Ask Slashdot: Best Payloads For Asteroid Diverter/Killer Mission?

TheRealHocusLocus writes: The Emergency Asteroid Defence Project has launched a crowdfunded IndieGoGo campaign to help produce a set of working blueprints for a two-stage HAIV, or Hypervelocity Asteroid Intercept Vehicle. This HAIV paper (PDF) describes the use of a leading kinetic impactor to make a crater — a following nuclear warhead would detonate in the crater for maximum energy transfer. The plans would be available for philanthropists to bring to prototype stage, while your friendly local nuclear weapon state supplies the warhead. This may be a best-fit solution. But just ask Morgan Freeman: these strategies could fail. What — if any — backup strategy could be integrated into an HAIV mission as a fail-safe in case the primary fails? Here is a review of strategies (some fanciful, few deployable) if we have to divert an asteroid with very short lead time. A gentle landing on the object may not be feasible, and we must rely on things that push hard or go boom. For example: detonating nearby to ablate surface materials and create recoil in the direction we wish to nudge. Also, with multiple warheads and precise timing, would it be possible to create a "shaped" nuclear explosion in space?

Comments

Re:In defense of the human race

[JaredOfEuropa]

That is just too funny. In the same spirit, I suggest we send up Celine Dion and Justin Bieber on that asteroid buster mission. They won't be of any help when things go wrong, but if the primary mission succeeds, we will not only have won back out world, we will have made it a better place.

Moon rocks

[Anonymous Coward]

You need a moon base (not manned) to do this right. Then you throw moon rocks at the impending impactor. Doing it from a smaller gravity well means you can sling them into space more easily via something like a magnetic rail gun (yes, you need to put the moon rocks into a container made of iron / steel so it works with a mag solution).

Re:Moon rocks

[TheRealHocusLocus]

You need a moon base (not manned) to do this right. Then you throw moon rocks at the impending impactor. Doing it from a smaller gravity well means you can sling them into space more easily via something like a magnetic rail gun (yes, you need to put the moon rocks into a container made of iron / steel so it works with a mag solution).

+1 Insightful

A series of mass-produced kinetic impactors launched from the lunar surface by an EM rocket sled, each a ferrous metal cylinder containing lunar regolith with some propellent, attitude jets for course correction, (perhaps) a main engine for additional impact velocity. The probability of several or many reaching target is high. I give you a gold star. We could even retaliate against Mars.

It could be used to target Earth too, let's hope to be mature enough to resist. And hopefully its accuracy is better than Popeye's Pappy as he attempts a warning shot across the bow.

Re:How would nukes exert force on an asteroid?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Orion project looked at how to push a large object with an explosion in a vacuum.
Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

ablation by laser

[bzipitidoo]

Beam enough laser light at the object to heat its surface to the point that it ablates. That will push it onto a different course. We won't even have to leave Earth for that to work. Of course, it does need an awful lot of laser power, but if our very survival is at stake, maybe we could do it. Here's the relevant XKCD what if.

Solar sail with a modest angle to the sail

[Antique Geekmeister]

Solar sails are light payload, the forces involved are modest and cumulative rather than requiring a single controlled thrust under extreme circumstances, and need only modest anchorage or very modest netting to attach to the asteroid. They can provide continuous thrust for the lifespan of the sail, rather than a single high energy event, so they're much safer to build and to handle and much, much safer to test. Attached early enough, they should easily shift an asteroid or comet enough to avoid a crash. And properly constructed, they could be used to guide the object to almost any orbit desired, including guiding it to L4 or L5 to be a resource.

Assuming you are not just trolling.....

[robbak]

It is very difficult to 'shoot something into the sun'. You first need to get it out of the Earth's gravity, and then you need to decelerate it by 20 km/sec.

This is, frankly, impossible. You might be able to put a small payload to the sun if you used a very big rocket, and did a Venus fly-by. This way you could dispose of a few kilograms at a cost of a few hundred billion dollars.