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Should Nuclear Devices Be Kept On Hand To Protect Against Near Earth Objects?
Lasrick writes: Seth Baum ponders whether nuclear devices should be kept on hand for the purpose of destroying near-Earth objects (NEOs) that pose a threat to the planet. Baum acknowledges that "The risk posed by NEOs is not zero, but it is small relative to the risk posed by nuclear weapons." Even so, Baum writes, since the consequences of an NEO hitting the earth would be catastrophic, keeping 10 or 20 nuclear devices available might be a good idea, and would be "insignificant compared to the thousands now held in military arsenals."
You mean NEOs like Russia? You can't get any nearer to Earth than that.
Probably "yes".
Have you seen how much effect a nuke is likely to have on a significantly sized NEO? None whatso fucking ever. If an NEO is enough to wipe us out, it won't be screwed by a nuke.
Also the ideal launch point for such a nuke would be from space, not Earth.
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And what delivery mechanism do you propose we have ready for those devices? Its not like we have superorbital spacecraft just lying around.
"keeping 10 or 20 nuclear devices available might be a good idea..."
"insignificant compared to the thousands now held in military arsenals."
Okay, so a solved problem? Got it.
in fact, we didn't see ANY of the more recent impacts coming until the dust had settled. So what fucking use is a nuke again?
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How could 10 or 20 nuclear devices help against any significant near earth object?
"The risk posed by NEOs is not zero, but it is small relative to the risk posed by nuclear weapons." Even so, Baum writes, since the consequences of an NEO hitting the earth would be catastrophic
Wrong. The risk posed by NEOs is small in probability and extremely high in magnitude; the risk posed by nuclear weapons is larger in probability and smaller in magnitude. Space rock impacts cause mass extinctions; nuclear weapons detonations cause international incidents and poorly-defined human responses.
We have a fantasy that one nation launching a nuke will result in all nations nuking each other until the earth is a ball of slag; a more rational mind recognizes MAD as suggesting one nation launching a nuke will result in all nations reducing that nation to a ginormous glass parking lot. In reality, we haven't seen that situation, and our assessment of human psychology suggests it's more likely that a single strike (rather than constant, ongoing bombing) would result in shock, hesitation, and a lot of talking; ongoing nuclear bombing of a single nation would probably result in all other nations shaking like water-laden chihuahuas while trying to talk down the offenders (see Germany. Twice. With all of Europe wetting itself both times).
Nuclear war has a low but significant probability, itself spanning a wide berth of probable outcomes with impacts ranging from nothing notable to devastation. The human race would survive even in the worst projections, just bombed back into the stone age. NEO impacts have an insignificant but real probability, when limiting our view to those objects which would destroy the earth. Limiting nukes to "slag the human race back into the stone age" produces a similarly insignificant but real probability, more attainable by joint intent of all world leaders but hardly more likely; expanding NEO impacts to "a range of possible outcomes from smashing buildings to vaporizing all life off the planet" and scaling each magnitude of impact against the various magnitudes of impact of nuclear war immediately demonstrates that we take meteor impacts pretty frequently, most hitting uninhabited areas or blowing up in the sky with no damage, so nuclear war seems vaguely more likely in all scenarios.
The absolute outcome of a planet-killer tells you it's easier to hide from nuclear war. A few nukes are an acceptable trade-off, since disarmament is impossible and creates its own risks (i.e. secret nuclear stockpiles--if you really disarm, how do you know the other guy isn't lying, and ready to nuke you when it's clear you really have no nukes?)
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We have no delivery system, no fire control system, probably no software to guide it to the object, no information on a nuke's impact on the object, etc.
It's like trying to decide if you should keep that 105 howitzer shell around when you have no gun, no one trained to use it, and no way to target anything with it.
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We have nothing that will take a nuke far out enough to use it against a NEO. I am assuming that this is one of those scenarios where we discover the object too late to do anything but attempt blowing it up. Therefore it's what, between the earth and the moon?
All our launch systems are LEO, and then use gravity assist slingshots to get themselves into the outer solar system. We have NOTHING that can go directly to the target. Therefore we are essentially screwed, because by the time we got the nuke to the target (read as days of orbits), it's already 15 minutes away from impact, in which case, the nuke isn't going to do much except shut down the electrical grid from the EMP, before we are wiped out.
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You forgot:
3) Scatter radioactive fallout with
Still cancer takes longer to kill you that a massive asteroid impact followed by a decade of winter so I suppose it's a win?
Let me see, will a hydrogen fusion reaction work in space?
If I could only get the Sunlight out of my eyes, I could google that on my smartphone for you.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
So you are going to force China, and Russia to give up the arsenals that they aren't getting rid of? There is really only one way to do that, which would be to destroy them. Nukes are here for the foreseeable future. Let the idea of forcing other people to get rid of something they own out of your mind. The more people that do that, the less likely they will be used.
My favorite idea for getting rid of NEOs is a super powerful laser, that would ablate the surface, and gently nudge the thing off course.
I am sure there are certain scenarios where you could detonate a nuke nearby it, and let the resulting shockwave do the same thing. However the modeling that we have for atmospheric shockwaves is inaccurate, and large object surface will be anything but smooth. Also most celestial objects will be moving much faster than our missiles, so we may not actually have time to intercept them.
