[hunter112]

Deflecting the asteroid would be substantially easier than blowing it up enough to no longer pose any sort of risk... if you've got decades to do it. But either way would require a hell of a lot more launch capability than a single Delta II.

Are you telling me that we don't have the capacity to launch a nuclear warhead (or a sufficient combination of them) to an asteroid, with some sort of timing device that would let us blow the thing up, or at least deflect it? Or have I been watching too many Bruce Willis movies?

[orionblamblam]

> Are you telling me that we don't have the capacity to launch a nuclear warhead (or a sufficient combination of them) to an asteroid, with some sort of timing device that would let us blow the thing up, or at least deflect it? Or have I been watching too many Bruce Willis movies?


Too many movies. It's not as simple as setting a bomb down and hitting the button... you have to have a good idea of the internal structure of the thing, and you can't get that from the ground or a cheap probe. You have to do a good survey, and then figure out where to set off bombs, and then do so with some precision. Keep in mind: for the purposes fo deflecting an asteroid, the proper place fora bomb is *above* the surface, not *on* or *below*, and putting the bomb in the right place is tricky. See the recent DART mission for an example of how $110 million dollars can put a precision autonomous spacecraft in the wrogn location.

[Elsie]

If this rock is in NEO and is in a nearly circular orbit, are we catching up to it, or vice versa?