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Hollywood Got It Wrong, This Is How You Stop An Apocalyptic Asteroid
The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 2-25-2007 | Richard Gray

Posted on 02/24/2007 8:29:59 PM PST by blam

Hollywood got it wrong, this is how you stop an apocalyptic asteroid

Richard Gray, Science Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:30am GMT 25/02/2007

Attempts to save mankind by smashing asteroids as they head towards Earth may do more harm than good, scientists believe.

Rather than Hollywood's preferred option, engineers are trying to develop unmanned rockets that can land on space rocks and use the asteroids' own material to propel them into a safer orbit.

The plan will be detailed at a conference, sponsored by Nasa next month, at which its scientists will reveal their -estimate that 100,000 asteroids orbiting near Earth are large enough to destroy a city. So far the agency has only been able to identify and track 4,000 of them.

Just one football pitch-sized asteroid smashing into the planet would create destruction on a terrifying scale, wiping out any area it hit, sending flaming debris into the atmosphere and causing tidal waves. Scientists claim that it is only a matter of time before one is found on a collision course.

Research to be unveiled at the three-day Planetary Defence Conference in Washington DC will reveal that defending the Earth may not be as simple as suggested by films such as Armageddon in which Bruce Willis's character destroys a giant asteroid using a nuclear bomb.

Gianmarco Radice of Glasgow University will be one of more than 200 scientists at the conference. He said: "A nuclear blast may cause it to fragment. So instead of having one large object on an impact course, you have five largish objects.

"Also, we do not know a huge amount about the composition of these asteroids. Some are made of rock, others are ice while others are just piles of rubble. If you smash something into a pile of rubble, it will just break up and then reform by gravity."

Nasa has already tested the approach by smashing a spacecraft into an asteroid in its Deep Impact mission last year. The European Space Agency is planning a similar test, sending a craft to smash into a 500-yard wide asteroid while another spacecraft -monitors the results.

Now an engineering firm in Atlanta, Georgia, has been commissioned by Nasa to develop a new kind of mission to land on an asteroid, drill through the surface and pump the debris into space. Anchoring several unmanned spacecraft, nicknamed Madmen, to an asteroid and ejecting material, would produce enough force in the opposite direction to push an asteroid slowly off its dangerous course.

"It is like throwing rocks out of a rowing boat on a lake. The rocks go in one direction and the boat is slowly pushed in the other under the laws of physics," said John Olds, the chief executive of SpaceWorks, the firm behind the scheme. "Over several months we think we can make the difference between a hit and a miss." Astronomers fear that a 400-yard wide asteroid will pass dangerously close to the Earth within 30 years. Typically, one the size of a football pitch strikes every 100 years or so, and it is also almost 100 years since the last major impact which caused an explosion equivalent to a 15 megaton nuclear bomb in Tunguska, Siberia on June 30, 1908.

Fears were heightened in 2004 by the discovery of a 45 million-ton rock orbiting the Sun called Apophis, which will pass just 22,000 miles from the Earth in April 2029. In 2036, it will have a close encounter. Some scientists calculate it may even hit the planet.

Nasa believes that it has managed to identify nearly 90 per cent of all asteroids larger than 1,000 yards. These are capable of causing a -global disaster, throwing huge amounts of debris into the air and have historically caused widespread extinction.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: apocalyptic; asteroid; hollywood; meteor; space
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1 posted on 02/24/2007 8:30:02 PM PST by blam
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To: blam

2 posted on 02/24/2007 8:30:51 PM PST by blam
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To: blam

And hey, if we can't divert if far enough away for a miss, at least nudge it on up to Canada or down to Mexico. That would actually be an interesting scenario if an asteroid were heading to the US and we had the technology to divert it into another country but not to miss the earth altogether. Wonder if we would try to nudge it away.


3 posted on 02/24/2007 8:40:41 PM PST by MittFan08 (Anybody but McCain)
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To: blam

Could we just put a big parachute on it and let it come down slowly. :-) ......kidding!!!

Actually, there is only one man on earth who can solve this problem....inventor of the internet, and promoter of "global warming".....algore!!!


4 posted on 02/24/2007 8:47:34 PM PST by Rhetorical pi2
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To: Rhetorical pi2
Actually, there is only one man on earth who can solve this problem....inventor of the internet, and promoter of "global warming".....algore!!!

Didn't you get the memo?
He invented asteroids too.

5 posted on 02/24/2007 8:53:23 PM PST by Fiddlstix (Warning! This Is A Subliminal Tagline! Read it at your own risk!(Presented by TagLines R US))
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To: Rhetorical pi2

"Actually, there is only one man on earth who can solve this problem...."

