Stopping Killer Asteroids

Drog writes "Earth has had a few near misses with asteroids recently (although "near hits" would be more accurate). It's just a matter of time, though, before we detect one with our name on it. In this New York Times article, experts discuss the various ways that we might go about saving our planet. Remarkably, nuclear detonations are not a good option, as they would break the asteroid into many pieces and merely increase our odds of being hit. And a detonation some distance away may simply be absorbed by the asteroid with virtually no effect. Instead, say scientists who study asteroid hazards, a gentle sustained push is what's needed (slow and steady wins the race). Some of the approaches have been discussed in science fiction for years--a mass driver, an electromagnetic machine which hurls dirt from the surface, an orbiting parabolic mirror to heat up the surface and create a plume of vaporized material. All of these methods require one thing, however. Time. At least several decades warning."

As long as Bruce WIllis is with us

[nizcolas]

we're never going to have to worry about a metoerite .

Huge Asteroids:

[Anonymous Coward]

Nature's "reset" switch for Earth. Sometimes you just need to stop what yer doin' and reboot. 'At's what I say.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:As long as Bruce WIllis is with us

[DustyCase]

I have a better idea. Let's just sacrifice Bruce Willis to our gods and hope that they protect us in return. We can move on to Ray Romano and George Clooney if it looks like they need more....

Bring it on

[jmcwork]

As long as you can guarantee Tea Leoni is underneath it, I say leave it alone.

Where's Voltron??

[heka-rup]

I thought Voltron was responsible for threats of that nature.

A couple of ideas

[PhysicsGenius]

If you want lead time, you have to see them sooner. Seeing them sooner implies that at some early date they are visible on a photographic plate, which in turn implies that an image be captured, preferably ASAP. The only way to do this is to make sure you take pictures prior to the the "drop dead" date.

As for pushing them aside, there are several options. You can deflect an asteroid. You can perturb the orbit. You can also lateralize the velocity vector. One approach that I haven't seen talked about much is bending the worldline of the asteroid such that it no longer intersects Earth's worldline, but that method may require some scientific advances beyond our current technology.

Just my $.02.

Stargate?

[T-Kir]

I'm reminded of an episode of Stargate SG1 (Failsafe) when Anubis sent an asteroid towards Earth.

"O'Neill: I've seen this movie, it hits Paris."

Re:As long as Bruce WIllis is with us

[sisukapalli1]

What about the new national security solution by Pres. Bush that would create a Multi Yield -- Asteriod Security Shield (MYASS)?

That should take care of the problems with Asteroids...

S

Re:Where's Voltron??

[Wiseazz]

Damn straight. Just Form Blazing Sword and the day is saved! Screw the lions... go straight to the sword.

Solution

[bayankaran]

Send one of those Hollywood heroes who has saved the planet a million times from asteroids, volcanoes, typhoons, bad people, communists etc.

You can tie couple of them to a powerful rocket, point the rocket to the asteroid and press the button.

Newsflash!

[Illuminati Member]

Associated Press: Paris, France - It has just been announced today in the capital of France: Upon learning that if any asteroids are on their way to collide with the earth in under ten years, it would cause complete genocide without the ability to do anything about it, France has unconditionally surrendered to all extraterrestrial foreign bodies. The French, so proud of their culture that they will surrender to maintain it, regardless of rule, support the decision of their government.
Frenchman Jaques Fernoi states, "As long as I can make my cheese and drink wine freely, I welcome our new leaders in this asteroid."
More updates as they present.

I am relieved

[doru]

By the title, I thought this was an "Ask Slashdot" post...

Re:Fo r a nuclear detonation to be effective...

[Ralph Wiggam]

Where would we get such rugged men for this amazing mission? The US oil drilling industry, of course. I would have no reservations about putting the fate of my planet in the hands of a dozen men with 10th grade educations. If they were handsome and witty, that would make it even better. Maybe one of them would be doing it for the love of a beautiful woman...that would be so cool.

-B

Easy solution.

[sv0f]

Remarkably, nuclear detonations are not a good option, as they would break the asteroid into many pieces and merely increase our odds of being hit.

Clearly, the pointdexter astrophysicists who offered this opinion have never seen Armageddon.

My Plan..

[xchino]

Just cover the asteroid with the same material as they use to make Super Bouncy Balls..

Re:Bear with me

[micromoog]

And please forward this to 20 of your closest friends.

Re:Can't test a nuke in space

[PD]

Good thing too. Nuclear weapons in space might someday be used to turn it into a sterile environment filled with deadly radiation which would be unsurvivable to anyone not wearing a special protective suit.

