Offseason project. What to do about an Asteroid or comet heading towards Earth.

[TimeForWasp]

Let's say we have 15 years notice.


I raised it to give a more realistic time to implement the plan.

[Simply Red]

Sprout aids trees in your ass crater

[Bump]

better get rich so you can go to mars or something

[CHENZ A!]

Draft a RT.

[cdcox]

I would help by running computer simulations of various proposed solutions but I'm too busy simulating Sandbox football. Priorities.

[pr_capone]

I would call Kurt and have him blowy me to bits minutes before the asteroid hit.

[Simply Red]

I would help by running computer simulations of various proposed solutions but I'm too busy simulating Sandbox football. Priorities.


I like it!

[tk13]

We've had this thread before. The correct answer is have Aaron Rodgers throw a nuclear football at the impending object. End thread.

[Jerm]

Call Billy Bob Thorton, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, and Steve Buscemi.

[TimeForWasp]

Anything we would do would be very very expensive so cooperation from as many countries or large corporations as possible would surely be needed. I had the idea to build a huge ship in space with robotic technology with different propulsion systems already being studied or 1 or 2 of the best propulsion systems . Go to the Asteroid belt or somewhere we can practice on a large object. Purposely bring it toward earth and put it in a safe earth orbit and mine it to recover the cost of the trip.

[007]

And this is the best that you c - that the-the government, the *U.S. government* can come up with? I mean, you-you're NASA for cryin' out loud, you put a man on the moon, you're geniuses! You-you're the guys that think this shit up! I'm sure you got a team of men sitting around somewhere right now just thinking shit up and somebody backing them up! You're telling me you don't have a backup plan, that these eight boy scouts right here, that is the world's hope, that's what you're telling me?

[Epic Fail 007]

Time to fuck a fat chick!

[MoreLemonPledge]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vHF-D2yDlvU/TbFN4pO7Q_I/AAAAAAAAAIo/gfLVIzQePpQ/s1600/I_Dont_Want_To_Miss_A_Thing_evergreen_love_Aerosmith.jpg

[TimeForWasp]

And this is the best that you c - that the-the government, the *U.S. government* can come up with? I mean, you-you're NASA for cryin' out loud, you put a man on the moon, you're geniuses! You-you're the guys that think this shit up! I'm sure you got a team of men sitting around somewhere right now just thinking shit up and somebody backing them up! You're telling me you don't have a backup plan, that these eight boy scouts right here, that is the world's hope, that's what you're telling me?



???

[Rain Man]

Oh, I love these doomsday topics.

Question 1 is whether the general public would be told. My theory is that an amateur would eventually find it, so I think you want to beat the story. So you tell the general public on the risk that it would galvanize public will a la WWII rather than cause discord or panic.

It'd be nice to have a plan in place when you announce it, but it might have to be more vague. But I think the obvious answer is that you're going to try to nudge the thing off course. The way to do that is to send a rocket up with some sort of explosive device or some sort of power system to make a sustained nudge. If you've got 15 years' notice, you can take a couple of years to get the thing put together, and then it wouldn't take much power at all to nudge it off course by 1/100th of a degree.

I think you make it a public event and track both the comet/asteroid and the development of the rocket(s) to knock it off course. You're going to build a bunch of them to be sure that a faulty capacitor doesn't destroy mankind, and you use the event to build a new era of American confidence and hegemony as the nation comes together to meet a goal that benefits everyone.

This of course assumes that steering it into Iran and Afghanistan would be a bad thing for the climate.

[Ming the Merciless]

depends on the size of the asteroid

[blaise]

I would get an umbrella.

[pr_capone]

I would get an umbrella.

Can I get under your um-buhrella - ella - ella - eh - eh?

[TimeForWasp]

I'm saying it's not hidden from the public, because of the internet, the word is out and people are informed and all assets of the world are at our disposal.

Would we want to practice concept on known obects within reach?

[007]

???

???

You don't know what that is from?

[AustinChief]

Oh, I love these doomsday topics.

