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Nuke it, says Aussie scientist
Sydney Morning Herald ^
| July 25 2002
Posted on 07/25/2002 7:35:52 AM PDT by dead
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To: dead
"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. Couldn't they hit it with Rosie O'Donnell, travelling at 50 kilometers per second? It'd go flying like an 8-ball hite with a cueball.
21
posted on
07/25/2002 8:56:34 AM PDT
by
archy
To: dead
Hate to bring this up...but we may have more immediate concerns. See the website
Planet X Facts. Scroll down to the research links. Some predict it will hit the earth in 2003...be sure to put on your tinfoil before you go there....
To: Dead Dog
It wouldn't have to be that big, it took a lot to break off the moon and toss it up there, you only have to make a small change in the momentum of the moon to cause an orbital change.
Currently the moon's orbit is not stable, it is slowly getting farther from the earth, something like a quarter inch farther away per century. It wouldn't have to hit earth to cause a lot of damage either, if it made a near pass so that earth slings it out into the cosmos (Space 1999 anyone) it would cause massive tidal waves and earthquakes, might even pull some of the atmosphere away or mess with earth's orbit around the sun.
23
posted on
07/25/2002 9:04:20 AM PDT
by
Grig
To: dead
I keep saying this...and will repeat it here. Why do you think the space station has been getting all of the work it has been? Half of France's GDP was spent on space! This is a no brainer here. We are teaming up with every nation that can and will afford here to knock this thing out of orbit. But I like how they say it will just miss us.
Have you read the numbers on just how close it will come? Even if it does miss...it won't be by much! That will cause so much chaos and disruption on Earth...it will make an Al Qaeda attack look like child's play.
To: ravingnutter
Check out the year 2012 while you are at it as well. Also what year the Chinese calendar ends....
To: Salgak
It seems like a relatively small change in velocity now might result in a change of orbit large enough to have this totally miss the earth. If we add say 1m/sec of velocity in any direction now that is a net change of about 536,000 km which should be enough. How much of a rocket boost would that require? As I remeber my orbital physics a break-up of the asteroid into small enough pieces would also protect the planet as they would burn up on entering the atmosphere.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
26
posted on
07/25/2002 9:13:05 AM PDT
by
harpseal
To: Salgak
Regarding breaking it up. If it were in smaller pieces, wouldn't the larger surface area of the smaller pieces (relative to one big rock) mean that a whole lot more of the kinetic energy of the entire mass would burn off in the atmosphere?
Plus, assuming NASA determines a high probability of a hit by a single big object, wouldn't blowing the object into pieces tend to spread the object out, making it likely that many of the pieces would miss Earth--that is, only the pieces in the center of the swarm (assuming the initial rock is dead on and assuming the orbit of the entire swarm is not changed) would hit. That rock is going to go a long way in 17 years and the swarm would have a long time to spread out.
Since you seem to know whereof you speak, one more question. Would our largest nuclear bombs have enough energy to nudge the rock enough or to break it into pieces? A lot of a nuclear explosion in space is just going to disappate in the wrong direction. In fact, since the nuclear weapon would not actually throw a subsantial amount of mass at the object, how would energy transfer to the object. Of course it would throw a lot of subatomic particles at the asteroid; but how much energy could be transmitted in that manner.
Sorry about the barrage of questions. This could be a very serious matter and I am curious.
To: harpseal
It seems like a relatively small change in velocity now might result in a change of orbit large enough to have this totally miss the earth. I have a bit of a problem with this idea at this point. They don't know if it will hit, come close, or miss us by a LARGE distance. What happens if they nudge it INTO the path of the earth by accident?
28
posted on
07/25/2002 9:20:08 AM PDT
by
MrB
To: Charles Martel
The female guest star in that episode was one of Jim's best looking ladies. Who was she?
29
posted on
07/25/2002 9:26:39 AM PDT
by
ASA Vet
To: harpseal
Agreed, a small orbital change would do the trick. The question is, how ? Big 1-time impulse (i.e. use a nuke to push it away: I'd use several, myself, spaced over a period of days. . .), or long-term small input, i.e. constant impulse, a rocket, or more likely, a small mass-driver using asteroidal matter for reaction material. . .
