Scientists Propose Using Cold War Era Weapons To Deflect Asteroids (blastingnews.com)

MarkWhittington writes: Many people are considering what to do if an asteroid was headed for a collision with Earth. One such collision wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Now, films such as "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact" depict what might happen if Earth were threatened with a similar event in modern times. As a result, some people are repurposing weapons that were built or envisioned during the Cold War to confront the celestial threat, from old ICBMs to space-based laser systems.

Comments

This shit again?

[Chas]

Wasn't it already figured out that trying to blow nukes off on an asteroid surface would achieve approximately JACK SHIT?

They're not sufficiently powerful to break up mass, and due to being nuked in space, the kinetic transfer is significantly less, therefore "deflection" wouldn't happen either.

And flying up and digging in a bunch of nukes isn't ever going to happen for a host of reasons...

So why, all of the sudden, are we digging up a bunch of brain-dead movie fodder that we already know won't work?

A new generation of people whose ability to reason has been compromised by mass media?

Re:This shit again?

[sociocapitalist]

Wasn't it already figured out that trying to blow nukes off on an asteroid surface would achieve approximately JACK SHIT?

So why, all of the sudden, are we digging up a bunch of brain-dead movie fodder that we already know won't work?

So that we can modernize our weapons to have something positioned against the late growth in military power of both Russia and China without seeming overly aggressive in the hope of not further escalating global tensions, perhaps?

Scientists.

[Spazmania]

"Scientists" should understand the difference between the low earth orbit that an ICBM can almost achieve versus intercepting an object in deep space. Deflect an asteroid a fraction of a degree when it's still a month away and it's certain to miss the planet. When the same asteroid is in range of an ICBM, it's far far too late to do anything.