Question 1 is whether the general public would be told. My theory is that an amateur would eventually find it, so I think you want to beat the story. So you tell the general public on the risk that it would galvanize public will a la WWII rather than cause discord or panic.

It'd be nice to have a plan in place when you announce it, but it might have to be more vague. But I think the obvious answer is that you're going to try to nudge the thing off course. The way to do that is to send a rocket up with some sort of explosive device or some sort of power system to make a sustained nudge. If you've got 15 years' notice, you can take a couple of years to get the thing put together, and then it wouldn't take much power at all to nudge it off course by 1/100th of a degree.

I think you make it a public event and track both the comet/asteroid and the development of the rocket(s) to knock it off course. You're going to build a bunch of them to be sure that a faulty capacitor doesn't destroy mankind, and you use the event to build a new era of American confidence and hegemony as the nation comes together to meet a goal that benefits everyone.

This of course assumes that steering it into Iran and Afghanistan would be a bad thing for the climate.

If you have 10 years warning, you don't even need an explosive.. just a simple ballistic solution should work. Unless it is ginormous.. then you might need to nuke it.

[Rain Man]

I'm saying it's not hidden from the public, because of the internet, the word is out and people are informed and all assets of the world are at our disposal.

Would we want to practice concept on known obects within reach?

It seems like a solid idea, but I would also ask whether you shouldn't just do all of your testing on the asteroid/comet itself. If it doesn't work, you hone it. If it does work, you win. Maybe it takes longer due to distance, but at the same time you also learn more with each experiment.

[Rain Man]

If you have 10 years warning, you don't even need an explosive.. just a simple ballistic solution should work. Unless it is ginormous.. then you might need to nuke it.

And the further out you get it, the easier it'll be to knock it off course.

I wonder what happens if you fire off a nuke 1,000 miles away. There's no shock wave, right? Or is there? The energy has to dissipate, so it seems like something would be radiating out from the explosion, and if it was a big enough explosion maybe it would knock the thing off course by a minute amount. At 15 years away, a minute amount is all you need.

[TimeForWasp]

???

You don't know what that is from?


Oh, ok, sorry, Quote from armageddon. Went over my head for a sec.

[Cornstock]

And this is the best that you c - that the-the government, the *U.S. government* can come up with? I mean, you-you're NASA for cryin' out loud, you put a man on the moon, you're geniuses! You-you're the guys that think this shit up! I'm sure you got a team of men sitting around somewhere right now just thinking shit up and somebody backing them up! You're telling me you don't have a backup plan, that these eight boy scouts right here, that is the world's hope, that's what you're telling me?

I don't think NASA is full of the geniuses it once was. There's too much red tape and politics keeping the best young minds from A)getting jobs at NASA because its all about being connected and the best become discouraged and B)when they do get these jobs they are handcuffed by policy restrictions from making awesome NASA s*** like velcro, memory foam, and cell phones that the NASA of old provided us.

[AustinChief]

you really only need a year's warning to put together a solution for all but the very largest of impact scenarios.

[Rain Man]

you really only need a year's warning to put together a solution for all but the very largest of impact scenarios.

I was wondering if you could even predict an impact 15 years out. For these purposes I recognize that it's a hypothetical assumption just for fun, but in real life I'd bet they couldn't predict an impact definitively at that distance.

[cdcox]

Solar powered space tug boat, FTFMW.

[AustinChief]

And the further out you get it, the easier it'll be to knock it off course.

I wonder what happens if you fire off a nuke 1,000 miles away. There's no shock wave, right? Or is there? The energy has to dissipate, so it seems like something would be radiating out from the explosion, and if it was a big enough explosion maybe it would knock the thing off course by a minute amount. At 15 years away, a minute amount is all you need.

There wouldn't be a shockwave (in space what would the medium for it be? same reason we couldn't hear it) unless you count the EM pulse wave that would be created... which would absolutely destroy a ton of our satellites if it is within 1000 miles... at least I think it would.. I'd need to check that out more.

[Rain Man]

There wouldn't be a shockwave (in space what would the medium for it be? same reason we couldn't hear it) unless you count the EM pulse wave that would be created... which would absolutely destroy a ton of our satellites if it is within 1000 miles... at least I think it would.. I'd need to check that out more.

