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remember this? nukes deflect asteroids

A couple of observations that the media often misses:

If you start when the object is far enough away, the force needed can be quite small. This is very useful for that big rock that just had a near-miss and is likely to hit two or three orbits down the road. Not so good for the one heading straight at us that we didn't see coming.

With most methods for applying force, there is a chance of breaking up what might be a pile of rocks held together with microgravity. One big rock into ten smaller rocks is bad. One big rock into millions of smaller rocks small enough to burn up on re-entry is good. The one method that won't cause a breakup is a gravitational tug; a mass that is placed next to the object and attracts it with gravity, using it's own propulsion to keep it at a constant distance. Alas, the force is very small so you have to start very early.

Given the above, an ideal system would have:

[1] A really good capability for seeing these thing coming when they are still very far away. [2] A gravitational tug with a lot of delta V so it can meet up with and match velocities with an object far out, and a reliable long-term small-thrust system to use once it gets there. [3] A close-in method that can blow big rocks and big slush balls into a very large number of very small objects. [4] Some method for dealing with smaller threats - rocks just barely big enough to destroy a city. Large lasers, (maybe space-based) perhaps. 
--
Guy Macon
Reply to
Guy Macon
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Who are you to dictate that? I know I'd go, and there are probably thousands of people who would face the risks, just to be the planetary pioneers. Hey, maybe I should capitalize that: "The Planetary Pioneers"!

Of course, you're certainly more than welcome to sit at home and watch our adventures on teevee. ;-)

For that matter, what does it feel like when your remotely-operated robot reaches the summit of Everest? It feels like sitting and watching TeeVee, is what it feels like.

Which is fine if that's your "cup o' tea", but I wonder when we'll reach the point where people are just packed in warehouses, plugged into their virtual reality machines, and once a week, somebody sends in a wetback to hose them down?

Cheers! Rich

Reply to
Richard The Dreaded Libertaria

It seems that something like that would make for a very slow war. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise, Plainclothes Hippi

I'm surprised this is on wiki...

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clip "Meanwhile, a Centauri fleet was able to bombard Narn from space using mass drivers illegally fitted to their battleships. The mass drivers rained huge meteors down onto the planet's surface, reducing most of Narn's cities to rubble, killing millions of Narn civilians, and effectively shattering the Narn's infrastructure and defensive abilities."

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Forgive the sci fi geekiness.. :)

D from BC

Reply to
D from BC

Indeed. "Starship Troopers" anyone?

-a

Reply to
Andy Peters

[snip]

How about this idea....

Launch the largest nuclear reactor ever built in a bunker buster type missile.. After impact, the reactor is turn on. (China Syndrome.)

Maybe this will create an artificial volcano and spit mass into space. (Low gravity.) Bonus if the reactor hits water and creates a jet that slowly steers the asteroid off course.

The idea is to slowly turn the asteroid into swiss cheese and create smaller chunks. D from BC

Reply to
D from BC

On Aug 6, 11:29 am, John Larkin wrote:

I saw both movies about this.

In "Armageddon," they send up a crew of oil-rig workers to drill a hole in the asteroid so they can plant a nuke on it. Dunno how those internal combustion engines in the drills worked in a vacuum, but if you accept that the very first scene (where there's an astronaut doing a spacewalk to upgrade the CPU chip -- that's in a ZIF socket on a board that's on an extender -- on a satellite), then the other ridiculous concepts are reasonable too. (Yes, at that initial scene, I stood up in the theatre and yelled, "BULLSHIT!" and got an ovation.) Oh, yeah, at the end, Bruce Willis sacrifices himself, which got a big cheer.

In "Deep Impact," Morgan Freeman plays the President. There's a scene, at a "Kitt Peak" telescope, where the astronomer sees the comet heading towards Earth. There are soooo many things wrong with this, starting with the fact that the astronomer and all of the computers are out in the dome near the moving telescope instead of being in the control room. And he's got all these lights on inside the dome when he's observing. And he's eating fresh, hot, East Coast-style pizza! The nearest pizza that looks like what he's eating is in downtown Tucson (either Brooklyn Pizza on 4th Ave, or Rockin' Pizza on Broadway at Swan) and neither of those guys deliver to Kitt Peak, especially at night, when the road up the mountain is closed. Which then leads to, why was there a delivery truck driving up the mountain to the observatory at night, and with its lights on? Yep, the road is closed, and if staff and astronomers do need to drive at night, they really do drive with lights off until the car is mostly down the mountain (which is a lot of fun during new moon). So I stood up in the theatre and yelled "BULLSHIT!" and got an ovation. And there's a scene where the Russian guy on the Space Shuttle who is in charge of arming the nuke says, "This is how we do it on Russian Space Station!" and Robert Duvall reads "Moby Dick" (or something) to the guy who was blinded when they tried to divert the comet with the first nuke, but instead the comet splits in two and both are now headed towards Earth! The crew of the shuttle realizes that they cannot prevent the smaller part of the comet (Bloom) from hitting earth and causing lots- o-damage in a cool CGI sequence, but they figure that they CAN stop the bigger part (Bialystock) so they set a course for it. The captain details the plan and the blind guy realizes that their mission became one-way, so they set us up the bomb, blow up the big comet and the world survives and Morgan Freeman gives a rousing speech at the end in a Washington, DC that looks like it did at the end of "Mars Attacks!" and has Mimi Leder done a film since?

-a

Reply to
Andy Peters

I think you're confusing that one with "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress." That was the one where the lunar colonists used a couple of electromagnetic catapults to 'throw rocks" of about 30 tons each. Each rock made about a 1-kiloton TNT equivalent burst when it landed.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

Reply to
Phil Hobbs

The excellent book by Heinlein or the steaming-pile-of-crap movie?

(It's the far future, but nobody has mastered military concepts such as calling in an air strike or sniping from an elevated and difficult-to-reach position; both quite effective against giant bugs that can't hurt you unless you are within arm's reach...)

--
Guy Macon
Reply to
Guy Macon

Ah, yeah, but I think there was a scene in "Starship Troopers" where the bugs threw giant rocks (comets? asteroids?) from their planet to Earth.

Of course I might be remembering that scene from the abominable movie (people at the screening I was at were cheering for the bugs) where Buenos Aires is taken out. I was in high school (ages ago) last time I read the book.

-a

Reply to
Andy Peters

Actually, ST starts with the bugs dropping an asteroid on Buenos Ares...

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie Edmondson

The book of course. I have convinced myself that the movie never happened, it was all just a nightmare... 8-)

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie Edmondson

But... but... there's no nudity in the book!

:-)

Reply to
Joel Kolstad

"Rich Grise, Plainclothes Hippie" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@doubleclick.net:

Hey,a single dinosaur-killer would make for a very short war.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net
Reply to
Jim Yanik

D from BC wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

In Heinlein's Moon is a Harsh Mistress,the AI "Mike" used the mass-driver to bombard Earth.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net
Reply to
Jim Yanik

D from BC wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

do you have ANY idea how complex a reactor is? (heavy,too.) Japan just had a quake and one of their reactors sprung leaks.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net
Reply to
Jim Yanik

Goofy. A megaton h-bomb has a 20 mile diameter fireball and is about the size of a traffic cone.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

Yeah..my nuclear is bad.. :)

But that's not the most ridiculous idea I can think of.. How about moving the moon and using it as an asteroid shield. :P (Inspired by Space 1999.) D from BC

Reply to
D from BC

Lexx

Reply to
Archimedes' Lever

Those saggy titties constituted sensory assault and battery, not nudity.

Reply to
Archimedes' Lever

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