Except it's not just about one-time interactions. These bullets come back. A close miss today might alert us to an impending hit later on, and give us time to prepare. It's not always just about "incoming now."
Not really related, but "Men of Good Will" by Ben Bova and Myron R. Lewis; written in the middle of the cold war; a brief skirmish between parties from the American and Russian moon bases, with a lot of shots fired harmlessly, results in a permanent cloud of bullets in very low orbit around the moon, with enough random deflections every orbit to keep everybody too busy ducking and patching holes to indulge in any more aggression.
Whereas that is absolutely true, it makes me think of "Yoda". Yoda get's his meaning across in films, despite talking funny. If you or I went around talking like him, people would assume a few screws were loose. It takes that tiny fraction of a second to interpret "odd but understandable" language. When things are almost right, but not quite right it naturally gets on a lot of people's wick.
There might be a plus side to it though. I remember reading that students learn material better when they have a professor with an odd accent. When it takes more effort to understand what someone is saying, you're more likely to remember what they said.
Perhaps that's why, talk like that, Yoda does.
Fun fact: Yoda is so old that he actually wrote the Little Drummer Boy carol.
"Come, they told me, the newborn king to see". Toss in a couple of rumpapumpums and there you have it.
Similarly jarring is "This asteroid is estimated to be between 15-32.8 feet". It seems fairly clear that estimates that are so loose don't have a tenth of a foot precision. Same with 4.6m for the metric.
The figures stated are likely due to idiots converting metric to imperial back and forth multiple times, while not taking into account uncertainties, nor going back to the source.
If I were to guess, it would be that the original said 5-10 m.
And of course, 5-10,yards would be a more accurate conversion of the precision implied in the original than converting to feet, even if it was rounded to an integer.
I never said the solution wasn't known. There's plenty of feasible ideas of how to handle such a threat. The problem is that none of them are actually possible with our current technical capability. If we knew of a predicted impact tomorrow (that was 90 days away), there's absolutely no way we could make even one Saturn V missile. We'd have a hard time getting one of our existing rockets ready in that time, let alone something we've totally forgotten how to build, or something similar in payload capability. And for "a number", there's just no way. We don't have all that stuff built and ready. It would take quite some time to get a bunch of big-ass rockets built. Then there's the problem with the payloads. Could we even make payloads which would deflect the asteroid? Could we repurpose some existing ICBM warheads for this? Somehow I doubt it's that easy.
For a truly effective asteroid deflection system, we need a system that's actually designed for the purpose, tested by simulation, built, and then run through some actual field testing to make sure the warheads (whatever they are, whether they're nuclear bombs or some kind of thrusters that attach to the asteroid) actually work in space. We don't have any of that. Even if we could throw together something in time from spare parts, it's a crapshoot if it'd actually work and not fail at some stage.
In the movie "Gorath", when a dwarf star is headed on collision course with Earth, we simply install a bunch of large rocket thrusters at the South Pole, move the Earth out of the way, then put it back again. How the same thrusters work in two opposite directions I do not recall.
If we get hit by a really big one, a year's advance notice won't be enough time to make a significant difference, given that we don't have any actual systems designed and built to do anything about it. We'd just be able to track it on its way in and have parties for a year before our annihilation. Serves us right, too. We've had plenty of warning about these things.
That would involve an increase in the federal budget, so it's a nonstarter.
So it missed us by 5 Earth Diameters. If a car overtakes you and is 5 car lengths to the side of you (73 feet away,) is that creepy? If you're walking along and somebody runs past at 25 feet away, do you think they nearly hit you?
Scale is everything, people. This was rare. Not scary.
Tesla is already updating its self-driving software to detect and avoid these.
There's little way to make a reasonable estimate, just based on the size alone. You also need to know the delta-V (the actual velocity it'll impact the Earth), the angle of entry into the atmosphere, and the composition of the asteroid. It could burn up (as many already do, we don't even see many), or it could wipe out a city's downtown area.
I imagine that it also depends on the physical integrity of the object; is it solid enough to hold together, or does it have internal faults which cause it to break into pieces under the stress of atmospheric entry.
Screw that, I'm supporting #GiantMeteor2020. It appears to be the only sane choice at this point...
Agree. It's time to shake things up in Washington and eliminate the power structure of corrupt Republicrats, and a giant meteor strike is what we need!
The nearest star outside our solar system is Proxima Centauri at 4.24 light years. What incredibly destructive thing were we about to do 8.48 years ago?
"Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest." Bion of Borysthenes.
! Then, when the Earth is unlivable, these billionaires will escape to Mars.
There is nothing that mankind could conceivably do that would make Earth more unlivable than Mars.
Seriously.
One damn planet in the entire universe, maybe, where you can walk around in your shirt sleeves sometimes and enjoy it, and we treat it as disposable.
I can't help it, but those reports have been increasing in numbers rapidly. Either NASA needs money or our detectors have been improving considerably lately.
Slashdot Mirror
Except it's not just about one-time interactions. These bullets come back. A close miss today might alert us to an impending hit later on, and give us time to prepare. It's not always just about "incoming now."
Not really related, but "Men of Good Will" by Ben Bova and Myron R. Lewis; written in the middle of the cold war; a brief skirmish between parties from the American and Russian moon bases, with a lot of shots fired harmlessly, results in a permanent cloud of bullets in very low orbit around the moon, with enough random deflections every orbit to keep everybody too busy ducking and patching holes to indulge in any more aggression.