Oh, and to clarify, I meant 1,000 miles from the asteroid, not the earth. Presumably it'd still be many millions of miles from earth when it closes in on the asteroid/comet. I was using that assumption to ponder how accurate this rocket/missile thing would need to be.

[AustinChief]

I was wondering if you could even predict an impact 15 years out. For these purposes I recognize that it's a hypothetical assumption just for fun, but in real life I'd bet they couldn't predict an impact definitively at that distance.

We could predict a collision of one of the orbiting near-earth objects that we currently track... but there is always the chance of a random object out there. For those, I think you're right, way too hard to predict that far out.

[AustinChief]

Oh, and to clarify, I meant 1,000 miles from the asteroid, not the earth. Presumably it'd still be many millions of miles from earth when it closes in on the asteroid/comet. I was using that assumption to ponder how accurate this rocket/missile thing would need to be.
AH gotcha...

I'm assuming you'd need a ballistic impact and a near surface explosion to cause even a minute change.

ha, yeah, 1000 miles from Earth... we're pretty much toast at that point :D Pretty sure we'd want to hit it long before it gets within the moon's orbit. I'd think we'd be boned if we weren't hitting it at least by the 10 million mile mark.

[TimeForWasp]

I was wondering if you could even predict an impact 15 years out. For these purposes I recognize that it's a hypothetical assumption just for fun, but in real life I'd bet they couldn't predict an impact definitively at that distance.

If it was a large enough object and you predict it will come close to hitting us, you would have to act. Even if wrong it would be preparation for a sure threat.
If we could figure a way to capture control on a large enough object, we would learn my doing, If we could take control of it and use planet slingshot effect on the object and send the object at the incoming object .

At the same time we could have scientific experiment and research instruments on board to further us in the space travel studies.

The only reason I wanted to bring an object into earth orbit was to try and recover expenses.

[TimeForWasp]

Plus if you were to be able to mine an object you would probably come up with more minerals like unobtainium or something to help us in our venture.

[007]

Just imagine if their prediction of impact was wrong and we actually put it into an impact course with earth.

[TimeForWasp]

This was a presentation to High School kids, but very interedesting.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1eOJ9doYtN0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Oh, I love these doomsday topics.

Question 1 is whether the general public would be told. My theory is that an amateur would eventually find it, so I think you want to beat the story. So you tell the general public on the risk that it would galvanize public will a la WWII rather than cause discord or panic.

It'd be nice to have a plan in place when you announce it, but it might have to be more vague. But I think the obvious answer is that you're going to try to nudge the thing off course. The way to do that is to send a rocket up with some sort of explosive device or some sort of power system to make a sustained nudge. If you've got 15 years' notice, you can take a couple of years to get the thing put together, and then it wouldn't take much power at all to nudge it off course by 1/100th of a degree.

I think you make it a public event and track both the comet/asteroid and the development of the rocket(s) to knock it off course. You're going to build a bunch of them to be sure that a faulty capacitor doesn't destroy mankind, and you use the event to build a new era of American confidence and hegemony as the nation comes together to meet a goal that benefits everyone.

This of course assumes that steering it into Iran and Afghanistan would be a bad thing for the climate.

You don't even need the explosive, as most plans call for a probe to fly alongside the object, and its own gravitational pull will alter it just enough to have it comfortably miss Earth.

[TimeForWasp]

You don't even need the explosive, as most plans call for a probe to fly alongside the object, and its own gravitational pull will alter it just enough to have it comfortably miss Earth.

They talk about that in the video above your post. supposedly it would take longer than the 15 years for that to make a difference.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

They talk about that in the video above your post. supposedly it would take longer than the 15 years for that to make a difference.

Multiple probes, solar sails, there are a number of potential solutions :)

[FAX]

This is a problem that scientists like myself have been working on for many years and, I'm happy to say, that we have found the solution at long last.

