Posted on 11/17/2006 5:15:39 AM PST by Esther Ruth
Wanted: man to land on killer asteroid and gently nudge it from path to Earth
David Adam Friday November 17, 2006
It is the stuff of nightmares and, until now, Hollywood thrillers. A huge asteroid is on a catastrophic collision course with Earth and mankind is poised to go the way of the dinosaurs. To save the day, Nasa now plans to go where only Bruce Willis has gone before. The US space agency is drawing up plans to land an astronaut on an asteroid hurtling through space at more than 30,000 mph. It wants to know whether humans could master techniques needed to deflect such a doomsday object when it is eventually identified. The proposals are at an early stage, and a spacecraft needed just to send an astronaut that far into space exists only on the drawing board, but they are deadly serious. A smallish asteroid called Apophis has already been identified as a possible threat to Earth in 2036.
Chris McKay of the Nasa Johnson Space Centre in Houston told the website Space.com: "There's a lot of public resonance with the notion that Nasa ought to be doing something about killer asteroids ... to be able to send serious equipment to an asteroid.
"The public wants us to have mastered the problem of dealing with asteroids. So being able to have astronauts go out there and sort of poke one with a stick would be scientifically valuable as well as demonstrate human capabilities."
A 1bn tonne asteroid just 1km across striking the Earth at a 45 degree angle could generate the equivalent of a 50,000 megatonne thermonuclear explosion. Attempting to break it up with an atomic warhead might only generate thousands of smaller objects on a similar course, which could have time to reform.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Superman will save us.
Where is Bruce Willis when you need him?
excerpts
Matt Genge, a space researcher at Imperial College, London, has calculated that something with the mass, acceleration and thrust of a small car could push an asteroid weighing a billion tonnes out of the path of Earth in just 75 days.
Gianmarco Radice, an asteroid expert at Glasgow University, said the best approach would be to land a device to dig into the object. "You could place something on the surface to eject material that would push the asteroid in the other direction."
Mirrors, lights and even paint could change the way the object absorbed light and heat enough to shift its direction over 20 years or so. With less notice, mankind could be forced to take more drastic measures, such as setting off a massive explosion on or near the object to change its course. In 2005, Nasa's Deep Impact mission tested a different technique when it placed an object into the path of a comet.
Dr Radice said robots could do the job just as well, doing away with the need for a risky and expensive manned mission. Last year Japan showed with its Hayabusa probe that a remote spacecraft can land on an asteroid.
But with manned missions to the moon and possibly Mars on its to-do list again, Nasa is keen to extend the reach of its astronauts.
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Europe has its own efforts to tackle asteroids. Its planned Don Quijote mission will launch two robot spacecraft, one to tilt at a harmless passing space rock, and a second to film the collision and watch for any deviation in the asteroid's path.
'Not if, but when...' Hits and near misses
At Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in California, scientists monitor all "potentially hazardous asteroids" that might one day end up on a collision course with Earth. So far they number 831. The next close-ish shave - at a mere 17 times the distance from the Sun to the Earth - will be asteroid 2004QD14 on November 29.
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A near miss, when asteroid QW7 came within 4m km of Earth in September 2000, led Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik to declare: "It's not a case of if we will be hit, it is a question of when. Each of us is 750 times more likely to be killed by an asteroid than to win this weekend's lottery."
Pagin Bruce Willis.... lol
Which is probably one among many things that has started the push for space tech. in the last couple of years.
Science education has failed there also.
Either we are equal or we are not. Good people should be armed where they will, with wits and guns. NRA KMA
I would like to volunteer my ex husband for this mission.
Chuck Norris would just have to give it a nasty look.
Years ago in the '70s, there was a project called "Project Icarus" that studied it.
Net result is that if we know long enough in advance, a couple well placed nukes could nudge the orbit.
But we can't be blindsided by something and only have a weeks time to work on it.
John Kerry has already weighed in on the issue with this statement, "You know, education -- if you make the most of it, you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in on a killer asteroid."
Will Chuck Norris suffice?
Reagan's Star War technology looks pretty tame compared to this. The Dims will not fund this. Homeless people et al are in need now, not 2036. But wait, maybe George Lucas can talk them into it.
I will go if selected! I have no fear of anything, for my LORD will guide and proect me!
Will there be beer?
Not until we allow that embryonic stem cell research to bring him back to life...
And the mass of a small car and 75 days of fuel is_______? Now add the mass of the vehicle to get the small car and 75 days of fuel to an asteroid more than 75 days out.
I think I'd rather watch the impact, knowing the Universe just became, over all, much smarter.
Either we are equal or we are not. Good people should be armed where they will, with wits and guns. NRA KMA
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
But, seriesly, I should be drafted for this job. I must have destroyed hundreds of thousands of Killer Asteroids in my mis-spent youth. One quarter at a time...
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