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Can NASA Protect Earth from Catastrophic Asteroid Collisions? (scientificamerican.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Qz:
NASA is not going to be able to find all the asteroids big enough to cause serious devastation on Earth by 2020 -- or even 2033. Also: For a hypothetical attempt to send a spacecraft to divert an seriously dangerous incoming asteroid, we'll need a ten year heads-up to build it and get it to the asteroid.
The good news? They're working on it. "If a real threat does arise, we are prepared to pull together the information about what options might work and provide that information to decision-makers," Lindley Johnson, NASA's Planetary Defense Officer, told reporters.
But NASA's methodology is now being criticized by former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold -- in the peer-reviewed journal Icarus. An anonymous reader quotes Scientific American: Since 2016, Nathan Myhrvold has argued that there are fatal flaws in the data from NASA's NEOWISE mission to hunt space rocks... NASA is working to develop a follow-up space telescope that would use the same scientific approach to fulfill a mandate from the US Congress to discover nearly all of the space rocks that could pose a threat to Earth.
After 18 months of peer review, and plenty of acrimony on both sides, Myhrvold's latest critique appeared on 22 May on the website of the journal Icarus. Among other things, he argues that NEOWISE estimates of asteroid diameters should not be trusted -- a crucial challenge, because the size of an asteroid determines how much damage it would cause if it hit Earth. "These observations are the best we're going to have for a very long time," says Myhrvold. "And they weren't really analysed very well at all."
NASA hasn't responded in detail to Myhrvold's criticism, though a June 14th statement said their team "stands by its data and scientific findings," noting that they'd also been published in several peer-reviewed journals.
The good news? They're working on it. "If a real threat does arise, we are prepared to pull together the information about what options might work and provide that information to decision-makers," Lindley Johnson, NASA's Planetary Defense Officer, told reporters.
But NASA's methodology is now being criticized by former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold -- in the peer-reviewed journal Icarus. An anonymous reader quotes Scientific American: Since 2016, Nathan Myhrvold has argued that there are fatal flaws in the data from NASA's NEOWISE mission to hunt space rocks... NASA is working to develop a follow-up space telescope that would use the same scientific approach to fulfill a mandate from the US Congress to discover nearly all of the space rocks that could pose a threat to Earth.
After 18 months of peer review, and plenty of acrimony on both sides, Myhrvold's latest critique appeared on 22 May on the website of the journal Icarus. Among other things, he argues that NEOWISE estimates of asteroid diameters should not be trusted -- a crucial challenge, because the size of an asteroid determines how much damage it would cause if it hit Earth. "These observations are the best we're going to have for a very long time," says Myhrvold. "And they weren't really analysed very well at all."
NASA hasn't responded in detail to Myhrvold's criticism, though a June 14th statement said their team "stands by its data and scientific findings," noting that they'd also been published in several peer-reviewed journals.
n/t
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
NASA: There is an ELE rock inbound.
White House/Congress: What's it going to cost?
NASA: 100 trillion.
WH/C: Fake News!
BOOM!
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Probably true. On the other hand, working toward a solution is probably better than saying "well, we can't stop one now, so no point in looking." It's not like a solution will be easier to come by if we wait till the last possible minute to start developing one....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
... we're likely doomed. Plain and simple. We won the big lottery and we've had realive "asteroid peace" for a few million years now which had us evolve into quite smart apes but if some solid rock with a diameter of 1000+ meters comes at earth with 50000 kmh it's gonna hurt.
Given, if we'd prepare for this sort of event we'd quickly be in a position to prevent it. But since we - right now - can't even get it down to stop dumping crap into the oceans and poisining the atmossphere, I wouldn't bet on that happening anytime soon. As long as idiots are still caught up in little more than extended tribal wars humanity won't move to that position. I sure hope we survive long enough to make that happen, but some sceptisizm and paranoia is due IMHO.
If humanity does move on to becoming smart, we could also finally make a concerted effort to become a space faring civilisation. Maybe not beyond our solar system, but space faring none-the-less.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
... that would take science and money.
Sorry.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Nasa can't protect the USA from it; but the Space Force CAN ;)
We should be concerned about the size of the asteroid as the energy contained therein is proportional to the mass, but its proportional to the SQUARE of the speed... so we should be concerned with the size, but fascinated by the speed of the inbound. First,. it cuts down on our reaction time, second, speed is what brings the energy. Did like NM's treatise on Supersonic Lizard tails though: https://www.livescience.com/52... - I think I'd be twice as eccentric with half the cash!!!
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
NASA, an organisation with decades of experience with space-related matters, and decades of data from manned and unmanned missions, some fuckups but mostly glorious successes, or the ex-CTO of a company with a reputation for, well, a reputation like Microsoft's?
Microsoft have been known to produce some good products, but they should *never* be first port of call when seeking technical solutions, or considering software.
He probably wants counter-asteroid systems to all be running some version of Windows.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For a hypothetical attempt to send a spacecraft to divert an seriously dangerous incoming asteroid, we'll need a ten year heads-up
I am certain it would take less than a few weeks to decide a nuclear strike against an asteroid.
If Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner can't do it, no one can. Not even the Gangster of Love...
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Currently the answer is "no" whether they detect it in advance or not. I suppose if they found that something was on a collision course in 5 years they *MIGHT* be able to do something, but given current knowledge the something they could do would be as likely to make things worse as better.
