What subby thinks a ragtag troop of BP workers looks like.


What a ragtag troop of BP workers actually looks like.

How is this idea new? It's in every Asteroid disaster movie since ever.

Lunchlady: How is this idea new? It's in every Asteroid disaster movie since ever.

Technically his idea is to use a mass collision to create a crater in the asteroid, then to have a nuke fall into that crater. Pretty good idea as drilling is way more difficult.

Seems to me that IF you know about it soon enough then changing its velocity in either direction is much easier than blowing it apart -

If you don't know about it until you've got less than 24 hours to impact you probably couldnt get a craft ready in time even IF you stood a decent chance of blowing it apart.

In either case we're probably screwed for about the next 50 years until the US (it will probably be the US) comes up with a directed energy weapon which can be scaled up to alter the trajectory of an inbound asteroid. My guess is it will look like the ion cannon from Star Wars... but hey, that's just me.

An asteroid is spotted on a collision course with Earth.

US: "Ok, Let's launch this nuke!"

Foreign powers: "Ah, no. Violation of treaty."

Domestic enviro loons: "Ah, no. Nukes bad."

US: "C'mon, guys we really need to do this bef..." *smash*

Computer simulation of nuking an asteroid (about halfway through the video).

fifthhorseman: An asteroid is spotted on a collision course with Earth.

US: "Ok, Let's launch this nuke!"

Foreign powers: "Ah, no. Violation of treaty."

Domestic enviro loons: "Ah, no. Nukes bad."

US: "C'mon, guys we really need to do this bef..." *smash*


Sound like something the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse would say. Hrm

Fizpez: Seems to me that IF you know about it soon enough then changing its velocity in either direction is much easier than blowing it apart -

If you don't know about it until you've got less than 24 hours to impact you probably couldnt get a craft ready in time even IF you stood a decent chance of blowing it apart.

In either case we're probably screwed for about the next 50 years until the US (it will probably be the US) comes up with a directed energy weapon which can be scaled up to alter the trajectory of an inbound asteroid. My guess is it will look like the ion cannon from Star Wars... but hey, that's just me.

We have those remote shuttles now. If you detect the asteroid early on enough you could send one out, tether the shuttle to it and have it tug it out of your way (or capture it and when we can mine it). Basically if the time period is long enough you can decelerate anything. Although I'm not sure if the shuttle carries a large enough fuel supply.

Our best bet for short term defense seems to be convincing the Pentagon they want to get in on this field of work. Sell the idea that the missile defense shield should do both asteroids and ICBMs.

As long as it's taken care of before Hot Fudge Sundae on Tuesday.

loonatic112358: As long as it's taken care of before Hot Fudge Sundae on Tuesday.

Hot Fudge Sundae falls on a Tuesdae.

Ambitwistor: Hot Fudge Sundae falls on a Tuesdae.

great, i'm going to fall victim for to the topping anyhow

ha-ha-guy: Basically if the time period is long enough you can decelerate anything.

You don't even need to 'decelerate' it if all you need is for it to miss. All you need to do then is impose a slight vector change.

A change of .01 m/s is a .6m difference in position after a minute, 36 meters in an hour, 864 meters after a day, and over 315 km after a year.

Given that the Earth is 12,756 km in diameter, 20 years would change a direct hit into a miss. Of course, if you have 20 years to work with, something as simple as painting part of the asteroid to change the ablito could be enough.

You can't stop me, Bong Wie. I will destroy this planet with my asteroid machine.

All you need to do is aim a laser at the asteroid for a period of time, volatilizing some of the material, and shifting the orbit a tiny amount.

What is with this obsession to nuke asteroids?

RandomAxe: An ablation laser is a far, far superior technology, and NASA knows it perfectly well -- the beam reaches the asteroid far sooner than a nuke could and produces more reliable results, giving you much longer to locate the impactor and to do something about it. And it's a better technology to develop, anyway.

But Russia and China would flip the hell out if we built a gigantic space-based laser system. It would also be useful for other peaceable applications, but, yeah, you could totally use it to ruin some city's day.

The same is true of nukes, but we already have the nukes.

even better: F.E.L. (new window)

/could be used for ablation
//or just cut the farker into a million pieces

Trolljegeren: What is with this obsession to nuke asteroids?

You don't like big explosions?

Are you not entertained???!!!!

Trolljegeren: All you need to do is aim a laser at the asteroid for a period of time, volatilizing some of the material, and shifting the orbit a tiny amount.

What is with this obsession to nuke asteroids?

you never had an urge to feel a kiloton warhead between your legs?

FTA - The most recent major impact, the Tunguska event, was from a 50-meter asteroid that exploded over a remote region of Siberia in 1908. The explosion flattened trees in an 830-square-mile area.

Uhhh, no Mr. or Ms. article author, there is no widespread scientific consensus that the Tunguska object was an asteroid. In fact, mainstream science has been squabbling over whether it was an asteroid or an icy comet for over 60 years, despite the fact that the evidence points squarely to neither one being the impactor. If it was an asteroid, why have we never found a crater, fragments, or radiation levels above that of natural infall? Why were the trees blown down in a radial pattern exactly like that caused by the airburst bombs that destroyed Nagasaki and Hiroshima? And if we are to believe that it was an airburst caused by an icy comet plunging into the atmosphere, how can anyone explain the fact that a comet the size necessary to produce that much explosive force would never have made it far enough into the atmosphere before exploding to have any effect on the ground? There's more evidence that completely throws the comet vs. asteroid argument completely out the window. No I'm sorry but the Tunguska object wasn't a comet or an asteroid.

FTFA: The 150 planetary scientists gathered in Budapest last year have dedicated their careers to thinking about problems like these. For two decades, they've tended to gravitate toward solutions still in the realm of science fiction, such as gravity tractors and antimatter devices.


That's funny, because I've been reading for years about scientists coming up with plans to defend against impactors from space and their plans haven't relied on science fiction technologies like tractor beams and antimatter bombs... They've generally relied on much more subtlety. Most of the plans have involved some way to alter the course of the object.

Mirrors to concentrate light on a point on the surface of a comet, anchoring solar sails to the object - even a mass driver machine that would attach to the surface and eject small pieces at high velocity over and over until the trajectory had been altered.

Nuking an object so that it blows up into smaller pieces has been usually portrayed as a desperation move because of the possibility that you essentially change a slug into a shotgun blast, and actually make the impact worse. If you can blow it up far away then I'm sure at least many of the pieces - a significant fraction of the mass - would miss Earth, but try it too close and it will probably turn it into an even worse disaster.

Most of the nuke proposals I've heard of involve placing a nuke near the object so that the blast shifts it's trajectory.

Lucifer's Hammer.

Um, yeah, like sending a group of BP workers is a good idea. Instead of an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, we'd end up with an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, with a huge oil leak on it.