Nuke it, says Aussie scientist

Sydney Morning Herald ^ | July 25 2002

[dead]

An asteroid which could hit the Earth in 17 years time should be blown away with a nuclear weapon, an Australian astronomer said today.

If left untouched the asteroid could plummet to Earth, causing tidal waves and mayhem.

The best way to ensure it was diverted was to put a nuclear weapon beside it and blow it out of orbit, Stromlo Observatory astronomer Vince Ford said.

Scientists are still trying to determine whether the asteroid, known by NASA as 2002 NT7, will hit the Earth in 2019.

NASA says it is still too early to tell whether the remote possibility will become more likely.

Experts will have a clearer picture soon.

"As new observations come in, the situation will evolve in the next days and, as usual, either the probability associated with this object will go up somewhat, or, more probably, it will disappear," NASA said on its website.

Dr Ford said nudging it with a stockpiled nuclear weapon could help alleviate the problem for 1,000 years.

"That'd be the way to do it," Dr Ford told the Seven Network.

"Forget sending Brucie Willis up to drill into it and blow it into small bits, that's unlikely to work.

"No what you do is put a nuke along side the thing and blow it sideways...(a) use for some of the stockpile."

Dr Ford's solution echoes the plot of the movie Armageddon in which Bruce Willis starred as an oil driller who landed on an Earth-bound asteroid the size of Texas to insert nuclear charges to blow it up.

The movie had an 18-day time frame, but there was much more time to deal with 2002 NT7, Dr Ford said.

"You've got 17 years to think of how to do it but basically what you do is rendezvous with it, blow something alongside it, kick it off onto a different track," he said.

2002 NT7 is a chunk of rock four kilometres across.

"Now if that hits remember you've not just got the 20 kilometres per second movement of the asteroid, you've got the Earth coming the other way at 30km per second," Dr Ford said.

"You drop a chunk of iron travelling at 50km per second onto anything, you've got troubles.

"Let's say it hit anywhere in Europe, the whole of Europe would be well, in deep trouble.”

"Worst thing of course is if it hit the ocean.

"If this thing hit the Pacific Ocean anywhere, the whole of the Pacific rim would go, tidal waves, whatever.

"It might be the only time it's good to live in Canberra, in fact."

AAP

[Momaw Nadon]

As a conservative, I generally oppose spending on government programs.

But in this case, I believe these close calls with asteroids warrant the U.S. government to find out where these asteroids are and research how to deflect them.

A few million dollars spent on asteroid detection and defense will pale in comparison to the trillions of dollars in damage that would result from the impact of an asteroid of this magnitude.

Or better yet, maybe Steven Speilberg can spend the money he made from Deep Impact to fund such programs.

Opinions?

[Soren]

321 quintillion joules.

I need a reference to make sense of that number. Like Mt St Helens or H-bomb blast or something similar.

[Paradox]

As for the energy transfer, the energetic particles of the bomb itself would transfer their energy to the matter of the asteroid, and since it's vacuum on one side, and rock on the other, the explosive vaporization would be on the side of the bomb blast, producing a massive short-term thrust along the rough line of the original blast. It's all Newtonian physics from there (g)

Actually, much of the energy transfer would be in the vaporization of the surface of the asteroid that is exposed to the blast (via radiation). This vaporization would lead to a "jet" of sorts, nudging the asteroid. 'least dats what I reads...

[Magnum44]

Further searching yields that NT7 is ~45 degrees inclined orbit. Not sure whether that is equatorial or ecliptic, but in either case, that means the intercept problem just from an energy point of view becomes very difficult. I won't spend time on the math here, but I can confidently say that to intercept with the intent to rendezvous (match energy states) would probably require a multi year, planetary flyby with gravity assists to get an intercept orbit with a reasonable chance of remaining propellant to capture verses just fly past it. And if you cant rendezvous, you can't appropriately place charges to ensure your blast will give you the desired orbit correction.

Just pointing out that the method of creating the force for deflection is probably the easiest of the issues to deal with here.

[harpseal]

At this point the orbit is not well enough known to even try but if the orbit is going to eventually hit this planet then we need to consider remedial measures. Just what those remedial mesures would be is an open question. They could include a Solar Sail, Mass driver, nuke, rocket, and some other options. At present we have 17 years to examine the problem and devise a solution if needed.

