I had added but not pinged this one, sorry. Thanks blueplum.
Posted on 11/24/2021 8:54:45 PM PST by blueplum
Taking aim at a distant asteroid, SpaceX fired a small NASA probe into space early Wednesday, setting up a head-on 15,000 mph impact next September to test the feasibility of nudging a threatening body off course long before it could crash into Earth.
The $330 million Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, the first test flight in a NASA planetary defense initiative, "will be historic," said Tom Statler, mission program scientist at NASA Headquarters. "For the first time, humanity will change the motion of a natural celestial body in space."
Perched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the DART mission blasted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base northwest of Los Angeles at 10:21 p.m. PST Tuesday (1:21 a.m. EST Wednesday),....
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Forget destruction by asteroid, send a missile to D.C., thats where the real threat is.
Just don’t leave it to Steve Buscemi
This mission is promising for a scenario that is predictable and within space technology’s ability to affect a small asteroid. The problem is when a comet or other large body comes at us in an extremely eccentric orbit. Nothing can be done then. But we don’t have to worry, right? We’ve only got 10 years left cause of climate change.
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If we can do this, we can get a nuke on target. That doesn’t pulverize all the incoming mass, but it does redirect almost all of it (even if in chunks of various sizes) to missing the Earth if you hit it before it’s right on top of us. Only a slight change in the vector (now vectors) is needed.
Now, “right on top of us” does need definition. It depends on the size of the object, it’s speed, and to some degree the power of the nuke. For a fairly good size object, I’m guessing you need to hit it ~7 days out, to be on the safe side. So, you have to see it and determine it is a threat maybe 20 days out, assuming you have at least 4 nukes prepositioned in differing orbits (the most “optimum” one could be boosted to intercept course by essentially a large rocket 1st stage carrying it?)
Obviously, objects spotted further out can be mechanically splashed.
Of course, another threat is an object thought to only be coming close, that gets nudged by something too small to easily spot, on the way in.
Maybe they can redirect it to hit here.
41° 9’ 34” North, 73° 45’ 55” West
> ... assuming you have at least 4 nukes prepositioned in differing orbits
I’d be willing to bet that the Chinese and Russians volunteer to launch their nukes up into a parking orbit.
You’re going to wake them up. And they are going to be angry.
We better get it right this time, because this is probably the last generation that will be able to give it a serious try. The way the Left is dumbing down education, and replacing the great achievements of white Western Civilization, with 3rd world dependency; society in 150 years will be technologically regressed back to the Stone Age.
They turned our once great public education system into a laughingstock of brainwashed, dumbed down students and pedophile teachers. Where testing is becoming passé, and knowing how to read, write, and do arithmetic, is no longer a worthy goal, and no longer a requirement for graduation. Not exactly the building blocks in which inventive scientists are made who could save the world.
The Liberal Progressive movement has never created anything positive, useful, and good. Their policies have never built anything! All they know how to do is destroy and tear things down.
They “Progressed” our major cities that once represented the zenith of modern technology and civilization into 3rd World decaying cesspools of drug use and debauchery, welfare dependencies, open toilets, and violent crime ridden ‘No Go Zones’.
Averting giant asteroids will be far beyond a corrupt, fractured, chaotic, dumbed down, low IQ, welfare dependent society, to do anything about it, let along successfully run and maintain a working modern infrastructure. We’ll be lucky if they can keep the streetlights on.
Then we’ll need some Space Cowboys.
A nuke would be like a firecracker in the vacuum of space. With no air to cause a shockwave, the only effects would be heat, radiation, and a small amount of shrapnel. No matter what the movies tried to portray, I don’t think nuclear warheads are the answer to an incoming asteroid. It will have to be a kinetic impact, which means a lot of time needed before impact with the Earth in which to nudge it off course.
Like a pea shooter hitting a brick wall, unless we have some magical tractor beam or massive phaser beam device a speeding asteroid is going to go where it’s orbit takes it and mankind is virtually powerless to stop or move it. Reality ensues
That was my thought, just leave it alone.
You leave it to Bruce Willis.
Harry Stamper doesn’t know how to fail…
Bit of a slide here...the Kessler Effect is something that has been discussed recently in regards to the debree field from a destroyed satellite which endagered the ISS.
This article has me wondering if a simple meteor shower could trigger the Kessler Effect.
,,,that is all
LOL! “Get off the nuclear warhead!”
I had added but not pinged this one, sorry. Thanks blueplum.
I am not sure why diverting a body on an eccentric orbit would be any more challenging than diverting one on a nearly circular orbit.
The change in position at nearest approach, to a first order, would be
Δx ~ Δv x T
where Δv is the vector change in velocity, T is time to go before nearest approach and vector Δx would be change in position at t = T.
A more interesting possibility would be the ability to direct an asteroid at the capitol of a military enemy, and hold them hostage to your good will and intentions. Imagine a weapon like that in the hands of Iran or Bill Gates.
It you can divert an asteroid to miss the earth, you can divert one to hit it.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/41%C2%B009‘34.0%22N+73%C2%B045’55.0%22W/@41.1449248,-73.5860029,10z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x6a4e8f77f8ec4b71!8m2!3d41.1594444!4d-73.7652778
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