I mean no offense to you, OP, however what you purpose isn't possible, that is trimming down the arsenals to only a dozen or so.
A perfect example of this; does Russia still have 152mm nuclear artillery shells? I realize that the were 'destroyed' because of the Start treaty, but I find it very interesting that that is the larger caliber available for the Armata T-14 platform. Which shows another dilemma; can you trust any of the nations that have them to honestly tell you what they have, when first strike capability is so very, very important? They are going to a hell of a-lot of trouble to be able to air-lift 400 tanks to 'anywhere' in the globe (or about 7,000 km) to drop just 400 tanks, which in the scheme of a war with Nato, would be overall fairly useless. Along with having only 80 transports for the entire country is fairly risky. If I were them, that is how I would play it.
As another example, who attempted to 'steal' the nukes via the Minot-Barksdale air base incident? Very few people have the authority to order nukes flown in launch position over the US, in a time of 'peace' (such as that is). Everyone was quietly 'transferred', and no one was court martialed, Which means, that the officers involved in the actual transfer had valid signatures, and they were protecting someone higher up. That's our own country, do you really believe a foreign power is going to be more honest? They won't be, as it isn't the interest of any Government that needs power to enforce its will (i.e., all of them).
Government's are just extensions of the people, and they will behave just like people (i.e. lie to you).
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There are wide variety of possible cosmic collision threats - with only rare once-a-century (or less frequent) size events being candidates for any sort of deflection scheme. More frequent ones we can absorb with minimal damage. The 2013 Chelyabinsk event was a 20 meter class asteroid, and we get hit with a few of these a year. Even a repeat of the Chelyabinsk over a much larger city would not be catastrophic, as a natural catastrophe it might rank as a "major storm" in terms of damage potential.
It is larger asteroids, above the 20 meter size, that are destructive enough to consider an international interception mission.
Barringer Crater in Arizona is an example of a 50 meter object (a once in a millennium event), such an impact would be highly destructive in a populated area. Current collision threat programs have identified 96% of the "civilization ender" 1+ km class objects (once in a million year event), and are moving toward identifying 90% of the 140 meter class (once in 10,000 years).
The ideal method dog dealing with any collision threat is to detect it long in advance, accurately measure its trajectory, and then modify it just enough to avoid a predicted collision years later (perhaps many decades later, even centuries later for really big ones). Smaller objects need smaller nudges and can be diverted at later dates than big ones. An aggressive monitoring system is the first line of defense, without detection there can be no defense, and the better your detection the easier deflection becomes, and the cost of monitoring is much less than a single interception mission.
A variety of nudging techniques have been proposed: kinetic collision diversion, gravity attractor tugs, and nuclear deflection schemes primarily, but all of them are in early stages of development and have some promise. Different deflection schemes might be needed based on the nature of the threat object (size, physical nature, etc.).
Until we have candidate defection systems to evaluate, and actually test, it is way premature to discuss storing nuclear devices for this purpose. Probably storing a ready made device would be of no value. When we detect a threat requiring deflection we would first need to organize the whole launch and space probe project, which would likely take a few years (assuming warning times on the order of decade) during which time a nuclear device customized to the mission could be manufactured as needed. If the world decides (after suitable development and testing) that a ready-to-launch-on-short notice vehicle is a good idea to deal with small threats detected months in advance, and it is determined that a nuclear device is the proper technique, then we would only need one such system to be built and kept ready - with a grand total of one special purpose nuclear device.
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We could have build a large Orion propulsion ship anytime in the last 40 years. It would probably cost less than an aircraft carrier. A large Orion propulsion ship could get almost anywhere in the inner solar system in a few weeks. And the propulsion system will work just fine to redirect another large mass. Yes, there will be a bunch of fallout damage from the initial take-off, but we can decide where to place it. and the fallout damage from Orion's propulsion is tiny compared to the damage from an asteroid strike.
I have always hoped that there was a secret plan to convert our offensive arsenal into Orion propulsion if the need occurred.
Now you're down to trusting the rational decision-making of a low-level grunt who's been stuck below-ground in a silo, watching every day for the launch order to come down. You think they train those guys to be skeptical of the orders they're given?
Yes, they train "those guys" in that.
The specific class at the United States Air Force Academy in which the train them in this is Law 220, and the unit within this course is called "Military Dissent and Junior Officers", and they are taught how to properly respond to illegal orders. Without a declaration of war, which requires the approval of congress, and without it being a retaliatory strike for an exiting strike in progress, the order would be illegal.
In case you were wondering, Law 220 is a Core Course, and passing it is a requirement for graduation from the USAF academy, which is itself a requirement for becoming a commissioned officer qualified to act as a "missile jockey".
But I think if the president were to issue such an order without a clear and present threat, it's more likely that it would not come down to the missile jockey; instead, he'd be wrestled to the floor by his senior cabinet, followed by anything ranging from a "The president is gravely ill" to a "The president tripped and fell on his letter opener" announcement, to explain why he was no longer presidenting.
I'm pretty sure the same would apply in Russia, China, and North Korea.