what would be your Idea of defense if a asteroid were to hit earth

It would depend on its mass and distance of engagement I suppose.

I see the elements of the problem as thus:

1) Mass and constitution of of object. A factor determining the amount of explosive force needed to divert or destroy.

2) The number and capacity of launch vehicles. This would determine the amount of stuff we could get out there and range of engagement.

3) The decision whether to destroy it and risk multiple hits or too change its course.

4) Whether or not Bruce Willis and his string vest are available and not engaged in filming Die Hard 437 or Armagedon II

Seriously I doubt we could pull it off right now and the way we treat the planet perhaps its time for something else to take over. Assuming its not a total extinction level event.

Failing that I am sure all the spoonbenders and psychics could combine their powers and wish it away. Or wish it was away.

I'm all for capturing a NEO and mining it for whatever value it is worth. I also think the best idea would be to try to knock it off course if that was not a option. I watched a doc that explained the dense and porous types. It would be better to have a broad plan for all types. This is something that is in this planets future so I guess there is no time like now to plan.

I would use the 戦略的な星Satelites that Japan has just launched It would take about 100 shots but you could easily deflect it.


[edit on 22-12-2006 by JamesMcMahn]

Okay heres my plan.

We get Bruce willis, owen wilson, ben affleck, steve beuchemi, the guy who played john coffee, and a couple other cool guys. We send them up in a top secret vehicle that looks exactly like the space shuttle. (we can name it the x-71 for poops and giggles.) We send them up, because it would be pointless sending another crew up because they always get blown up, it just happens, nothing we can do. Anyway, we send them up with another piece of unproven equipment. We can call it a badger..nah..hedgehog.....nooo....okay the armadillo. We have them drill into the astroid halfway through. We the hoist a nuclear weapon into the hole. If all goes according to plan then the astroid should break in two. this will cause the two halves to go on either side of the planet and save us all.


But if that plan fails, then is there any chance that we could start nuking the crap out of it just before it hits the atmosphere? If we did this would it slow it down a bit so that it spends a longer time int eh atmosphere, giving it a longer time in it to break up. Then its also partially broken up too?

Nah, most here have it all wrong. We would need the alien technology guys from S4 to build a huge force field in the area surrounding the estimated impact zone, and surrounding perimeter.

Of course, we would need to detect it in ample time to do anything about it really.

In other words, we're screwed.

A series of mid yield kenetic charges in a gradualy sloping path would easily divert a large asteroid away from a direct impact. all one would have to do is set the charges to detonate at apropreate times to allow the kenetic energy from each explosion gently push the object on a diffrent trajectory.

Small explosions in a series would move the object better thain one large detonation.

Using inertia to your advatage. The object has mass (M) and is traviling at speed (S) This gives you Momentum (X) Devide momentum by rainge (R) and you have the simple algebra to conduct the multiple explosion diversion of course.

time each explosion to coordinate with the new trajectory you wish and the asteroids trajectory would chainge to reflect the kenetics emited by the explosion.

the more kenetic explosions you emit the more the body will move.

laws of motion laws of free floating bodies in space. mass.

basicly you want to keep making the body in motion feel the continue in motion as acted on by the outside force of the detonations. a chanel of sorts

Actually, I think the last poster has a pretty good idea. If you set off an explosion when the asteroid was far enough away, you could divert it slightly, and the slight course alteration would hopefully be enough to knock it away from a collision course and away from earth's gravitational field.

In space, there would be nothing to cushion the asteroid from the explosion. Except for the part of the explosion that does not directly face the asteroid, all the energy would strike it. The simple physical laws of conservation of energy and momentum are going to result in the asteroid changing direction.

Whether an explosion would do the trick would depend on size, mass, composition, distance from earth, explosion strength, and probably a couple other things I forgot about. With enough warning, we could probably take out most asteroids.

Which is why I favor changing the Albedo over explosives.

How about a large shuttle with a big flat front flies at it and just hits it... or we could add a big baseball bat arm to the shuttle discovery

Originally posted by CaptainLazy
... or we could add a big baseball bat arm to the shuttle discovery

I don't think the baseball bat approach would work.

First it would have to be long enough, strong enough and have enough momentum.