Burn the observatorium!

[Spacelord]

... so this will never happen again ;)

Faked asteroid hit spoof....

[caluml]

We had a guy at a place I worked at that was really worried about an asteroid hit. I got some of the people there to knock up a spoof BBC News home page, with a really big story that the end of the world was only about 36 hours away, and added a little tiny weeny DNS entry pointing at the box that was hosting the "site", and waited.

Oh the laughter from the IT dept... ;)

Re:Don't we get hit all the time???

[fgb]

I don't think an asteroid the size of Bruce Willis would do much damage at all.

Re:As long as Bruce WIllis is with us

[foistboinder]

What about the new national security solution by Pres. Bush...

Unfortunately, unless the asteroid has ties to Al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein, Bush won't be interested.

Bad people do bad things...

[Cylix]

I've recently applied for patents on various technologies to eliminate or deviate asteroids on an intercept course with Earth.

If anyone should attempt to use those devices to save the Earth, I will promptly send a horde of evil barbarian lawyers with a cease and desist order.

You can't save your punny planet now... I've used your own vices against you!

My minions at the patent office have served me well on this day.

cylix,
The Lord of Evil and Terror

New Jersey Reference

[mike_mgo]

As if New Jersey doesn't have a bad enough rap already, you have to go comparing it to planet killing asteroids.

Good Idea!

[pivo]

Let's test it on the moon! Wicked cool!

Re:As long as Bruce WIllis is with us

[Pii]

How about several nuclear detonations, at strategic points on the surface of the Earth...

It may not alter the tragectory of the asteroid, but it would probably make the asteroid less noticable, in the "if a tree falls in the woods, but nobody hears it, does it make a sound" sense.

Chalk one up for the nuclear age!

Next problem, please.

Re:As long as Bruce WIllis is with us

[Anonymous Coward]

if (pos.LargeRock == pos.YourHead)
your.chance.of.ever.seeing.liv.again = very.small;
endif;

The Easy Solution

[The Dobber]

Announce that the asteroid has decided to pursue an Open Source solution to its software needs. The mass migration of Linux Hippies to said asteroid should be enough to alter its trajectory.

If an additional course corrections are required, announce one of the following:

1) A security hole has been found in IE
2) Ellen Fiess will make another Apple commercial
3) Microsoft buys the rights to Ogg Forbis

The resulting explusion of hot air should be sufficent.

More on the nuclear option - 1979 technology

[bobdotorg]

The author conveniently omitted this
1979 technology [klov.com] that has been safely used to defend against both asteroids and alien vessels for 23 years.

Save the Asteroids!

[Hans Lehmann]

I first read the headline as Stop Killing Asteroids

Forget Bruce Willis!

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget Bruce Willis. I don't know why everyone is panicking. By the time the asteroid gets through the Earth's atmosphere, it won't be any bigger than a chihuahua's head!

Near Miss, Far Miss, Huge Miss

[Anonymous Coward]

Purists will howl, but, very generally: A Near miss is anything within 640K, a Far miss is between 640K and 1024K, and a Huge miss is anything beyond 1024K.

Re:Yeah, but that's not the first solution we can

[spinlocked]

...you need engineers, factory workers, politicians, even telemarketers...

Don't forget the telephone sanitisers, hairdressers and management consultants - in fact lets put them in the same ark as the politicians and telemarketers...

I believe we solved this problem in the 80's

[Kaz Riprock]

It's very simple. We need a ship. A ship the shape of a triangle. This ship should be of simple control. Forward movement and rotation only! A single gun capable of halving (on occasion trifurcating) any size asteroid will be mounted on the front. When it has halved the pieces to a significantly small size, they will disappear upon further assault. This ship will also be fitted with a shielding system. Pulling down on the joystick or using a separate button system should activate a circular shield capable of withstanding a certain period of collision with objects, regardless of frequency. In future revisions of this vehicle, we will include a hyperwarp feature to jump out of harms way (unfortunately, technology will not allow us to determine the point of reentry, making this a daunting choice for the pilot).

Finally, be sure to look out for ellusive UFOs with hostile aliens ready to destroy our ship (regardless of its peaceful intentions of saving our planet).

I distinctly remember training many hours on the simulator for this solution not twenty years ago. I don't know why we're worried about this problem seeing as we already have the solution.

Good point

[serutan]

We probably couldn't do the whole thing anyway. Whoever patents "Bodies of rocky material orbiting larger bodies of rocky material in a vacuum" would demand outrageous license fees.