Guided Asteroid Weapon

I was wondering if it was possible to for an asteroid or a comet to be guided to hit a target on earth? The reason being that of it was possible to do this a government could claim the event as a “act of God” and there would be no radiation/fallout. In a sick world this seems like the perfect weapon if you have plenty of time to plan for the attack.

Comments?

It is possible to do so, but there would be no good reason to do so.

A large asteroid effects the whole planet, so there is a specific size range
that could be used as a strategic weapon.


As for being claimed as an act of god, well I highly doubt most people
would believe that, especially considering Scientists tell us it's a matter
of when not if for an astreroid impact.

Is it possible to use an asteroid as a weapon? Not really.

First, there are the practical problems.
1) You need some way to change the asteroid's orbital path. That's going to require some form of thruster to get to the asteroid belt (Apollo objects aren't any good for this purpose...they're closer, but only in limited time-frames, and will require too large a delta-V in too short a time for us to use). Your thruster is going to have to either kick out a LOT of thrust (several million tons of it) for a LONG time to make measurable changes in the asteroid's orbit.

2) You need to acutally guide your falling rock. More big thrusters to provide mid-course corrections, and to 'fine tune' the aim. Don't forget that not only are these massive thrusters (a couple orders of magnitude bigger than the Saturn-V), but they're working at a long lag from their control point.

3) You have to provide all those thrusters with fuel, and very possibly some form of in-flight servicing.

Then there are the tactical problems:
1) Several months are going to pass between giving the attack order and having the rock actually hit...this could be embarassing if the political situation you're planning to solve with the ultimate 'boot to the head' works itself out diplomatically in the interim. It could be even MORE embarassing if your target country finds out about this not-so-little project and sends you a several-megaton CandyGram, Domino's style ("Delivered in 30 minutes, or the next one's free!" )

2) Fallout. Even if you do manage to hit your target dead-on, the environmental (and possibly geological) impact (pun intended) could be as devastating to you and your allies as it was to your target. Look what happened when the UED (Union of European Dinosaurs) tried this stunt on the FLL (Federation of Latino Lizards) base in the Yucatan!

In short, it's not worth the hassle, even if we had the tech to do it...you'd be better off sneaking a nuke in, and blaming the resultant massive urban renewal project on a terrorist group.

Mass-drivers, though technologically unfeasible at this point, have been suggested.

I was thinking more of a 100yd by 100yd asteroid that could "conveniently" for the powers to be, take out a city for instance. If you "believe" in UFO engine technology it would be feasible. One could claim an the attack was a "act of God" by having one asteroid hit the target and a couple of others hit "non-important places". This seems like a perfect way to destroy a rival countries economy and get away with it. Comments?

[edit on 2-5-2007 by BlueRidge]

This is entirely possible, without any exotic alien technology.

There are already plans to divert asteroids away from hitting Earth, the same technologies could be used to do the opposite.

Nor would it take a particularly large impactor - a nickel-iron object 50 meters across would be enough to generate a 2.5 megaton explosion - easily enough to flatten a decent sized city.

Well There would still be fallout, maby not radioactive but dust would cover the earth and there would be an ice age again, but then again if its possible the goverment will probibly do it.

Originally posted by Phillyfan1234
Well There would still be fallout, maby not radioactive but dust would cover the earth and there would be an ice age again, but then again if its possible the goverment will probibly do it.

There would be some localized fallout in terms of ash...but nothing earth changing. It would be the equivalent of an A bomb or H Bomb in terms of ash/dust fallout without the radioactivity. I believe you are thinking of an massive dinosaur killer asteroid , while I was thinking of something much much smaller.

Several things to consider:
a. It is by far easier to dissuade an asteroid from Earth, than to direct it to a specific spot. [Getting to the asteroid days before impact, and applying a constant 'nudge', for instance, could have it impact only the most outer-layer of the atmosphere, or skim all-together. The worst damage, I'd think, would be to satellites.

b. Tunguska.

c. It depends on an asteroid's composition.

Just something I'd thought I'd mention.

If a government were to develop an orbital weapons platform that 'drops'
bus sized metal projectiles from orbit, it would cause the same
destruction, if not more than a small asteroid would.

If they did it very, very rarely, they could get away with blaming natural
meters/ites/oids on it.

Not really. NORAAD (and its Russian counterpart, and its UK counterpart, and its Chinese counterpart, and probably a few others) have the capability to track 'space junk' as small as a foot in length (and probably smaller). The minute something in orbit calved off a bus-sized hunk of anything, it would get noticed. Once it was established that the daughter object was on a reentry track, the origin would be tracked down within a few minutes, unless there was a major systems malfunction. It would be fairly obvious at that point that it was a missile, not a meteorite.

I don't mean a missile, or anything that was carried aloft by one, I mean
an already orbiting satellite, on a farish orbit launching something at the
planet.

I think this would simply be a waste of money. Imagine what the research would cost, then the actual production...just use a cruise missile.

Regards,
Maestro

Originally posted by iori_komei
I don't mean a missile, or anything that was carried aloft by one, I mean
an already orbiting satellite, on a farish orbit launching something at the
planet.

I was using the term "missile" in a more generic sense...the one that applies to 'projectiles', be they thrown rocks, rifle bullets, or ICBMs.

The minute your pseudo-asteroid parted company with its parent vehicle (assuming that it was large enough to do meaningful damage), NORAAD would start a new track on it, just like they do any bit of 'space junk' big enough to track. The minute the object assumed a reentry profile, it would go to the top of the watch list, and the folks on the scopes would do just what they've practiced for years....project the track forward to see where it's going to hit, and backward to point of origin.

Not practical for us to use against ourselves. But it's a good indication that we are not in imminent danger of an alien invasion - because it's the most obvious, cheap and efficient means of attacking another planet. If asteroids start falling from the sky, then we worry!

For more info read Larry Niven's novel Footfall

well remember that most asteriods burn up in the atmosphere, to get a good impact you would have to use a big asteriod, which would cause a global chane in the enviroment.

Originally posted by Brother Stormhammer
Is it possible to use an asteroid as a weapon? Not really.

You sure?

NATURAL METEOROIDS AS WEAPONS
www.rand.org...

Not that we would ever think of such things

reply to post by BlueRidge


worked in starship troopers so i dont see why it wouldnt work in reality would hope nasa could pull something out of there butts to save us but we shal see

reply to post by iori_komei


thought that was the suposed rods from god weapons platform thats ether theorized or on thebooks for a real weapon some day i think they were gonna use tungsten rods coated in re-entry matieral and basicly use it in the way you described as in you pick a target and it hits just like an asteroid with out additional explosives or what not but i think its currently too expensive to send that ammount of weight into space at the current moment

reply to post by BlueRidge


do you think if the hubble telescope was aimed at the sun and other end opened, it could magnify the suns rays and make a beam capable of deflecting a meteor ? like magnifing glass and paper on a sunny day. its just a thought ?