Baub

My opinion may seem harsh. However, I think we should show this Sea Captain the respect he deserves. He made an honorable decision when he bartered himself for his crews safety, knowing it could mean his life. We should give the enemy one hour to release the Captain. One hour later, two Seals should silently surface at the boat and kill all the pirates.

The laser can't really hurt anyone immediately if it can only be pointed into space whereas a kinetic impactor could be launched into a sub-orbit to crash on a city within a few minutes time. But then, this technology has already existed for a long time.

 

Both have the potential, in the wrong hands, to alter the trajectory of an asteroid such that it could land on a city. Hopefully, there would be sufficient time to respond and move the asteroid away should this unfortunate event happen.

 

If we want to develop the abillity to harness these technologies for good purposes (i.e. saving the earth), then we need to accept the challenges of preventing its use for harm. I'm not of the opinion that we should not develop technology because it "might" harm others, as long as it also has potential to help others as well.

Exactly why such a venture would need to be undertaken by a group of countries, under the unifying banner of species preservation. These countries would need to share the responsiblities, from design through oversight.

How is the Kepler Mission more important that "saving the world"? I suppose that it is a low probability that Earth will get destroyed, or suffer a significant impact (comparable to Tunguska) over the next few hundred years. Although that recent object gave us a close shave by missing Earth by 45,000 miles, that is not too close for comfort among the experts.

 

The lazer spread is an issue at long distance. I believe lazers shot at the moon spread out to miles wide, and that is only 240,000 miles away.

I think it all comes down to funding. I am sure that it is easier to allocate funding for something "warm and fuzzy" like finding another earth than for something as frightening as addressing doomseday scenarios. Most people will hear that an object passed 45,000 miles from Earth and think....so what.

Pseudoscience & Speculations is the only appropriate place to discuss this kind of conjecture.

Understood.

I like your signature.

I will go out on a limb. Or.....it could be extremely focussed Qi(chi). I know this is outside accepted western science, but I think science will eventually support the existence of it.

Well, when you get to using a laser or other beam, you have the problems of aiming it, and more importantly, focusing it. Suppose you have a asteroid about as far away as Mars, say 30 light minutes, and it is about 100 meters radius (large size). That's 500,000,000,000 meters away. To hit it, you need to shoot where it will be 30 minutes after you shoot. That's not too hard, you should know exactly where it is. But actually hitting it (with a perfectly focused beam), you need to have an accuracy of arctan(100/500,000,000,000) = 0.0000000115 degrees out of 360 degrees. But I think that shouldn't be too hard, just put a really long handle on it, and the longer the handle the more accurately you can aim it. Focusing the beam, on the other hand, would require some incredibly precise optics that can handle the energy of the beam. This most likely means ultraclear lenses (mirrors would be too inefficient and would likely melt), and they would have to be precise. Not sure exactly how precise the lenses would have to be, but if your beam spread by 1% in 1,000,000 meters, at that distance it would spread 500,000% or 5000 times wider (and therefore 1/25,000,000th as powerful).

The spread sounds like the major hurdle. Early detection would be instrumental in maneuvering closer....or, perhaps some sort of relay stations that could recieve the focused power and direct it at the object?

It will be exciting to see what data comes back. I think we need to let go of the premise of a"habitable zone". It is arrogant of us to assume that we know all scenarios in which life forms. Perhaps environments we have labeled as uninhabitable are where life off earth is thriving?

there are plans for nuclear powered x-ray lasers from star wars days and gamma ray lasers powered by anti-matter are being studied.

the effective range of something like that must be enough to cause a little ablation even from across the solar system.

most of the actual projects i can find on N.E.O.'s from E.S.A. or NASA involve impactors.

anybody know what happened to the E.S.A.'s don quixote project?

 

i guess i mean don quijote

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/NEO/SEMZRZNVGJE_0.html

I agree with you that some sort of beam or laser makes the most sense. How about a solar powered, magnesium combustion, laser?

They're called 'subduction zones', where portions of the Earth's crust dive down under another plate, and are eventually melted.

 

We actually have problems finding fossils of the very earliest life because any rocks of the right age are either buried too deep to get to them, or have been melted in subduction zones.

I take it then, that fossils this old are very rare? The samples from the Kola bore hole were estimated at 2.7 billion years old.

ya, so why dont we have a couple satelites floating around in space at totally different coordinates, full of fuel, and when theres an asteroid threat, just send one out to gallantly save the day? and not really hit it head on, more like to the side to use much of its already acquired energy with you instead of swimming against the current, and just shift it to the side so it misses earth. you could use the attractor method even and save the satelite if it will work fast enough and theyre all far enough out.

