The Underfunded, Disorganized Plan To Save Earth From the Next Giant Asteroid 88
New submitter citadrianne sends a story about the beginnings of our asteroid defense efforts, and how initial concern over an asteroid strike wasn't sustained long enough to establish consistent funding: Until a few decades ago, the powers that be didn't take the threat of asteroids very seriously. This changed on March 23, 1989, when an asteroid 300 meters in diameter called 1989FC passed within half a million miles of Earth. As the New York Times put it, "In cosmic terms, it was a close call." After this arguably close brush with total annihilation, Congress asked NASA to prepare a report on the threat posed by asteroids. The 1992 document, "The Spaceguard Survey: Report of the NASA International Near-Earth-Object Detection Workshop," was, suffice it to say, rather bleak.
If a large NEO were to hit Earth, the report said, its denizens could look forward to acid rain, firestorms, and an impact winter induced by dust being thrown miles into the stratosphere. ... After reports from the National Research Council made it clear that meeting the discovery requirement outlined in the Congressional mandate was impossible given the lack of program funding, NEOO got a tenfold budget increase from 2009 to 2014. Yet it still faces a number of difficulties. A program audit released last September described the NEOO program as a one-man operation that is poorly integrated and lacking in objectives and oversight.
If a large NEO were to hit Earth, the report said, its denizens could look forward to acid rain, firestorms, and an impact winter induced by dust being thrown miles into the stratosphere. ... After reports from the National Research Council made it clear that meeting the discovery requirement outlined in the Congressional mandate was impossible given the lack of program funding, NEOO got a tenfold budget increase from 2009 to 2014. Yet it still faces a number of difficulties. A program audit released last September described the NEOO program as a one-man operation that is poorly integrated and lacking in objectives and oversight.
Armageddon (Score:5, Funny)
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Plus, Ben Affleck is probably good with any plan that gets him as far away as possible from his wife.
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What plan? (Score:5, Insightful)
A plan to save us from NEOs would require some ability to actually reach an NEO before it hit.
Since we're not working to develop that capability, pretty much anything else we do is irrelevant....
Re:What plan? (Score:4, Funny)
No worries, SpaceX will get us there!
[whispering from off camera]....okay.....wait, WHAT happened?......No I didn't even turn on the news this weekend.....
Okay, a minor revision to that....
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Yes, I know you were being snide.
That said, the ability to reach an NEO means putting a multiton spacecraft farther out (in deltaV terms) than we've ever gone before.
Something meant to put men on Mars MIGHT be suitable. Or not, depending on the orbit of the particular NEO that turns out to be a threat.
Yes, we're likely to have years of warning to develop the needed hardware. But "likely" isn't certainty, and it would really suck to waste ten years mapping NEOs only to discover that the last one we fou
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Something meant to put men on Mars MIGHT be suitable. Or not, depending on the orbit of the particular NEO that turns out to be a threat.
I'd think it likely wouldn't be enough, because a NEO won't have the mass of Mars which we'd use to brake the craft once there. Unless we were sending an impact missile, it might take a lot of time and planning to get there. Rosetta took 10 years and a flyby of Mars in order to match up with a comet.
Re:What plan? (Score:5, Insightful)
A plan to save us from NEOs would require some ability to actually reach an NEO before it hit.
Not necessarily. We could find a way to jump some of us aside, or heat up one side of it with lasers from afar, or burrow until the crisis is over, or have congress declare it a non-problem, or have religious people pray for a miracle.
I think the simplest solution is the better one. Let them hit. Evolution will take care of the aftermath. It already has weeded out large landbound reptiles that can't take the heat (or the cold) due to meteor strikes. If the Yucatan big boy hadn't hit, there might have been scaly beings in charge now. Other than lawyers, I mean.
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I really, really hope you're not talking about dinosaurs here. Since dinosaurs were more closely related to birds than reptiles (why do you think they move Aves under Dinosauria recently?)....
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I meant all the various giant members of what's commonly/historically known as reptilia, including (but not limited to) archosaurs like dinosaurs, pterosaurs and many of the larger/landbound members of crocodilia and aves (birds).
If you're huge, at least somewhat ectothermic, and can't easily migrate, climate change won't be your friend, and evolution will eventually tally the score as "extinct".
Hm... I wonder whether that applies to Americans too...