Whereas that is absolutely true, it makes me think of "Yoda". Yoda get's his meaning across in films, despite talking funny. If you or I went around talking like him, people would assume a few screws were loose. It takes that tiny fraction of a second to interpret "odd but understandable" language. When things are almost right, but not quite right it naturally gets on a lot of people's wick.
There might be a plus side to it though. I remember reading that students learn material better when they have a professor with an odd accent. When it takes more effort to understand what someone is saying, you're more likely to remember what they said.
Perhaps that's why, talk like that, Yoda does.
Fun fact: Yoda is so old that he actually wrote the Little Drummer Boy carol. "Come, they told me, the newborn king to see". Toss in a couple of rumpapumpums and there you have it.
Similarly jarring is "This asteroid is estimated to be between 15-32.8 feet". It seems fairly clear that estimates that are so loose don't have a tenth of a foot precision. Same with 4.6m for the metric. The figures stated are likely due to idiots converting metric to imperial back and forth multiple times, while not taking into account uncertainties, nor going back to the source.
If I were to guess, it would be that the original said 5-10 m.
And of course, 5-10,yards would be a more accurate conversion of the precision implied in the original than converting to feet, even if it was rounded to an integer.
I never said the solution wasn't known. There's plenty of feasible ideas of how to handle such a threat. The problem is that none of them are actually possible with our current technical capability. If we knew of a predicted impact tomorrow (that was 90 days away), there's absolutely no way we could make even one Saturn V missile. We'd have a hard time getting one of our existing rockets ready in that time, let alone something we've totally forgotten how to build, or something similar in payload capability. And for "a number", there's just no way. We don't have all that stuff built and ready. It would take quite some time to get a bunch of big-ass rockets built. Then there's the problem with the payloads. Could we even make payloads which would deflect the asteroid? Could we repurpose some existing ICBM warheads for this? Somehow I doubt it's that easy.
For a truly effective asteroid deflection system, we need a system that's actually designed for the purpose, tested by simulation, built, and then run through some actual field testing to make sure the warheads (whatever they are, whether they're nuclear bombs or some kind of thrusters that attach to the asteroid) actually work in space. We don't have any of that. Even if we could throw together something in time from spare parts, it's a crapshoot if it'd actually work and not fail at some stage.
In the movie "Gorath", when a dwarf star is headed on collision course with Earth, we simply install a bunch of large rocket thrusters at the South Pole, move the Earth out of the way, then put it back again. How the same thrusters work in two opposite directions I do not recall.
If we get hit by a really big one, a year's advance notice won't be enough time to make a significant difference, given that we don't have any actual systems designed and built to do anything about it. We'd just be able to track it on its way in and have parties for a year before our annihilation. Serves us right, too. We've had plenty of warning about these things.
That would involve an increase in the federal budget, so it's a nonstarter.
So it missed us by 5 Earth Diameters. If a car overtakes you and is 5 car lengths to the side of you (73 feet away,) is that creepy? If you're walking along and somebody runs past at 25 feet away, do you think they nearly hit you?
Scale is everything, people. This was rare. Not scary.
Tesla is already updating its self-driving software to detect and avoid these.
There's little way to make a reasonable estimate, just based on the size alone. You also need to know the delta-V (the actual velocity it'll impact the Earth), the angle of entry into the atmosphere, and the composition of the asteroid. It could burn up (as many already do, we don't even see many), or it could wipe out a city's downtown area.
I imagine that it also depends on the physical integrity of the object; is it solid enough to hold together, or does it have internal faults which cause it to break into pieces under the stress of atmospheric entry.
We're building a Space Wall. It will be a beautiful wall. No meteor will be able to get over it. The Grays will pay for it!
Screw that, I'm supporting #GiantMeteor2020. It appears to be the only sane choice at this point...
Agree. It's time to shake things up in Washington and eliminate the power structure of corrupt Republicrats, and a giant meteor strike is what we need!
Maybe they're warning shots?
"Here boy! Fetch!"
The nearest star outside our solar system is Proxima Centauri at 4.24 light years. What incredibly destructive thing were we about to do 8.48 years ago?
"Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest." Bion of Borysthenes.
! Then, when the Earth is unlivable, these billionaires will escape to Mars.
There is nothing that mankind could conceivably do that would make Earth more unlivable than Mars.
Seriously.
One damn planet in the entire universe, maybe, where you can walk around in your shirt sleeves sometimes and enjoy it, and we treat it as disposable.
I can't help it, but those reports have been increasing in numbers rapidly. Either NASA needs money or our detectors have been improving considerably lately.
Don't worry, Trump is going to ban them.
Everybody very happy. Birds fall from sky, lie on their backs giggling.
http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/...
I meant sedimentary and metamorphic.
How do you get sedimentary and igneous rocks in 6000 years?
That's what happens when people let their pet sabertooths out at night.
Can't spell POTUS without pot.
http://www.angelfire.com/mech/...
Has anybody eliminated the possibility that it was Ewoks?
No moa. (Somebody had to say it)
Prince Donald of Orange, and his vizier Prience Riebus.
I thought it was orange-tan. I may be thinking of the president.
Leaving only the more lucrative cargo pigeons.