Blast it or paint it: Deadly asteroid bounds towards Earth out of the blue

rt.com ^ | 3/4/12

[Jack Hydrazine]

Get Doctor Evil on the telephone!

[Licensed-To-Carry]

Wormwood, I hope.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Put a Hall Effect ion engine on the thing and it’ll gradually change its orbit enough to miss us.

[GeronL]

lol.

In other words the proposed solutions could easily make it more likely to hit Earth.

[cynwoody]

The US Islamic Outreach Agency estimates the explosive yield at impact to be 2.2 megatons and the probability of said impact to be 1 in 22,000.

[GeronL]

Of course, it’d be WW3 and we’d have to nuke every major Muzzie city on Earth too, maybe even Paris and London?? heh

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Who cares? The world ends in December by the Myan calendar.

[wyokostur]

"paint it black"... What genius thought that up??

[piytar]

A rock this small would be easy to nuke. Wonder if the Russians have any 50 megatonners left?

Or if we ever built one of the gigatonners I read some speculations about a while ago...

[wyokostur]

Oops...my bad...they just want to paint it...they didn’t say what color.

[Viking2002]

Meh. 60 meters. Get up and walk it off, ya sissies......

"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

--H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

[ApplegateRanch]

AGW blamed in 10, 9, 8, ....

[Norm Lenhart]

Considering it’s not that big a rock, why not just retarget an ICBM “up”? This isn’t rocket sci...er...ehm..on second thought ;)

Seriously though, a couple megaton nuke could pretty much powderize that size a rock unless it was a chunk of iron. And I cannot believe that with modern targeting computers we would miss. It’s not like that thing will take evasive action.

[U-238]

http://esa.academia.edu/LeopoldSummerer/Papers/409879/Concepts_for_Near-Earth_Asteroid_Deflection_Using_Spacecraft_With_Advanced_Nuclear_and_Solar_Electric_Propulsion_Systems

[WKUHilltopper]

for later

[right way right]

It will probably just dissolve into a rock the size of a small Chihuahua.

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

And I cannot believe that with modern targeting computers we would miss. It’s not like that thing will take evasive action.

* * *

That was my first thought too: use an ICBM. But how far up can one of those babies go? If it can’t reach very far, then you’re pulverizing the rock pretty close to Earth. Would that put a giant dust cloud into our atmosphere? Would that become another “Year Without Summer?” Or (I’m not a scientist, I just like science fiction! LOL!) could an exploding ICBM high in the atmosphere knock out electronics, etc.? Perhaps the ICBM scenario is not workable after all.

[RC one]

I wonder if we could guide into Iran?

[El Gato]

I hope it hits Mecca...

That would be a Good Thing.. except all the Muslims not in Mecca would blame it on the Great Satan, and all hell would break loose.

But it could hi Oom in Iran and dig that hidden Imam out of that well, thus setting off Armegedden. 200 feet is a pretty big rock, but not in the Dinosaur Killer or "Nuclear Winter" category. That one was at least 2.5 miles wide, maybe bigger. So unless it comes down within a few miles of you, you'll likey not notice anything more than a big flash.. try not to be looking at it. It could still be equivalent to about a 100 Megaton blast. Could destroy a city the size of DC or Paris, with a 1.5 km crater. If it hits water, which it has about a 75% change of doing, a tsunami would result, which could be destructive over a much larger distance.

[GonzoGOP]

Considering it’s not that big a rock, why not just retarget an ICBM “up”?

You are aware of course that an ICBM being a ballistic missile doesn't have the thrust to reach escape velocity. Meaning it goes up and then comes down. By the time the asteroid would be in range of an ICBM it is way too late for an ICBM to do much about it. What you need is something like a Saturn V, that could put a large mass onto escape velocity. But we haven't had one of those since 1973.