[Magnum44]

See my post 44. More like 12 to 15 years to decide if its a problem, figure a method to prevent, develop, test, deliver, and get it on its way. That is an engineering challenge if you use shuttle, space station, etc as benchmarks for program developmet. But per my post 39, I still want to know why NT7 is the current focus?

[Charles Martel]

The female guest star in that episode was one of Jim's best looking ladies. Who was she?

Sabrina Scharf, according to one of those excruciatingly detailed Star Trek plot explanation websites.

Running a Google search on her does not reveal much. She turned up in guest roles in a number of television shows of the late 1960s and early '70s, as well as appearing in three "biker" films - including Easy Rider. The last filmography notation was from 1975, so she evidently got out of show business.

Oh, yes... before becoming an actress, she was a Playboy Bunny at the New York City Playboy Club. I reckon that's where she was "discovered". ;-P

There's a website out there collecting interviews from a number of "Drive-In B-Movie Starlets of the 1960s". They have her name on the "no interview yet, but stay tuned" list, so she must still be alive and kicking.

Okay, enough fun. Back to discussion of Newtonian physics and speculations on how best to boot that big sucker off of the Plane of the Ecliptic. :-)

[RightWhale]

Stromlo Observatory astronomer Vince Ford

Right. Ask an astronomer about nuclear weapons. As if. Want to move dirt? Hire a civil engineer.

[Salgak]

That's what I said. The energetic photons from the bomb would be absorbed by the matter of the asteroid, thus imparting energy to it. The net effect of the energy input is conversion from gamma energetic photons to heat, resulting in explosive vaporization, and thus, thrust. I was just getting down to detail on the energy transfer mechanism. . .

[PJ-Comix]

Wasn't this already made into a movie.....Twice? And the greatest tragedy was that Ben Affleck got to live.

[Salgak]

As I recall, 4.5 X10^12 j =a megaton

We're talking 3.21X10^17 j

Let's just round it: 100,000 megatons. We're talking Dinosaur-Killer level event, likely. . .

[Junior]

It'll never happen. The green misanthropes would love nothing more than to have a large rock smack the Earth and reduce to human species to "manageable levels" if not outright eradicating it. And, these environazis have enough clout with the world's governments to put the kabosh on any plans to put nuclear weapons in space.

[Prodigal Son]

I work in space but asteroids encounters aren't my area of expertise.

I don't have an answer just a question for you.

Whereabouts in space do you work and are they hiring? And do you commute everyday or just with the Space Shuttle or what? :-)

no need to answer if you don't want to

[Prodigal Son]

Here is my evil megalomaniac plan:

If the asteroid is going to hit, we sabotage any other nation's plans to destroy/deflect it- leaving ourselves as the only nation capable of doing so. Then we blackmail the rest of the world into accepting our terms or we allow the asteroid to hit.

[Publius6961]

Why am I grinning?

Because suppose... just suppose we find out exactly where it will hit and decide that the best thing to do is...

Nothing.

Cosmic Justice...
Hubris...
Divine intervention...

Whatever.

[Magnum44]

After I made that comment, I was wondering how long it would be before someone asked the question. Just in the industry, unfortuntely, and while 'my other car "was" a jet' years ago, now its just an SUV and the commute everyday can be pretty ugly. :^)

[Publius6961]

And, these environazis have enough clout with the world's governments to put the kabosh on any plans to put nuclear weapons in space.

And the problem then is...?

After the big show...
Let's just find some big rocks, deal with the weenies and start over.

Malthus is vindicated... ditto Darwin...

Everybody wins.

[Prodigal Son]

:-)

[grania]

See the website Planet X Facts.

Seen and bookmarked!!! Just the home page is incredible...and those Sumerian astronauts...and of course , PLANET X!!!! This is better than "Chariots of the Gods" or "The Monuments of Mars" (Richard Hoagland's VCR explanation of how the same ETs who colonized Earth also build pyramids on Mars).

Not that I get excited about any of this stuff of course. I have some friends who might be interested.

Thanks...how do you find this stuff?

[grania]

Doesn't 4km diameter imply 4/3 2km ^ 3 = 10.66 km3 or about 11B cubic meters, or I am stuck in an alternate dimension again?

The formula for the volume of a sphere is:

4/3(pi)r^3. So you were right to use the radius of 2, but I think you left out "pi". That is, you still need to multiply by 3.14.

That is, if you wanted to determine the volume. And if it's a sphere.