Nuclear bombs could save earth from asteroids.

If a massive asteroid is hurtling toward Earth and threatening to sterilize the entire planet, blasting it to pieces with nuclear bombs might seem fit for a Hollywood movie. But, it could, in fact, be a viable solution to the potentially apocalyptic event, according to scientists who have studied asteroids and possible solutions to prevent Earth impacts.

Source

Not sure i'd be happy having Nuclear fallout in space, would this actually work or just cause problems for us in the long term?.

[edit on 28/6/2010 by Catch_a_Fire]

you wouldn't be happy with fallout in space?
if it was going to SAVE THE PLANET AND EVERYTHING ON IT?


surely it shouldnt even be a choice between the two options of either everything being wiped out or some fallout in space?

reply to post by james420


You beat me to it.

There would be no choice.

There would be nothing left alive to worry about radiation in space if an asteroid wiped us all out, so i choose a living planet Earth, and an irradiated space (which is already the case in space anyway!) over the alternative.

I can see how i was misunderstood, apologies on my behalf. The point i was trying to make is these things couldnt go ahead without some form of testing, unless it was a spare of the moment thing. Are we about to see nuclear weapons being tested in space using this as an excuse?.

We had the nuclear race, then we had the space race, is it going to be the nuclear space race next?.

why would it need to be nuclear? Surely if we sent a non-nuclear missile head on it would, at the very least, blast it in to tiny, harmless bits? I mean, these things must be going pretty fast right so we wouldn't need a force to blow it up?

Seems a bit risky to nuke something when there's a chance it could go wrong and we could be showered with nuclear fallout.

one of the main problems with sending a nuke up to blast a giant space rock is that it could then create MANY more bits and debris that would act as hundreds if not thousands of impact objects. (large and small)

I'm pretty sure nuclear weapons aren't very effective in space. The devastating damage caused by these weapons is to do with the blast. In space this would be negligible due to the sparsity of particles, meaning there would not be the kinetic chain reactions of colliding particles.

[edit on 28-6-2010 by Big Raging Loner]

reply to post by Catch_a_Fire

Not sure i'd be happy having Nuclear fallout in space, would this actually work or just cause problems for us in the long term?.

Friend, space is full of radiation already, another small bit would not make a difference. The thing is, I do not think any sort of kind of nuclear device will be set off to stop an asteroid. I do however happen to think that a false flag, a small nuclear device, will probably be set off in Washington DC, and Los Angeles California. It will be blamed on "Domestic Terrorists" or "Al Queda." TPTB will need something to gain our attention, and I cannot think of anything better, other than ET showing up in force.

we have exploded nuclear weapons in space before and if it helps preserve life on earth then why can't we do it again?

It just seems to me that theres this big urge to get nuclear weapons into space. This is just another excuse they can use.

in space there is a great deal of radiation. are magnetic atmosphere saves us. so a nuc would have no affect in space. and the blast would be just as big. they could use one as big as they like. as long as it not close to earths atmosphere. the best way is to find it as far away as you can. you can then you could use the blast to make it miss earth.

Originally posted by zooplancton
one of the main problems with sending a nuke up to blast a giant space rock is that it could then create MANY more bits and debris that would act as hundreds if not thousands of impact objects. (large and small)

Would you rather get hit in the head by a big rock or by a lot of small pellets?

I think the impact area would still suffer a great damage, but it would be better for Earth to be impacted by fragmented pieces, they would carry less weight and momentum.

Originally posted by Slih_09

Originally posted by zooplancton
one of the main problems with sending a nuke up to blast a giant space rock is that it could then create MANY more bits and debris that would act as hundreds if not thousands of impact objects. (large and small)

Would you rather get hit in the head by a big rock or by a lot of small pellets?

I think the impact area would still suffer a great damage, but it would be better for Earth to be impacted by fragmented pieces, they would carry less weight and momentum.

The effect of the nuke would depend on the composition of the object. Shoemaker-Levy-9 was a weakly held clump of objects that got pulled apart by Jupiter's gravity. When all the separate pieces hit, each one still had a devastating effect:

Shoemaker levy 9

21 distinct impacts were observed, with the largest coming on July 18 at 07:33 UTC when fragment G struck Jupiter. This impact created a giant dark spot over 12,000 km across, and was estimated to have released an energy equivalent to 6,000,000 megatons of TNT (600 times the world's nuclear arsenal).

So here's an object that was broken into 21 pieces and just one of those fragments by itself had a devastation of 600 times the Earth's entire nuclear arsenal.

Therefore breaking it into pieces probably isn't such a great answer. Much better is to get it to miss the Earth entirely. This might be done by sending a rocket to parallel the trajectory of the object, and the gravitational attraction to the rocket would pull it off a collision course.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Using nuclear methods would also mean that the pieces (that hit us) would be highly radioactive. Theres too many flaws and complications that can come from this.IMO

best thing would be to rendezvous with the incoming asteroid while its still some distance away and strap on to it an Orion type booster to divert it away from us. that way the nuke boys get what they want & we keep earth safe from harm's way (without the resultant shrapnel from blasting an asteroid with a nuke).

but if it turns out that the asteroid isn't solid rock but composed of a slurry mix of dust, ice and rock then maybe we can still explode nukes along the trajectory of or alongside (but not on the surface of) the asteroid in order to divert it somewhere safe, maybe the moon.

totally true if we let all the nukes detonate evenly spread on earth no-one would notice an asteroid impact.

edit to say: and earth will be save because yd removed all humans

[edit on 30-6-2010 by Dumbass]

The point about all this is we need a few things to stand a chance:

1) An organised comprehensive worldwide asteroid/comet detection system. (So we see the intruder early.)

2) Capability to rapidly throw humans/equipment/fission weapons deep into the solar system at high speed. (so we can get out to it while there is still time to study its composition and deploy workable counter measure).

We have neither.

The first requires worldwide politicians to take the issue seriously, which it isn't.

The 2nd requires development of space nuclear propulsion (at least the Obama plan includes this, its been ignored for far too long). It'll be slow though as politicians see pork barrel politics based around old chemical rockets as more important.

Unfortunately, at our current level of preparedness the most likely outcome is extinction. We have the ability. We lack the will.

reply to post by justwokeup


Very well said