Big asteroid approaches Earth

[MovingTarget]

It seems that we should have a stash of ready-made probes for such close encounters to take advantages of opportunities such as this. These opportunities don't always give us much notice.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: MovingTarget
It seems that we should have a stash of ready-made probes for such close encounters to take advantages of opportunities such as this. These opportunities don't always give us much notice.

The problem is, it might be a long time before such an encounter comes up. Would you want to spend $200M in 1970 to develop a probe, only to have it launch 30 years later? How about the power generation? 1970's solar panels vs 2000's gallium-arsenide cells. And low-res analog TV cameras for imaging duties. The instrumentation would be rather antiquated. It's bad enough that most missions to the outer planets take so long to get there. New Horizons will be about 10 years old by the time it gets to Pluto. Cassini launched in 1997, and I think it took 7 years to get to Saturn. A lot of technological advances can happen in that time.

Besides, we've already got Dawn headed out for a visit to two large asteroids, Ceres and Vesta.

 

[TXHokie]

Originally posted by: KhoiFather
But if they nuke it and knock it on course towards Earth?

How about if we nuke it and "accidentally" cause it to hit some country that just happened to be on our blacklist?
HEADLINE: Attempt to blow up asteroid broke it in half wiping out Iran and North Korea. DoD blames miscalculation.

 

[Nerva]

Originally posted by: tenshodo13

Originally posted by: SagaLore
Seems like a good opportunity to latch a probe onto that asteroid. Or are we just going to wave and watch it go by?

Yeah. But 4 months aren't enough for the logistics of sending up a probe.

Personally, I say fire nukes at it to study it.

yeah sounds pretty stupid but also pretty fun. i mean this would be a easy way to disarm right? just fire it off.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: newb111

Originally posted by: ThePresence
Can't we send Bruce Willis?

He's busy filming Die Hard 5: Stay off my lawn.

ZING!

 

[Modelworks]

Nuking it could actually make the problem worse.
Instead of one big asteroid, you break it up into several medium size peices.
So now instead of one location hit, you get several hit.


I 'm actually slightly concerned about this.
I mean look at the moon, poor thing has been hit so many times
And with all the asteroids out there, we can't track and find them all.

I think if anything was ever found that was seriously huge, like dinosaur killing huge, I just rather not know about it .

 

[warmodder]

I'm sure all the NASA guys are pretty disappointed they won't be needed until the next big asteroid comes around again. They're just waiting for some space calamity to happen so they can return to relevance.

Poor NASA

 

[HybridSquirrel]

as long as bruce willis and aerosmith are around the earth will be safe

 

[clamum]

Wow, this one was only spotted in October? Yeah that ain't long ago at all. So I'm guessing we'd be pretty much fuct if one was on a more direct course to Earth. We need a team of oil rigger dudes and nukes ready to be deployed at a moments notice methinks.

 

[paulxcook]

Will this be visible at any point?

 

[darkxshade]

What is with people wanting to sacrifice Bruce Willis to save us. I much rather give up Ben Afflek.

 

[conehead433]

Originally posted by: darkxshade
What is with people wanting to sacrifice Bruce Willis to save us. I much rather give up Ben Afflek.

That's why they should draw straws. Oh wait, they did....

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: newb111

Originally posted by: ThePresence
Can't we send Bruce Willis?

He's busy filming Die Hard 5: Stay off my lawn.

lmfao. that would be great. when the broom doesn't work, break out the Glock.

 

[Alistar7]

Rather than trying to explode the asteroid with a nuke they should try to set one off near enough to alter it's course. It would be good practice and provide a ton of data to help refine the procedure for when it is truly needed.

TXHokie - How about if we nuke it and "accidentally" cause it to hit some country that just happened to be on our blacklist?

HEADLINE: Attempt to blow up asteroid broke it in half wiping out Iran and North Korea. DoD blames miscalculation.

There would be no headlines. Chunks large enough to cause that scale of damage to an entire country would also be a global extinction event.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: warmodder
I'm sure all the NASA guys are pretty disappointed they won't be needed until the next big asteroid comes around again. They're just waiting for some space calamity to happen so they can return to relevance.

Poor NASA

They'll just keep being quietly relevant in the corner, while society enjoys numerous benefits of their technological advances, almost entirely without knowing it.

Originally posted by: Alistar7

TXHokie - How about if we nuke it and "accidentally" cause it to hit some country that just happened to be on our blacklist?

HEADLINE: Attempt to blow up asteroid broke it in half wiping out Iran and North Korea. DoD blames miscalculation.

There would be no headlines. Chunks large enough to cause that scale of damage to an entire country would also be a global extinction event.

Oh, I don't know. A good strike in the middle of a country, while it would throw up a considerable amount of dust, could still be enough to utterly devastate enough of its infrastructure to cause complete chaos, without significantly disrupting weather patterns elsewhere.