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Re:What plan? (Score:4, Funny)
A plan to save us from NEOs would require some ability to actually reach an NEO before it hit.
Except the "giant lasers" plan. That just requires us to make much bigger lasers, and probably also bigger sharks.
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We have 'em; they're called "bankers".
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Rosetta (the craft carrying Philae) took ten years to get there, and required a flyby of Mars and Lutetia to get its vectors and speed right.
And is so small that it's like a fly landing on a townhouse. What's the fly supposed to do? Ask the townhouse to move over?
Re:What plan? (Score:5, Interesting)
We send spacecraft on comparable missions all the time. And it doesn't really take a spectacularly large payload to destroy (yes, destroy [harvard.edu]) an asteroid a few hundred meters in diameter. 1/2-kilometer-wide Itokawa could be blown into tiny bits which would not recoalesce, via a 0,5-1,0 megatonne nuclear warhead, a typical size in modern nuclear arsenals (in addition, the little pieces would be pushed out of their current orbit).
I know it's a common misconception that "nuking" an asteroid would simply create a few large fragments that would hit Earth with even more devastation, but that's not backed by simulation data. And anyway, even if it didn't blow the asteroid to tiny bits (which simulations say it would) and even if it didn't push the remaining pieces off trajectory (which they say it does), anything that spreads an Earth impact out over a larger period of time is a good thing - it means the higher percentage of the energy that's absorbed high in the atmosphere rather than reaching the surface (less ejecta, lower ocean waves, a broader (weaker) distribution of the heat pulse, etc), the weaker the shockwaves, the weaker the total heat at any given point in time, and the more time for Earth to radiate away any imparted energy or precipitate out any ejecta cloud. If the choice is between 15 Chelyabink-sized [livescience.com] impactor (most of which will strike places where they won't even be witnessed) or one Meteor Crater [google.is]-sized impactor (same total mass), pick the Chelyabinsk ones. 50 10-megatonne meteor crater impactors or one 500-megatonne Upheaval Dome [wikimedia.org] impactor [wikipedia.org]? Pick the former. The asteroid impacts calculator [ic.ac.uk] shows the former generating a negligible fireball and 270mph wind burst at 2km distance, while the latter creates the same winds 25km away (156 times the area) and a fireball that even 25km away is 50 times brighter than the sun, hot enough to instantly set most materials on fire.
But that's all irrelevant because, quite simply, simulations show that nuclear weapons do work against asteroids.
What we need is enough detection lead time to be able to launch a nuclear strike a few months before the impact date (to give time for the debris to disperse). There is no need to "land" or "drill" for the warhead. There is no pressure wave; instead, an immense burst of X-rays is absorbed through the outer skin of the asteroid on the side of the explosion, causing it to vaporize (unevenly) from within, especially near the ground zero point, and creating powerful shockwaves throughout its body. In addition to ripping it apart, the vaporized material and higher energy ejecta flies off, predominantly on the side where the explosion was detonated, acting a broad planar thruster.
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And anyway, even if it didn't blow the asteroid to tiny bits (which simulations say it would) and even if it didn't push the remaining pieces off trajectory (which they say it does)
Can you show us those simulations?
A nuclear warhead has lots of trouble to even "hit" an asteroid. "Hit" in quotes as the nuke needs to be close and detonate in the right moment. That you can only achieve with a correct adjustment of the course and not by simply hitting it from the front. A millisecond to early or to late and the
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By linking to a peer-reviewed paper on the subject?
Essentially every space mission we have launched for the past several decades has had to navigate with a far more precision than that needed to get close to an asteroid and activate a single trigger event when close by.
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Then link the peer reviewed paper, so we can also review it ;D
Essentially every space mission we have launched for the past several decades has had to navigate
Obviously. And obviously a nuclear missile wont be able to do that. That is my point. Just like our space probes you would need decades to get a nuke close enough to an asteroid to have any effect at all.
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Yeah, wouldn't that be great if I had linked it in my first post, and then if you had actually read my post well enough to see it?
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You linked to an abstract of paper. Not to a paper.
It contains nothing of what you claim.
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We don't need to 'work towards' a capability we already have. On a global scale, let alone locally (in the US), launchers are rolling off the assembly lines on a regular basis - and it's likely we'll have months (at worst) to years warning before an impact. (We're actually much better off in that respect than we were in 1989.)
