Mordred

Lmao small World indeed. I always thought highly of my time there. Very friendly and supportive environment. Everyone was incredibly helpful.

Precisely when you get right down to it every solution has infrastructure hurdles. I would think it would be far easier to get a gravity tractor solution than it would be convincing every involved government nukes are needed.

No problem quite frankly delivery is a large part of the problem to begin with. We haven't particularly established how much can or can't be reasonably delivered. Obviously we're not firing missiles from Earth to the asteroid so you would need a craft. That craft will determine how big a payload it can deliver.

Yes and AFAIK they still are quite open for internship.

Agreed one of my more memorable moments from my coursing was being able to get some time in TRIUMF. While the university I attended wasn't in partnership of owners we were still able to get a limited access. Got quite a bit more time with the University telescope though. Roughly the same size as the telescope Hubble used. I was able to get more time by being that helpful student with facility maintenance.

Well as I described earlier there's nothing stopping us from loading a craft full of warheads so we really aren't limited in megatonnage.

I realize it no longer exists but it does point out we can produce something of that magnitude. I'm more interested in seeing if there is any good studies of that test accessible. May give some better numbers to work with.

You might want to consider https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba The yield of tsar Bomba.

Where in that link describes what you just described ? Are you positive there isn't some miscommunication here ? Let me ask you a question A nuke exploding at the surface and a nuke of the same magnitude exploding at a higher elevation. Which EMP pulse is more dangerous ? The one on the surface or the one at an elevation?

Why wouldnt Where oh where did I claim that? I described the Starfish distance of 250 miles. I also provided a link (wiki) with values related to that test as well. That link highlighted some of the resulting damage to which you asked how many deaths resulted from it I made no claim regarding 300 miles. I did an examination using a 100 megaton range at the lunar distance.

We don't delete threads or posts we can however lock the thread

That's correct at the moons orbit even using the 100 megaton value 700 joules/sec isn't a huge risk. That's why I stated you need to react at that distance minimal. Anyways let's simply chock thus up as miscommunication and move on. We all agree nukes could be used provided it's far enough away. As well as there being no chance of the debris to enter Earths atmosphere

That's a good plan however likely never happen outside of previous tests done thanks to banning nuclear tests. So we're likely going to need to rely on previous tests and using mathematics from there What's unusual you do know EMP involves Gamma rays hence photons. You get reduction of strength due to the sperically symmetric distribution described by 1/r^2. That's an idealized scenario that assumes zero directivity. It's a miniscule distance from the moon to Earth for photons.

Yes that would be correct

Sigh you can actually run the calculation regardless of size. The first calculation used 100 megatons you can run the calculations for the Starfish nuke just as easily or any value you desire.

Of course they are dangerous you can do the same calculation using just the 10^20 joules/sec value for Starfish nuke and apply that at the moons orbit and you will still get EMP hitting our atmosphere. Modern nukes are more powerful

You accused of fear mongering and setting up a scenario to support my fear mongering I responded I also responded by demonstrating a simple calculation or do you not consider my using the 1/r^2 relation for EMP valid?

Really after your accusations throughout this thread ? I'm suppose to simply ignore it ?

I have no agenda now stop with your accusations. Simply choosing a scenario of greater mass and larger asteroid than you did does not mean I have a flipping agenda or fear mongering

Yeah I already corrected that but thanks. So don't make any attempt to save mankind because you don't feel it's possible when it is provided you have early enough detection ? It doesn't take a huge change in direction if you can respond early enough and far enough away.

No it's not fear mongering it's recognizing potential risks something you don't seem to feel is important. Why would you send nukes for anything less. Think about the political implications. Oh let's send nukes to hit an asteroid that only causes superficial damage .... if you dont like the scenario I chose to examine try suggesting your own.

think what size of an asteroid will you need for an extinction level event. You know the efficiency of a nuke is space is greatly reduces. Don't get hung up on the 100 megaton value yeesh it's just a random estimate so give it a rest. I simply chose that value to simplify a rough of the envelope calculation. Try thinking of deflecting an asteroid the size that caused the dinosaurs to go extinct. Do you know how many nukes it would take to deflect an object with that amount if mass? If so then share your wisdom because I certainly don't. It would certainly take one much larger than our standard size nukes. May I remind you throughout this entire thread I mentioned getting the nukes as far away as possible to reach the asteroid as early as possible. Yet in order to do that you will need to get the nukes there in the first place. So you need craft to do so.

How far away for nukes to be a safe option depends on megatons needed. The back of the envelope calculation I did earlier showed that a 100 megaton nuke can still have EMP cause Compton scattering in our upper ionsphere from detonation at the moons orbit. Though from that distance it's minor in effect The EMP itself would be low enough not to cause electronic damage As well. Now is a 100 megaton nuke excessive. Well hard to say we wouldn't be sending nukes unless the asteroid is large enough for an extinction level event.

How do you plan to get the nukes to say the orbit near Mars in time without using spacecraft ? After all the goal is to reach the asteroid as quickly as possible. Relying on the drift method aka Voyager 1 and 2 would take a good 6 months unless you have a good fuel reserve to speed up the trip. For that matter simply load up the craft cargo space with nukes. So I ask once again what's the difference ? Regardless if nukes are are used or not you still have to get to the asteroid in the first place. If the asteroid is already spinning outgassing will increase the spin rate. It will also continue until the surface cools down to the background temperature. Thermal radiation being part of the outgassing.

When I chose Universities on the west coast of Canada I had several options and acceptance at several different Universities. The criteria I chose wasn't cost but rather classroom size. I didn't want a classroom of several hundred students but instead chose a University where the average classroom size was restricted to 30. This gave me better access to the instructors. The other concern was equipment availability. At least for the field I studied. Once again providing good hands on skills.