Even in space, it would take quite a bit of energy, if I am not mistaken.

aren't we in more danger of someone (say who wants to control space and stop anyone else from using it...) setting up a orbital mass driver that drops rocks on their enemies? same effect. 'Oh that was an asteroid'... hmm

Originally posted by sardion2000
Perhaps if it's made of the right stuff that is, nudge it inti a collision course with mars or something just to see what would happen.

That is awesome! Smash some rocks into a few planets "just because it'd be cool to watch." Ahhhh I love being human!

Originally posted by apc

Originally posted by sardion2000
Perhaps if it's made of the right stuff that is, nudge it inti a collision course with mars or something just to see what would happen.

That is awesome! Smash some rocks into a few planets "just because it'd be cool to watch." Ahhhh I love being human!

Cool to watch? Maybe... It would be quite educational, which is what I meant. Such a display I think would make the entire planet take this whole "Asteroid Collision" thing a whole lot more seriously. Also part of most terraforming plans I've seen has involved slamming ice/mudballs onto the planet in question. Save the Earth and help to provide a new home for our species in one fell swoop. Doesn't get much better then that.

[edit on 23-12-2006 by sardion2000]

Yes... but still. It really would be cool to watch! I'd shell out the rubles to get my butt front row center for that show.

I wonder how dangerous it would be to direct something towards the Moon. If something were already on a collision course for Earth, seems like making it hit the Moon would be relatively simple unless the Moon were directly behind the Earth hidden from the impactor.

i dont think it would be very dangerous to other planets. I mean its not like they never get hit by asteroids. Just look at the moon or mars. I jsut dont think it would matter much...and I agree, totally cool to watch.

Sardion is right; we could learn a lot from observing an asteroid impact on Mars firsthand... probably enough to make our next attempt at NEO diversion a little more elegant.

And you other guys are right too. it would be awesome to watch something like that... even if we don't stop one of the things and it hits Earth, I figure a front-row seat followed by a quick death in the collision would be preferable to slow starvation in post-infrastructure America.

Originally posted by theconspiracyisherenow
my idea of defense would be lots of bomb shelters and artillery to shoot them out of the sky.

A bomb shelter may let you survive the impact, but when you emerge from your shelter, you'll find a planet that is pretty devestated.

As for shooting it out of the sky, I don't think there is artillery (or even a nuke) that exists that will destroy a 5 mile wide object. Plus, even if you do manage to blow it out of the sky right before impact, an air burst, say 20 miles up, would be just as devastating to the earth as an impact would be. Don't forget, that asteroid may be moving at 50,000+ mph relative to the earth, so all of that kinetic energy (energy of movement) has got to go somewhere. The energy won't just "disappear" in a cloud of dust.

Perhaps a combined approach of reducing it's mass (i.e. using a space-based, high energy laser while the nukes are travelling) whilst also directing a large number of nukes to first break it up, then a second volley to explode nearby and alter the trajectory of the numerous smaller (and less massive) pieces?

The problems with paint or sail, aside from possible equipment malfunction vs. tried and true tech, is the travel time to the object, when time is something we won't have much of. As it is, we'd have to alter the nukes to travel further and faster in space, than their original design specs.

[edit on 2-1-2007 by Gazrok]

It'd be completely dependent on the situation. A forceful application (nukes, lasers, etc) would be a last resort effort if all else failed or if the object was not detected until near impact. Ideally we will have detected the object many years before the likely impact with several orbits around the sun left to go. Using solar radiation to modify the orbit at this time would be optimal and leave plenty of room for error.

True, but in those years, you have to design, develop, and build the prototypes, eventually get them to the NEO (which could take months and months depending on distance), and deploy the system, be it sails or paint, or both, etc. That's the problem...especially if this prototype equipment gets there and some idiot forgot to carry the 1 or left off a zero (hey, it's happened before, so we're told)....

We have HELs, and we have nukes already. With just a little modification, we should be able to utilize existing tech and cut down the deployment time dramatically. With the speed of light, the HELs could soften the target quickly, prior to nukes reaching. Just my opinion of course. I'm hoping they've got folks sitting around working on this problem, but who knows....