Posted on 07/01/2017 5:39:58 PM PDT by plain talk
On Friday, the space agency announced plans to redirect the course of a small asteroid approaching Earth, as part of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), according to a NASA press release.
The release notes that asteroids hit Earth nearly every day, but most are small enough to burn up in the atmosphere. But the DART project -- a joint effort between NASA and the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland -- is for the asteroids that are too big to break up -- those that could have severe consequences for the Earth if they hit.
"DART would be NASA's first mission to demonstrate what's known as the kinetic impactor technique -- striking the asteroid to shift its orbit -- to defend against a potential future asteroid impact," said Lindley Johnson, NASA's planetary defense officer in Washington, in the press release.
DART launch set for October 2022
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Not nonsense. God helps those who help themselves. It’s like the old joke about the guy on his roof in the flood, keeps sending all these rescuers away because he knows God will provide, then he drowns, he get to heaven and he’s confused as to how God let him drown, St Peter says “well we sent 2 boats and a helicopter”. God’s given us the ability to build rockets for a reason, might as well use them.
Yes, big data and supercomputers doesn't equal omniscient. If we can model things inside Jupiter's orbit well 50-100 years out and do enough R&D to elevate the logically proposed solutions from theory to engineering we should be able deflect most of natures challenges and correct most of our own 'oops.' Our history in space shows the last step is necessary, beautiful theories aren't enough. Things incoming from beyond Jupiter become harder to spot, predict and this avoid. Someone needs to deduce where to position sensors to collect useful data on potential impactors that can't be acquired near Earth and send suitable probes there. Prioritize shrinking our bind spots. First nearer and riskier. Eventually further out.
I have long felt that the way to do this was to allow commercial ventures in space.
For instance, the right to name new objects belongs to the discoverer. If we changed that to allow the financer of the sensors and telescopes that made the discovery to designate names, we might have to live with comets named Budweiser 2020, but a lot of money would come into the search for new objects in space.
Now, in most cases I’d agree with you. But, I’ve been studying this (asteroid impacts on Earth and other bodies) on and off for over 45 years.
Look at the Moon w/ a good telescope tonight, or, for “recent data”, a vid of the ShoemakerLevy impacts, and tell me it’s “imagined”.
That is highly unlikely (I would guess on the order of millions to one against being hit by a sizeable altered-by-humans-in-this-manner orbit object, if not more, in the next 100 years or so) because space, even Solar System "space", is so big. Given more time the odds get worse (for Earth) but if by then we don't have VERY good detection and deflection tech, we DESERVE to be smacked!
Now, the chances of some human agency deliberately directing a sizeable object into the Earth, 50 to 1000 years down the road, are much higher, and the chances there will be a nuclear war on Earth, initiated by a 2nd tier power, that kills between a few million and a billion people, in the next 50-100 years, is around 1 in 2, IMO.
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