.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
the problem is we aren't working seriously on any of these things.
Actually, we are, but probably not with as large a budget as you (or I) would like. The National Ignition Facility isn't too dissimilar in concept from the Daedalus engine, and it may have a chance of generating surplus power. For the space elevator, we simply need much better materials, and there is an awful lot of research (public and private) in that area.
The timeline for this probably isn't decades, though - centuries would be more realistic. It's true that rapid unexpected advances in technology are possible, but it's also true that you can pour a massive amount of money into something and end up no further than you were before. (Case in point: the space shuttle.) Additionally, there is a real problem with scale - the advances in technology that you mention result from electronics becoming miniaturized and more efficient. But mega-projects like the LHC or ITER are still extremely expensive. Quite a bit of time and effort is required to make those helium-cooled superconducting magnets, and economies of scale don't seem to apply.
Near Earth Asteroid collision predictions are relatively straightforward and processes for mitigation are being worked on. That issue is almost too easy and we'll know years if not decades in advance if a relatively large asteroid is a threat. The threat from a large comet approaching the inner solar system is a different issue and one that doesn't lend itself to easy prediction and mitigation. We might have several months to plan for deflection/destruction of a large comet swooping in from the Oort Cloud. Remember those blotches in Jupiter's clouds from Shoemaker-Levy 9? They were produced by cometary fragments.
Well, he did just publish a book..
THAT is the one you linked to?! Just this week they published: this about him :-P As soon as that hits the atmosphere, he's outta here! lol.
Well, the guy who almost single-handedly caused Pluto to be relegated to Minor Planet status should know a thing or two about planetary destruction...
Although if you think about it, most any habitat built on mars or the moon would be far cheaper and similarly effective for protecting humans on earth. (provided it wasn't in the immediate blast radius)
That's not what the infomercials say.
Learn to love Alaska
I don't think the Space Shuttle is a good example of your point. The SS is a good example of a boondoggle and stupid requirements. The whole idea of having something that could go up in space, grab big payloads, and bring them back down to earth is something that just wasn't needed; it's much cheaper and easier to make something that launches mass into space, in a one-way trip (only the humans need to be returned safely).
To make the obligatory car analogy, it's like buying a giant 6-seat pickup truck (w/ long bed), plus a lift kit and giant chrome rims and tires, just to drive to work every day. It'll cost a fortune (in both initial and recurring costs), and not do a better job than a Prius. Sure, it might do a better job at rolling over cars in a show or something, but that's not what it's being used for.
It would however reflect the willingness of people to "pony up the dough" with regards to getting things done.
XML - A clever joke would be here if
first you need to decide precisely how you are going to defend.. then you build the catalog of threats... for two reasons
1- locating everything does JACK for you if you can't stop anything yet, if you can see it- but do nothing- it sucks.
if you can deal with it, and miss seeing it-- it sucks, but at least with the latter you have a better chance of success 100% kill ratio on 10% of objects as located is better than 0% kill ration on 100% known objects
2- knowing the method defines how encompassing your catalog of astral bodies have to be..
if the method selected allows for getting meteors within mars orbit and moving at 1/10th lightspeed or so,-- that's all you gotta look for.
if the method available requires having months advance notice (launch per interception, ship per interception, and sending up oil drillers with nukes) we gotta look farther out for more lead time
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
He mentions the date as Friday the 13th, April 2029. When the date is about 18 years from now, what was the need for mentioning that 13th is a Friday. Now instead of focusing on science, there will be a bunch of people who focus on Friday the 13th.
|On Friday the 13th, April 2029, it will dip below the altitude of our communication satellites
O this learning! What a thing it is - William Shakespeare
I was thinking the "other killer asteroid movie" with Billy Bob Thornton in it. Get it, Southern guy with 3 names? Neil deGrasse Tyson has 3 names? OK, Dr. Tyson is a black Northerner and Mr. Thornton is a white Southerner? Oh, heck, you are right, joke is way overused and no longer funny,
LMFAO well played sir, well played.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
Myth. Republicans (conservatives) today are no different today than they were generations ago.
Because the human mind tends to filter out the bad memories and latch onto the good, we all tend to have sugarcoated views of the past. Because of this phenomenon, the moderate Republicans of the past, with their popular, sane and dare I say, effective policy positions are the ones that end up being cast in history as representatives of the great majority.
Meanwhile the John Birch society and Know-Nothing type groups end up being forgotten, or retroactively cast as a "fringe groups" that had no support or influence, when in fact they carried the sentiment of the large portion of the electorate.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.