If there were 15 years warning, and goals didn't change with each election, then something reasonable could probably be done.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
If we use our understanding of the past as a predictor, we could estimate that such an extinction event might occur every 1,460 billion days (4 billion years). There has only been one such event thus far and many life forms survived, including many mammals. We may have to wait even longer for the next one. But hey, we have nothing else to worry about so have at it!
...omphaloskepsis often...
Actually the question is really really simple... do we focus on the immediate threats to our survival (nuclear war, climate change, etc)? Or do we worry about much lower probability threats?
It is nice to see that the Obama-era plan has been fleshed out and in the current plan the real rubber-hits-the-road moment is,
3.4 Identify, assess the readiness of, estimate in the costs of, and propose development paths for key technologies required by NEO impact prevention concepts. This assessment should include the most mature in-space concepts --- kinetic impactors, nuclear devices, and gravity tractors for deflection, and nuclear devices for disruption -- as well as less mature NEO impact prevention methods. Technology assessments should consider contemporary work, including potential synergies with relevant private industry interests (e.g., asteroid mining). They should also consider NEO impact scenarios that may have received insufficient attention thus far (e.g., binary asteroids, high-speed comets). [Short term; NASA, NNSA, DoD]
Asteroid interception is where the goofiest ideas emerge to monopolize discussion and take debate away from practical ideas that would give us a chance of survival in all cases. When you interrupt geeks talking about their favorite solution, something like deploying solar sails to nudge asteroids, to point out their scenario is for an extremely narrow case and it would be irresponsible to pursue such an idea to the exclusion of more practical ones... they get all butthurt.
My own solution which I've broadcast to Trump and two NASA directors and others, is simple and direct. No nukes or exotic technology.
1. kinetic impactor rockets loaded with payloads of simple Lunar dirt
2. missile battery on Moon, manned, truly ready to launch at a moment's notice
3. hundreds, even thousands -- that can swarm to ensure multiplicity and mass
4. the result: best possible assurance of deflect/destroy for any existential threat
Anything less, or more, is a half solution or placebo fantasy to appease fanboys of exotic and impractical technology.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
The way things are going these days perhaps the cosmos hitting the reset button on earth would be a good thing.
The real problem it seems to me is, how accurately can you predict the trajectory and the collision, 5 or 10 years out, or even a year out?
Would we spend the trillion-ish dollars to attempt to counter something that has according to calculations, say, a 1 in 10,000 chance of striking Earth in 5 years. Or say a 1 in 1 million chance. I'm guessing that the error bars might be at least that big.
Anyone know the facts on that math and measurement and extrapolation capabilities?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
“I’ve got a patent on 87% of the likely ways NASA would try to stop an asteroid, and a dozen east Texas lawyers on hot standby. To hell with trolling individuals... the US government has the deepest pockets of all!”
#DeleteChrome
Well spoken.
Moreover, I am going to place a heck of a lot more trust in the the nerds as NASA, over a ex-CTO, because...oh wait....they are ACTUAL fucking rocket scientists. I'm sure that Nathan is clever and all, but I don't see anything in his CV that suggests that he is anything more than an armchair quarterback with 'opinions'.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
1. kinetic impactor rockets loaded with payloads of simple Lunar dirt
Lunar soil is mass, but without a hard external jacket, it is going to crumble on impact and not behave like a rigid body. You probably want a inelastic collision to occur, not an elastic collision. Most space ships are made of very light material to save cost / fuel / delta V, it will be VERY expensive to ship vast quantities of 'bullets' to the moon with dense enough bodies that will not fragment on impact. The faster they are going when they hit, the harder it will be to keep them from shattering.
Moreover, the amount of energy that you can impart on an object will be limited to the amount of mass that you can accelerate. Why not just put a few nukes up on the moon? The cost will be a vast fraction of what your bullets will cost, and with boosted yield fission weapons, you can get truly ludicrous yields. 50 megatons? not enough? 100 megatons? Bigger? Not even a problem. The US and Soviet Union stopped testing 'big' weapons because they had figured out that it wasn't hard to make a bomb pretty much as big as you wanted, and there was no point beyond anything that leveled a whole city or destroyed an entire army group. You aren't going to get 100+ megatons of KE imparted on an incoming rock with chemical rockets anytime soon.
In fact, the only reason you would even need more than one up there (and not the thousands your idea requires) is because you want a few backups in case one is a dud. A (hypothetical) 500 megaton weapon would be just about the best way to nudge a rock in space into a new trajectory with existing tech.
There is also the additional benefit that it is a good way to decommission military weapons. So aside from the fact your idea probably just won't work, is incredibly expensive to build and maintain, and we already have vast amounts of nuclear weapons already built that are way more efficient in terms of energy deliverable, your idea isn't a bad one. I give you full points for a creative solution to the problem.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
That's what we need. Just make sure it's controlled by musical notes and only one person on the planet is given the knowledge of how to operate it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We went from 4423 known asteroids in 1970 to 685231 known asteroids in 2015. So 'tracking what will kill us' is well on its way to becoming a solved problem.
oh im sure $10b, and a rush order, spacex could build 5 FalconHeavys, to send USAs finest 2MT nukes to it.
If push comes to shove, anything can be done as fast.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
oh and volcanos are no worries at all. For 1000000s of years they are harmless, and never have destroyed any cities or civs, or islands, or caused mini winters, or tsunamis that went inland 30 km. They are pretty harmless really - we are living on a liquid metal planet with a tiny thin layer of crumbs.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.