Development of a payload needn't take that long either, especially with a Manhatt
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The worst case for a warning are mere days when a NEO comes more or less directly from the sun.
We have no real warning system. What we need are a few space probes that orbit the sun in a polar orbit. That means perpendicular to the ecliptic.
That we don't have so far.
And as I corrected the nuke fanatic above: our launchers and nukes are not capable to do much against an asteroid that is hitting us in lets say 30 days.
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If you're going to measure capability only against the rarest and worst case, you can safely be ignored as complete fool.
Looked thorough your postings, and I didn't find any 'correction', just ignorant handwaving bullshit that serves only to confirm the above impression that you are in fact a complete ignorant fool.
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you can safely be ignored as complete fool
No you can't.
The worst case is just as likely as the optimal case.
you are in fact a complete ignorant fool I have a few university papers that proof otherwise ;D
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"An April 2014 GAO report notes that the NNSA is retaining canned subassemblies (CSAs) " associated with a certain warhead indicated as excess in the 2012 Production and Planning Directive are being retained in an indeterminate state pending a senior-level government e
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A plan to save us from NEOs would require some ability to actually reach an NEO before it hit.
Any plan to reach a NEO before it hits requires some ability to detect them (preferably when they're far enough away that we only need to give them a gentle nudge).
Gov program performs audit to ask for more money.. (Score:2, Troll)
TLDR: Government program commissions its own audit to ask for more money.
Re:Gov program performs audit to ask for more mone (Score:5, Insightful)
>> *One-man* government program writes his own audit to ask for more money.
You laugh, but in ten years, if this went through as a US Government program I'd fully expect to see:
* Undersecretary of NEO Defense ...and still only one man actually doing any work.
* 2 Directors of NEO Defense (Homeland and Foreign)
* 5 staff assistants for Undersecretary and Directors
* 5 NEO Program Managers and a $20M technology budget
* 2 NEO Project Managers to handle the implementation (and expected missed deadlines)
* Full salaries, benefits and pensions for everyone, plus the original guy who has now retired
*
Re:Gov program performs audit to ask for more mone (Score:5, Interesting)
You laugh at that, but with private corporations, sometimes things aren't much better. At one point in time, for about 4 months, I was the only person managing all the systems for around 250 branch banking offices in Japan for Citigroup. 1 person. This included the servers, diskless clients, and printers for them all. Across 3 data centers for load balancing and redundancy, so, counting spares, nearly 1000 servers. Stress level was increased until I quit.
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Asteroid Impact? (Score:3)
Buckle your seatbelt Dorothy, 'cause Kansas is going bye-bye!
"In cosmic terms, it was a close call." (Score:2)
But we don't live in cosmic terms; we live in human terms, and 425,000 miles is really far away!
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Erm, I suggest you look up at night and locate that big shiny thing.
425,000 miles is roughly twice as far as that shiny thing is away ...
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So? That big shiny thing isn't going to hit us either.
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And, what has that to do with the topic?
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And, what has that to do with the topic?
Huh? You're the one who first mentioned the Moon.
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Yes, because you claimed that 450,000 miles would be far away. It is not. An asteroid approaching earth makes like 40miles per second. ... 3h travel time.
That means in 3 to 4 hours it has passed that distance.
So relatively speaking it is as close as Paris is to my home town
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Not to worry. If the plan fails I'm sure he will be ask to resign.
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This needs to be funded as one of the faith based initiatives that the last two presidents have pushed.
More to the point (Score:5, Insightful)
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Given that these sorts of events have consequences on a planetary scale and that little things like nation-states mean absolutely nothing if we lose the species, why the hell isn't this an international effort? Why does the USA have to do all the grunt-work? (I'm not a yank BTW). This really is something I could get behind the UN for actually doing something useful lately. (The UN has done SFA of use since eradicating smallpox).
Because we already drafted the blueprint [imdb.com].
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The OP's article doesn't mention that the original target of discovering 90 percent of NEOs with a size of 1 km or greater (extinction-size) has already been achieved [newscientist.com]. The bar has been lowered to 140 m, but those aren't an extinction threat.
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The OP's article doesn't mention that the original target of discovering 90 percent of NEOs with a size of 1 km or greater (extinction-size) has already been achieved [newscientist.com]. The bar has been lowered to 140 m, but those aren't an extinction threat.
Like whizzing in the ocean (Score:2)
The answer by the way, is "not much".
