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New Best Way To Nuke a Short-Notice Asteroid
doug141 writes "A scientist proposes the best way to deal with an asteroid on short notice is to hit it with an impactor, followed by a nuke in the crater. From the article: 'Bong Wie, director of the Asteroid Deflection Research Center at Iowa State University, described the system his team is developing to attendees at the International Space Development Conference in La Jolla, Calif., on May 23. The annual National Space Society gathering attracted hundreds from the space industry around the world.
An anti-asteroid spacecraft would deliver a nuclear warhead to destroy an incoming threat before it could reach Earth, Wie said. The two-section spacecraft would consist of a kinetic energy impactor that would separate before arrival and blast a crater in the asteroid. The other half of the spacecraft would carry the nuclear weapon, which would then explode inside the crater after the vehicle impacted.'"
...his name is the sound his plan would make.
Bong Wie!
Pack your bags kids! We're going to the moon!
Don't asteroids usually spin? If you blast a crater on one side, then you have some serious aiming to do to hit the crater?
Then again, clearly it's possible to hit with photon torpedoes, and using the Force.
Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Yes, but by breaking it into smaller chunks you are increasing the surface area of the impactor. Its mass obviously stays the same, so the surface area/mass ratio changes in your favour, which means more of the asteroid will get burned up in the atmosphere before hitting the Earth's surface. Of course it depends just how many bits you can smash it into as to whether or not this will be worthwhile.
Try it with ice cubes - fill two identical ice-cream tubs with water and freeze them. Smash one into bits (you don't need a nuclear warhead for this, but if you decide to use one please post a video on youtube) and put all the bits in a tray. Put the intact ice-lump onto a second tray and leave them side-by-side in the sun. See which one completely melts away first. Same amount of water, different mass/surface area ratios.
It's proton torpedoes. Photon torpedoes are from Star Trek.
Haha, annoy two sets of fans at once. :)
"Live long, and prosper" - Gandalf
Build a triangular shaped ship and just blast the asteroids into smaller chunks, then smaller pieces and then finally destroy them altogether.
Never argue with a man carrying a water buffalo