Silly me - I thought it was Chuck Norris.


6 posted on 02/24/2007 8:56:52 PM PST by decal (Too many people mistake "tolerance" for "approval.")
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To: SunkenCiv; KevinDavis

PING


7 posted on 02/24/2007 8:57:21 PM PST by FairOpinion (Tell Congress: Work for Victory in Iraq. Stop Hillary. Go to: http://www.TheVanguard.org)
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To: blam
Just one football pitch-sized asteroid smashing into the planet would create destruction on a terrifying scale, wiping out any area it hit, sending flaming debris into the atmosphere and causing tidal waves. Scientists claim that it is only a matter of time before one is found on a collision course.

The biggest "tragedy" would be the inability of the socialist utopian Left to pin the blame on the industrialization of the Western World.

8 posted on 02/24/2007 8:59:20 PM PST by weegee (No third term. Hillary Clinton's 2008 election run presents a Constitutional Crisis.)
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To: Fiddlstix

I thought Mr. Atari invented Asteroids.


9 posted on 02/24/2007 9:02:04 PM PST by weegee (No third term. Hillary Clinton's 2008 election run presents a Constitutional Crisis.)
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To: blam
"Research to be unveiled at the three-day Planetary Defence Conference in Washington DC will reveal that defending the Earth may not be as simple as suggested by films such as Armageddon in which Bruce Willis's character destroys a giant asteroid using a nuclear bomb."

Note to the Planetary Defence Conference in Washington DC: Movies are works of fiction -- even Al Gore's -- no research is necessary to show it may be harder than the movie....and probably less likely.

10 posted on 02/24/2007 9:03:31 PM PST by cincinnati65 (Lucky participant in 189 different Nigerian business deals......still waiting on payment.)
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To: Fiddlstix
He invented asteroids too.

Yeah. He can't even sit on the toilet some days.

11 posted on 02/24/2007 9:05:43 PM PST by Richard Kimball (Why yes, I do have a stupid picture for any occasion)
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To: blam

ping


12 posted on 02/24/2007 9:06:21 PM PST by BuffaloJack
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To: blam

How about painting the object white and letting solar wind blow it off course?


13 posted on 02/24/2007 9:10:01 PM PST by Yossarian (Everyday, somewhere on the globe, somebody is pushing the frontier of stupidity...)
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To: b_sharp; neutrality; anguish; SeaLion; Fractal Trader; grjr21; bitt; KevinDavis; Momaw Nadon; ...
FutureTechPing!
An emergent technologies list covering biomedical
research, fusion power, nanotech, AI robotics, and
other related fields. FReepmail to join or drop.

14 posted on 02/24/2007 9:12:42 PM PST by AntiGuv ("..I do things for political expediency.." - Sen. John McCain on FOX News)
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To: blam

The world has a very low opinion of the US... if the MSM are to be believed...but who would the haters of 'imperialistic' America depend on to save mankind from these asteroids? Yeah, "Yankee go home"...and "Death to America"...


15 posted on 02/24/2007 9:15:33 PM PST by citizencon
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To: blam

Have Barbara Streisand sing at it. That really repulses me!


16 posted on 02/24/2007 9:15:50 PM PST by Grizzled Bear ("Does not play well with others.")
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To: blam; All
Of all the schemes to divert an asteroid from its trajectory proposed thus far, this one is the least likely to succeed in my opinion.

First, there is the problem of attempting to land on the surface of the asteroid. If the asteroid is tumbling randomly with any significant rotational velocity, good luck.

Second, if the exact composition of the surface at the exact location of landing is not well known, good luck designing anchors to fix the lander to the surface and designing an appropriate drill.

Third, the scheme relies on a complex, unmanned mechanical drilling and ejection process with all the associated mechanical and electrical failure modes, again, good luck.

No thanks, I'll stick with the gravity tug proposal for the best chance of success.

17 posted on 02/24/2007 9:16:27 PM PST by Unmarked Package (<<<< Click to learn more about Governor Mitt Romney)
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To: blam
one football pitch-sized asteroid

Huh? How big is that?

18 posted on 02/24/2007 9:17:47 PM PST by LoneRangerMassachusetts (The only good Mullah is a dead Mullah. The only good Mosque is the one that used to be there.)
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To: decal
Chuck Norris is not on the earth. The earth is under Chuck Norris.
19 posted on 02/24/2007 9:18:38 PM PST by JasonC
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To: LoneRangerMassachusetts

I'm glad you asked. I figured I was the only one who didn't know.


20 posted on 02/24/2007 9:22:46 PM PST by Larry Lucido (Duncan Hunter 2008)
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