Asteroids

[A l t e r E g o 9]

Near Shoemaker landed on the asteroid Eros 2 years ago

 

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/missi...ar_archive.html

That one proves it is not impossible to land on an asteroid so our hypothetical rockets to go steer one out of Earths path has new life.

 

:(

[Yillara Skye 1]

Near Shoemaker landed on the asteroid Eros 2 years ago

 

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/missi...ar_archive.html

That one proves it is not impossible to land on an asteroid so our hypothetical rockets to go steer one out of Earths path has new life.

 

:(

Yay that works, so we are not completely shooting blind at ideas. This will definately help

[ARMS 0]

Well it is a serious risk, but what can be done about it? The answer is nothing.

[Xeroc 0]

First of all, a truly catastrophic asteriod crash like the one described actually is a ridiculously low chance of happening. There has been at least almost 70 million years since the last one.

 

However, the chance of a a smaller asteriod wiping out a large city or more is of reasonable propability - it is possible that an event like the one in Siberia (Tunguska) could happen every 100 years!

 

The best idea, I believe, would be to deflect it. To Blow it up would require much more energy and the fragments still might hit.

 

To deflect it - a rocket is a good idea, but not without the major problem of the power required. The asteroid of the size that would cause the catistrophic damage we are talking about would require an enourmous amount of energy to completely divert it from the path of collision with the earth. Perhaps the best idea is to use a explosive nuclear rocket. This idea also has the benefit of getting rid of nuclear weapons and waste! It basically works by detonating a lot of nuclear h-bombs in a directional fashion to push the asteroid out of the way. This would probably work, but we need to be able to detect the asteroid early on.