Asteroid wrap could save the world

Asteroid wrap could save the world

www.news.com.au

AN Australian researcher has won an international prize for her plan to wrap a giant asteroid with reflective sheeting to stop it colliding with the earth and destroying all life.

Such an impact would have the force of 110,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs if the asteroid, which actually exists, hits the planet in 2036, said Mary D'Souza, a PhD student with the University of Queensland's School of Engineering.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Here's an interesting way to deflect an asteroid...

Wow.

I suppose that with some smart engineering, it's got to be possible! Put it this way, if we don't prepare for it, we're stuffed when it happens!

www.news.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

Wrapping it tinfoil won the prize!?!? wow.... Send satellite to wrap it in tin foil and hope that the reflective surface would help push it... Riiiiight.

Thanks for the laugh.

reply to post by titorite


Yeah, it's a little unbelievable. I guess that means it can and will probably be done at some point in the future!

I would have thought that there were other ways to take out an approaching asteroid.

The article mentions a 330 meter wide asteroid that will be observable in 2011, but it does not name it.

I know that 2004 MN4 is 320 meters and will make its closest pass on Friday the 13 2029 - just below the altitude of geosynchronous Earth satellites.

Like attempting to control the path of a hurricane it might be unpredictable and they could actually make it hit the earth instead of a near miss using this technique.

Anyway at least they are attempting to come up with a solution.



[edit on 23-8-2008 by verylowfrequency]

tin foil? and satelites? by 2036, I was expecting a squadron of railgun mounted space shuttles could clear up this doomsday issue.

It probably would have been a good idea to name the asteroid in the main news article.

At least, if it is due to impact in 2036, they've got time to find a solution!

Dick Cheeny would deflect it into Iran though no?

I think so

reply to post by mopusvindictus


No! Dick Cheney would deflect it into Montana and blame the Iranians for doing it!

Not much hope for science is there.

Tesla said we could more planets around.

The same way he moved the craft he designed.

Move through cosmos with voltage.

Electrify the asteroid and send it off in one direction forever.

Wouldn't it just be easier to use a nuclear bomb to blow it up or move it? Or do nuclear bombs not work in space? Wrapping a gigantic asteroid in some wrap is just insane...

Wrap it up like a frickin' baked potato?

That's a butt load of foil. What is everyone going to make their hats out of afterwards?

Send up a crew listening to Aerosmith and wrap the sucker in bubble wrap.

Many will die, but in the end the guy will get the girl and save the world.

Didnt they come up with something similar to this in "Armageddon"?
Hitching up Mylar sails to shift the trajectory of the rock? Billy Bob Thorton said it was a bad idea then, why is it all of a sudden a good idea now?

I am a little concerned about the long term effects of this though. Sure, if it works to plan and the Mylar reflective material does shift its course, this is apparently an asteroid that orbits just outside the belt. Too much of a shift and it could very well tag another rock and send it into our moon, or even into Earth itself. Not counting all of the satellites we have in close orbit that could be taken out with a near miss encounter due to debris and magnetic forces.

I certainly hope that they take the long term into account when this is presented to council.

reply to post by tezzajw


Could someone please explain to me how by making the asteroid more reflective that THAT would make it move away from the Earth?

If all you have to do is make it more reflective why do we have to use something that's more expensive than Kelvar? Couldn't we use Reynold's Wrap or something?

well making it reflective supposedly will make the sun's solar rays affect it and push it away. But the flaw I see with it, and I think someone else touched on this... is the idea is to push it away from the sun and the earth outwards in the solar system. But whats stopping it from coming back or going on a different orbit around the sun that could have an affect on other planets, or our own later on.

Blowing it up presents the problem that you don't know how many pieces that will come out of it, and if just one piece of it is big enough (i.e size that possibly caused dinosaurs' extinction) could easily still hit the earth.

My idea would be to create something that changes the orbit and sends it on a path to collide with the sun. The sun is much bigger and is already burning up, what difference would it make?

Well we all know tinfoil hats block the waves of lucifer, so maybe it just might work...

But no seriously, what about those high energy lasers they used to disintegrate artillery and missiles, I suppose setting up a few of those might be a possible plan B, givin the lasers would have to be effective for some distance cuz that thing would be movin real quick, maybe launchin a few bruce willis payload missiles at it could work... who knows.

reply to post by Spock Shock


Actually that isn't that far fetched. I've heard ideas where an adapted Star Wars-type program could fire constantly on an asteroid for years, creating a jet which would act like a thruster and either slow it down or change its course.

Another problem with just nuking it (I think it was addressed in all those wonderful Asteroid movies in the 90's) was that if you don't know the composition of the asteroid, your nuke may not be effective with just hitting the surface. It'd be like trying to stop the Enterprise with a bazooka, sure you'll damage it (if the shields are down) but you aren't going to kill it. And just because you broke the object up doesn't mean things are better. If a million pieces of the same asteroid all hit the earth after being nuked...it'd be just as bad if the thing had hit whole since all the pieces would be radioactive.

I think after we wrap it in tinfoil we need to put up two huge flippers after all if you are going to make the asteroid look like a pinball, it would make one heck of a pinball game.

Originally posted by mopusvindictus
Dick Cheeny would deflect it into Iran though no?

I think so

If Cheney did something like that I might have to re-evaluate him. Alas, he'll be out of office a long time before anything like that becomes feasible.