Asteroid deflection strategies

[Craig]

http://news.discovery.com/space/asteroids-meteors-meteorites/top-10-asteroid-deflection-130130.htm

 

Some of these are quite novel!

[Perkil8r]

I like the idea of a gravitational tractor (beam) i sounds soooooo cool and very sci fi. Okay so I made up the beam part, but come on, all the best films have tractor beams don't they?

 

If I were in charge of the job I would have to go with the billiards method and bounce it out of the way with something else. It seems to me the most cost effective and predictive method, we just need to make sure that we don't sink the pink in the brown pocket though or we're all in doo doo.

[Doc]

But how large would the cue ball have to be Mike, we can't really launch anything large enough into space.

 

It would have to be a nuclear warhead placed on the asteroid and detonated. Better to be hit by a rain of small rocks then a large lump.

[Sheila]

But how large would the cue ball have to be Mike, we can't really launch anything large enough into space.

 

It would have to be a nuclear warhead placed on the asteroid and detonated. Better to be hit by a rain of small rocks then a large lump.

bit Armageddon that

[Perkil8r]

But how large would the cue ball have to be Mike, we can't really launch anything large enough into space.

 

It would have to be a nuclear warhead placed on the asteroid and detonated. Better to be hit by a rain of small rocks then a large lump.

 

The mass and speed of the cue ball would have to be determined by the force needed which would change depending on the object being deflected.

 

A warhead detonated on the surface as far as I understand it would have no effect as it would have nothing to push against surely?

[Tibbz2]

I like the idea of painting objects and having them go off course from the radiation emitted, very creative

[T A WOW]

I think the most likely to work would be to just whack something into it to divert its path. I do like the little robots that eat it though.

[Craig]

The nuclear method is the most destructive and dangerous. I can't say I would want that to be our saving grace... Plus, it's about time this world got on without nuclear weapons so the fewer reasons they're still needed the better.

[Doc]

It is the most dangerous but It may be the only one available to us as we already have them.

 

We don't have tractor beams, nanobots, or cue balls.

 

But as Mike says it most likely wouldn't work anyway which is a good job I suppose.

[Perkil8r]

It is the most dangerous but It may be the only one available to us as we already have them.

 

We don't have tractor beams, nanobots, or cue balls.

 

But as Mike says it most likely wouldn't work anyway.

 

We do already have gravitational tractors. All they are is a mass of any size that can be set to move in close proximity to the NEO, the gravity between the two then acts to draw the NEO off it's original path.

 

When I say we already have them I am technically incorrect, but we are already more than able to build one and deploy it.

[Doc]

I know it's only a scenario but say we had 3 months before impact, would building one be possible in that time.

 

I  think if the scenario does come true, we don't really have any options that we know are going to be 100% reliable.

[Perkil8r]

If we had just 3 months I think the best thing would be to decide where it was likely to hit and run to the furthest place to it possible and wait to see if we survive it. Anything we did that close in relation to time is likely to be futile. I stick to my original feeling that trying to nudge it via momentum is the easiest, most predictable and least dangerous method. Of course that assumes the NEO has a  small enough mass to enable us to alter it's course enough with the mass of objects we could hit it with.

 

The single most important thing to my mind is that we take the matter seriously, it will happen one day, and we need to be prepared. That means having the warning to do something, the knowledge of how to do it and of course the equipment ready to deploy.

[Guest Steve]

There's the old nuclear-bombs-to-power-a-space-craft approach, (as illustrated by Neil Stephenson in Anathem). So use the power to push it rather than blow it up.

 

But as with a lot of the schemes, it would struggle with a rotating asteroid.

 

One thing with the Nuclear blow-it up option - wouldn't we be spraying a cloud of highly irradiated debris on to a potential collision course with Earth?

[Perkil8r]

Slightly off topic, but maybe not as the same tech could be used maybe?

 

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/04/10/why-americans-must-support-nasa-plan-to-capture-asteroid/

 

But does this make anybody else feel a little uneasy or is it just me?

[xanthic]

I read that news on a different source. I believe they want to use an asteroid with low mass, one that would burn up in the atmosphere if things went awry.

 

If I were trying to move an asteroid, I'd drop an ion drive on it and shift it that way. 

 

The nuclear option always seems to be "blow it up!". Why not use a series of low yield explosions to change it's direction? Hopefully the asteroid then doesn't break up and pelt us with smaller chunks!