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Isn't the idea to develop a propulsion system that allows for interstellar travel before that happens?
Unless someone works out a way of travelling faster than the speed of light, interstellar travel will never happen.
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Is that a risk? Digging back to grade 4 science here, but isn't that supposed to happen in a few billion years or so?
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Is that a risk? Digging back to grade 4 science here, but isn't that supposed to happen in a few billion years or so?
That's the point. It is a little difficult trying to envision us doing anything about Sol going red giant.
And imagine a Shoemaker-Levy type incident with a whole batch of space objects flying into the earth in short order. The only thing I can think of is nuts as diverters, but would there be enough? and would we want to build more as a just in case scenario?
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Right! Duh....missed your context there. :-)
Yes, we can move our planet (Score:2)
What do we do if the sun goes into red giant mode?"
The answer by the way, is "not much".
First of all, we have billions of years before that happens. Second of all, we can just move the Earth a little farther from the sun (if we're still living here or it has sufficient sentimental value). This, incidentally, relates to asteroids in that we can use the slingshot effect to transfer energy and momentum from asteroids to planet.
Roads (Score:2)
"...how initial concern over an asteroid strike wasn't sustained long enough to establish consistent funding..."
I would be much happier if we could sustain concern over our infrastructure like roads and bridges and forget about something that will probably never happen in our lifetimes or our great grand children's lifetimes.
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I would be much happier if we could sustain concern over our infrastructure like roads and bridges and forget about something that will probably never happen in our lifetimes or our great grand children's lifetimes.
Your great-grandchildren probably won't care about your roads and bridges either, other than the cost of repairing them. These days, they're not built like Roman roads and bridges, and don't last for generations.
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These days, they're not built like Roman roads and bridges, and don't last for generations.
The roman roads wouldn't last for generations without maintenance... and their maintenance costs helped bankrupt the empire. Hilariously, today road maintenance companies with Italian names are being drug through court for the offensively bad job they did around northern California. Less hilariously, the taxpayer is currently paying for some of those "repairs" to be repaired again. Last night I drove over the parts they're about to patch between Lakeport and Kelseyville on the CA 29, and it's a bunch of sho
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Expanding the scope sometimes help (Score:1)
So I suppose that regular impacts by small asteroids would cool the planet and, if we do it right, exactly cancel global warming? If they added this to their program, they'd get tons of funding.
NEO deniers (Score:1)
I just hope it's big enough to kill us all without leaving those who will say it was a false-flag operation..
3.5 full time employees (Score:1)
Good piece on this (Score:2)
Yesterday on the John Batchelor Show, the proposal by was for the Spaceguard to be formed as the Coast Guard for space, and for space to be governed by the space-equivalent of Maritime Law, which would fly in the face of current space treaties. The Spaceguard would also become sentinels and eyes out into space, having the funds and decision-making authority and hierarchy, as well as arms, like the USGS defending against asteroids and you-name-it. Until the mission into space becomes primarily for coloniza
Good! (Score:1)
Earth and most of its inhabitants would definitely benefit from the removal of humans.
Gaining more visibility (Asteroid Day and B612) (Score:2)
This particular "existential threat" is gaining a lot more visibility and, slowly, more funding.
Tomorrow marks the first Asteroid Day [asteroidday.org] and it seems to be bringing a great deal of public attention to NEOs...at least amongst members of the public interested in science and museums and who are in metropolitan areas to see some of the events.
The article was OK, and mentioned B612 [sentinelmission.org] but didn't really touch on how much of the NEO hunt is going to end up being done by NGOs, small observatories, and other organizations
It's already been built; we just need to find it (Score:2)
Look for a big stone obelisk.
There's a guy named Kirok who knows some folks that can get it working.
Kickstarter! (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's blast 2034FC once and for all! Our Kickstarter will raise money for, construct, and launch a series of nuclear missiles to knock 2034FC out of its collision course with Earth once and for all. By pledging with us, you don't just get to be a part of saving multi-cellular life on Earth, you'll be eligible for these cool rewards!
* $100 - "I saved Earth. What did you do?" T-shirt
* $200 - As above, plus a poster showing a telescope view of the first detonation.
* $300 - T-shirt plus a series of posters show
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$500 - Invite to a local "We saved Earth!" party on the launch date!
Saved, past tense, on *launch* date? Isn't that a bit optimistic?