To put it in layman's terms, we must develop a gun that turns rock and stone into Flubber. That way, all we have to do is fly out into orbit and blast the Asteroid with the Flubber Gun turning it into a Flubberoid which will bounce harmlessly off the Earth back into space where it belongs.

And, if we can get it to bounce square off the White House, we get an extra two points.

FAX

[J Diddy]

First thing you have to do is tag Orton and then draft a quarterback. This will lead to much wailing and gnashing of teeth. The shockwaves alone will push it wide left.

[AustinChief]

You don't even need the explosive, as most plans call for a probe to fly alongside the object, and its own gravitational pull will alter it just enough to have it comfortably miss Earth.

That would need to be one GIANT probe or it would need to happen a few hundred thousand years in advance...

Space probes are small and lightweight ... so that plan isn't very feasible.

The gravity tractor idea is great for very small (150 meters or less) asteroids... and when you have enough time to get a spacecraft alongside the object AND you have a couple years to adjust the path.

The more commonly accepted idea is that we would ram(or explode on) the asteroid to change it's direction and THEN use a gravity tractor to fine tune the path to assure it isn't going to hit us anytime soon on future passes.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

That would need to be one GIANT probe or it would need to happen a few hundred thousand years in advance...

Space probes are small and lightweight ... so that plan isn't very feasible.

The gravity tractor idea is great for very small (150 meters or less) asteroids... and when you have enough time to get a spacecraft alongside the object AND you have a couple years to adjust the path.

The more commonly accepted idea is that we would ram(or explode on) the asteroid to change it's direction and THEN use a gravity tractor to fine tune the path to assure it isn't going to hit us anytime soon on future passes.

If you ram it, you risk turning one projectile into many. Asteroids are very loosely held together. It's dependent upon composition, but for most asteroids, a direct impact risks turning a bullet into buckshot.

[TinyEvel]

Derrick Johnson on top of a skyscraper.

[TinyEvel]

Get the Raiders Special Teams line to block it. Twice.

[Bane]

Just have R8ders pay it off with all his ca$h.

[Sofa King]

Just have Omega bend over and spread his cheeks, the asteroid will find it's way home.

[trndobrd]

Build a space ship to go blow up the asteroid. Presumably something like this one:

[Sofa King]

Build a space ship to go blow up the asteroid. Presumably something like this one:

sorry, but asteroids aren't triangular and your UFO spaceship has a notch out of it.

[The Iron Chief]

Simply find a way to launch Jason Whitlocks Fat a$$ into space to intercept.

[Fansy the Famous Bard]

But wait, if the asteroid hit.. wouldn't there be a zombie apoloclypse? That would be pretty sweet no?

I could finally use this stapler to my immediate left that I've been saving for such an occassion.

[HonestChieffan]

Let Frankie deal with it and it will break apart in mid space

[bevischief]

Just send one of the black triangle craft after it to blow it up.

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Silly guys....Tebow will just pray it away.

[AustinChief]

If you ram it, you risk turning one projectile into many. Asteroids are very loosely held together. It's dependent upon composition, but for most asteroids, a direct impact risks turning a bullet into buckshot.

Which is fine, 99.9% of that buckshot would be on new trajectories that would miss earth.

The gravity tractor is a fun thought experiment but the math just doesn't work for most earth destroying sized asteroids. Well it could work if we can build a gigantic enough ship, but the time constraint makes that difficult.

[Rain Man]

Which is fine, 99.9% of that buckshot would be on new trajectories that would miss earth.

The gravity tractor is a fun thought experiment but the math just doesn't work for most earth destroying sized asteroids. Well it could work if we can build a gigantic enough ship, but the time constraint makes that difficult.


I suspect that the same mass of buckshot would also have a much smaller effect even if it all hit since a larger proportion of the mass would burn up inside the atmosphere and the masses that do hit wouldn't cause as much trauma, dust clouds, etc. I suspect we'd rather run across 1,000 10-ton asteroids than 1 1,000 ton asteroid.

Roughly how big would it have to be to cause significant damage? I'm just making up numbers above. Does a 1-ton asteroid burn up completely or does it wipe out Moscow or something in between?