Earth woefully unprepared for surprise comet or asteroid, Nasa scientist warns

originally posted by: Tranceopticalinclined
a reply to: HUMBLEONE

You can do various things, least in theory.

1. Painting it with reflective paint that would create a small deviation in it's trajectory.

1. 2. Land a craft on it and have that craft drill into it and eject debris as a form of propulsion.
   
2. 3. Attach a solar sail to it and let the sun help
   
3. 4. Attach a ion pulse engine to it
   

But these are only if we had enough warning, if we don't well, pretty hopeless.

Hmm? I like the paint idea, we could put a corporate logo on it? Sail? Same thing corporate logo.

originally posted by: Jonjonj
a reply to: CaptainHook

The thing about surprises is that they are...unexpected. ...

That reminds me of the episode of the TV show The West Wing in which the President was going to make his state of the union speech at the Capitol, and the Secretary of Agriculture was chosen to stay in the White House as the "designated survivor" in case something catastrophic were to occur and the President, VP, Speaker, etc were all killed or incapacitated (like the new Keifer Sutherland TV show Designated Survivor).

Anyway, in this episode of The West Wing, Josh (the communications director) explained to Donna (his secretary) why the Secretary of Agriculture was to remain in the Whitehouse during the State of the Union Address, Donna was a little concerned that if something happened, like the Capitol exploding, then the country would be looking toward the Secretary of Agriculture as its new leader....

DONNA: So if it blows up, my country will look to the secretary of agriculture.

JOSH: I don't anticipate the Capitol building exploding.

DONNA: When have things exploding been anticipated?

a reply to: crayzeed

The Tunguska event was small fry when compared to the Chicxulub asteroid, so although you are correct, that if the Tunguska object had exploded over London or New York, it would have been a megadeath situation, it would not have been anything like as deadly as a penetrating asteroid, an object dense enough to turn the earth over in amounts necessary to cause a global winter of significant depth, cause climate globally to change dramatically over a course of just a year.

The two events are not alike, not even nearly.

a reply to: crayzeed

if " tunguska " had occured over london - then its not the immediate effects - id the fall out < pun > that gets interesting

ie - no world war one ?

A lot of people do not realize one little simple thing if an incoming threat was detected with enough time (Let's say 12months warning...?).

If it came down to it the world would band together to make a mega project going day and night without downtime to complete and finish a project if it involves a threat of worldwide annihilation, then we would go back to war and hating each other once/if the threat has been defeated.

If we had to and without restraint we could say tomorrow we are going to the moon and we would be ready to go by the end of January, and that is just with 1 country such as the US.

If or when it comes down to it, it is the only time I will ever have faith in mankind to come together to defeat this type of threat.