I lean towards the several nukes school, give it a few good, hard nudges. We don't have a precise plot of the orbit, nor do we have a good idea of shape or rotation of the body. That will come in the upcoming months. If it DOES seem to be a problem (I define a "problem" as asteroid coming closer than lunar orbit. . . ), THEN we build ourselves a deep-space equivalent of a MIRVed ICBM, and send it off to nudge the rock out of our way. . .
As for the small pieces, you're correct, IF THE PIECES are small enough. If you break it into a conglomeration of city-block-sized pieces, you're going to have problems. . .
30
posted on
07/25/2002 9:30:13 AM PDT
by
Salgak
To: ffrancone
Let's say you break this puppy into dozens of large pieces. They will indeed spread out around the original trajectory, by many thousands of miles over a decade in all directions. As it is, the odds of the unified asteroid hitting the earth is extremely unlikely, the earth is small and empty space is huge. With dozens of large pieces spreading out in a pattern around the original trajectory, though, the odds of one or more intersecting earth's orbit go way up, and each one could do a whole lot of damage. Trying to destroy several smaller pieces would be a lot more complicated than dealing with one large piece, which is difficult enough, but at least it is easy to find and track.
Fooling with this until we are dead certain where it is going and what the effects of our meddling would be is not a good idea.
To: ffrancone
As previously mentioned, depends on the size of the pieces. If you blow it to gravel, no problem. If you blow in into pieces ranging from mini-van to city block, lots of problems. You also assume that we can blow it up right now. Assuming we determine that it WILL hit, I'd say getting nukes in place to nudge it might take 4-6 years, plus up to a year of transit time. So we're likely talking 2008-2009 before we can actually do something about it.
Now, as for the throw-weight of our nukes, I know very little about yields, and I suspect that real detail here is classified. But, at least according to an article I read in Scientific American in the early 1980's, there appears to be such a thing as a "shaped nuke", just like there are shaped charges of conventional explosives. Assuming such IS actually possible, I suspect we'd use that sort of nuke.
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)
32
posted on
07/25/2002 9:42:36 AM PDT
by
Salgak
To: Salgak
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?
33
posted on
07/25/2002 9:45:26 AM PDT
by
Soren
To: harpseal
As I remember my history, this happens every 1,000,000 years or so.
It's the Universes way of cleansing... totally natural and organic... with a hint of extinction!.
34
posted on
07/25/2002 9:46:37 AM PDT
by
johnny7
To: MrB
That problem is fairly straight-forward Newtonian physics. Once you establish what the orbit is with sufficient precision. You then can model where and how to nudge it. The obvious place to do so is on it's closest approach to the sun: this is referred to as a "gravity well manuever": using the impulse at the body's deepest foray into a given gravity field. . .
35
posted on
07/25/2002 9:47:14 AM PDT
by
Salgak
To: Soren
We're both wrong: you forgot "pi", and I plugged in diameter instead of radius. . . it's 33.5 billion cubic meters, 263 trillion kg, 321 quintillion joules. Still a big bang. . .
36
posted on
07/25/2002 9:56:25 AM PDT
by
Salgak
To: dead
"Let's say it hit anywhere in Europe, the whole of Europe would be well, in deep trouble. Seems fitting.
It'll give the Euroweenie Green Party something valid to whine about for a change.
Let them figure out their own solution.
It oughta keep 'em preoccupied and outa our business.
To: Salgak
Doh!
38
posted on
07/25/2002 9:57:07 AM PDT
by
Soren
To: dead
Somebody on this thread, Please educate me. I work in space but asteroids encounters aren't my area of expertise.
A quick search for '2002 NT7' brings up the long term asteroid encounter site which does list a 2019 encounter by '2002 NT7' but at .17 AU's distance, hardly a threat. See web page:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/CloseAppLong.html
Another look at the 'Potentially hazardous asteroids' site at:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/PHACloseApp.html
doesn't even list NT7, though there are obviously hundreds of others with more imminent encounter dates that we never hear about. No indication of the size (mass) of the listed objects is given, though it may be there and I can't read the product correctly.
So where is all the hubbub about NT7 coming from?
39
posted on
07/25/2002 9:58:02 AM PDT
by
Magnum44
To: KellyAdmirer
I wouldn't mess with it until I figured out which continent or ocean it would hit. If it would impact China, for example, they should pay the bulk of the cost of diverting it.
If it was going to hit Massachussetts, we'd do nothing at all.
40
posted on
07/25/2002 9:59:14 AM PDT
by
Dog Gone
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