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Do not worry. If it had gotten really close, I'd have worked faster on my Kill-O-Zap anti-asteroid missle. Next time, I'll be set . . . |
Posted on 12/23/2004 6:32:27 AM PST by ckilmer
Does he have three or more square-rigged masts? Otherwise, it's just a boat.
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Do not worry. If it had gotten really close, I'd have worked faster on my Kill-O-Zap anti-asteroid missle. Next time, I'll be set . . . |
I like the 3 or more mast rule myself.
My friends boat has only 2.
> 16 feet wide.
> About like a VW Bug hitting ya in the head.......
Well, now, lessee:
Five meters diameter is about 65.5 cubic meters. Assume that the rock has a density of, say 6 times that of water. Thus it masses 393 metric tons. And say it's impact speed would be 17 kilomters per second (about average). That means its kinetic energy would be: 1/2*M*v^2 = 1.2*393,000*(17,000^2) = 56,788,500,000,000 Joules (5.68E13 Joules). Since 1 Kiloton is defined as 4.1E12 joules... our little VW Bug would have a yield equivalent to 13.9 kilotons, or roughly Hiroshima-yield.
(feel free to check my math)
Such blasts in the very upper atmosphere have been detected. Several have caused NORAD to go nuts, even waking the President (I believe during buildup to Gulf War 1). Were this thing to be made of stern stuff, say, nickle-iron (much denser, say 8-11 times that of water) rather than loose rock, then it could well make it to the ground, at which point you make a nice crater and just maybe start WWIII.
BTW, where else but on FR could a thread about an asteriod (meteriod, whatever) missing the Earth devolve into a pedantic discussion of the fine semantic distinctions between asteriod, meteor, meteorite and meteoriod? Gawd, I love this place.
It's not a meteor unless it enters the atmosphere.
Nope. NORAD is smarter than that. :-)
No. They are being accurate. It is not a meteorite till it reaches the earth.
Don't forget planetiod. :-)
See my post #12.
Let's hope the Ruskies are, too.
Agreed!!
I'll sleep better tonight! Thanks!
Picture from "BurningMan" :-)
I always wanted to go just once. LOL!
IV, We loast almost 100,000 KIA in III. (It wasn't cold.)
I had asteroids once, but the doctor gave me something to clear it up... oh never mind.
> NORAD is smarter than that.
I once, many years ago, wrote a rather bad little sci-fi story. Went like this:
Asteroid enters the atmosphere over western China.
1) Skips over India.
2) Smacks into Islamabad.
3) Communications over the whole region wiped out.
4) Paki field commanders see their capitol under a mushroom cloud, and saw something nasty coming from the direction of India. Without chain of command, a chaotic nuclear reprisal is launched against Indian targets.
5) Indian targets start disappearing. Without communications and a chain of command, Indian field commanders return nuclear fire. hower, many saw the big scary thing coming from China, so they launch a few weapons on Chinese targets.
6) Chinese field commanders, without communications and a chain of command, start returning fire on the most likely culprits: India and Russia.
7) The Russians *know* that an asteroid started the whole thing. However, they can't communicate with the Chinese, and since war is now on, they strike at the Chinese in force.
8) The President of the US goes on TV and tells everybody to calm the hell down.
9) Syria decides now is as good as ever, and strikes against Israel.
10) Israel has no patience for this, and starts nuking Arab targets.
11) Europe goes up in flames from ethnic and inter-national stresses (if I wrote it today, it'd be Muslim fundies going nuts)
12) The Korean peninsula goes up in flams. Japan gets nuked, as does Seoul.
13) The US sits it out. The Chinese and the N Koreans lob a few half-hearted nukes at the US; interceptors take them out. The US does not otherwise respond.
14) A week later, the nuke fight is over, the conventional fighting is goign strong.
15) A year later, the US is still intact, the rest of the world is pretty much torn to shreds. The sunsets are pretty... global warming is a thing of the past.
WOW! Some story!
Glad it did not happen in real!
Thats not a bad premise for a story- good idea. did you get it published? If you think it is bad (your words) maybe you could hook up with a ghost writer or good editor?
I'd love to read it
> did you get it published?
Naw. Got it written, then realized that it was written *poorly*.
> you think it is bad (your words)
I think the basic outline is pretty good... I'm good at comign up with spiffy plotlines and such. It's all the characterizations and whatnot that I stink at. A story like this is too "big" and wide ranging to have a small group of related characters; you'd have to either do like Niven & Pournelle and have literally *dozens* of well-fleshed-out characters, or do like Olaf Stapledon and have basically *none*. And Olaf's way is *hard*. What I came up with was that it was the first person account of an airman in NORAD... he got a front row seat to watch it all happen on the screens.
So long as I've mentioned 'em... I heartily recommend Niven & Pournells "Lucifer's Hammer." A comet whacks into the Earth and causes all kinds of havoc. When I make my millions, that's one that I'm gonna buy the movie rights to...
"Lucifer's Hammer" - great read! I like all of their collaborative efforts.
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