Perhaps as space shuttles are scheduled to retire from service, due to the stresses of launch and re-entry, they could be positioned in orbit? They could be unmanned, and when a NEO threat was detected, they could "shadow" the object. Judging from the NASA experiments I mentioned earlier, the magnetic field generated by the spacecraft could work as a gravity tractor and nudge it off course.

i'd imagine its due to tectonic plate movement. the earths crust behaves a lot like a churning semimolten plastic over geological time scales.

 

some bits get pushed up, some bits get dragged down. the top of everest is 8 km up yet it used to be a seabed seems reasonable that something could get dragged down 6km.

Thanks for the input. Yes, it definitely makes sense. I am aware of sea floors on mountain tops, I just did not realize a sea floor could be pulled down like that. It amazes me that, not only was it pulled down, but the plankton remained in tact. The forces being exerted on it are astounding. I am surprised the plankton wasn't ground into a fine dust.

I recently read an article: The Deepest Hole by Alan Bellows, discussing the Kola Superdeep Bore Hole project. The article states.. "Another unexpected find was a menagerie of microscopic fossils as deep as 6.7 kilometers below the surface. Twenty-four distinct species of plankton microfossils were found, and they were discovered to have carbon and nitrogen coverings rather than the typical limestone or silica. Despite the harsh environment of heat and pressure, the microscopic remains were remarkably intact". How is this possible?

How about International Step Parent day. A truley tough job, but worth the effort. Plus it could easily tie in with "Support Your Local Brewery Day". I sometimes reflect on my parenting over a pint of black ale.

Yellowstone going off would be an extinction level event. It would totally destroy North America, and send the world into a "nuclear winter". The bad new is that she is thousands of years over due. The good news is there is no current seismic activity that comes before an eruption.

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"Due to the vastness of space, a small push in any direction is almost certainly going to be the proper direction to avoid hitting the earth."

 

That is a good point assuming you can push it when it is still very far away. The closer it gets to Earth, the more critical the maneuver becomes.

True, and I did not allow for the effects of a "nuclear winter". If....lets say next week, seismologists predict an imminent eruption of Yellowstone, there would be nothing we could do to prevent it. However, if we can detect an object on a collision course with earth, we may be able to save our species.

Or (sorry if this has already been mentioned) we could forget about a huge, elaborate, costly venture into stopping something that might happen. People don't stop visiting Yellowstone park, because it might erupt at any given time. A boeing 747 might crash into my house, but I'm not going to spend millions building an elaborate shield round my residence, because that might happen. It's the same principle.

 

We'll worry about it, when or if we detect one in time.

True. I wouldn't hesitate for a minute to take the kids to Yellowstone. A Yellowstone eruption would be a devistating event, but the threat from space COULD be an exstinction level event.

Sorry your sick. I am not currently down with the flu bug, but I have three kids who bring it home often. Remember to hydrate! Pedialyte pops are awsome for speeding your recovery.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely! I think the best scenario would be a system that is not specifically designed, funded, implimented, or managed by one global power.

Since CCD technology is being used in photometry, I don't see why it couln't be integrated into radar. Having a computer monitoring the data would certainly be better than staffing stations. Of course, I think it would be agreat job.

I am also wondering if the deflection systems, could be in a state of orbit at various intervals ready to be launched via commands from the monitoring stations. Perhaps, the deflection system, as it remained in orbit, could also serve as a remote sensor? Once something is placed in orbit, isn't it rather simple to maintain that orbit? It would only need to utilize its fuel when it was prompted, by the monitoring station, to move.

if you want to go to the moon i'd bet on this guy

 

once on the moon could some kind of capacitance effect be used to detect asteroids entering the danger zone?

could the magnetic field around the sun be used to deflect a charged(by microwave or laser beam from the moon) asteroid?

I love the TED lectures. I am sorry to say that I was totally ignorant exploration that deep had occured. Great ideas about a fuel station in space, and the potential of the moon. I like your idea about using the magnetic field of the sun. It seems to me that utilizing existing forces like the sun's magnetic field would be instrumental in keeping cost down. Perhaps some of our local physics experts can shed some light on this?

That sounds great, the best so far! The moon orbits the Earth once a month, the dark side always faces away from Earth, and the moon's orbit is on the plane of the solar system which is where most NEOs travel. The monitoring station(s) on the dark side of the moon would have a great view of space surrounding Earth, and could do the motion sensor scans of broad swaths of space.

 

Hey NASA, check this out!

How hard is it to launch from the surface of the moon, as compared to earth? I am wondering if we launched defensive mechanisms from the moon rather than earth if we could shorten the time of intercept.

I did a google on the gravitational attractor; it lead me to aan article in NewScientist July 2008 by David L Chandler in which he discussed the theory of a gravity tractor. It said that NASA had performed experiments that showed the weak gravitational field from a nearby space ship could have enough of an influence on an object 130Km wide to deflect it from earth. I would have thought that a much larger gravitational field would be required. Sounds like exlploring gravity based defenses is where we should be.

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I like the idea of exploding a nuke next to the object, not too close to break it into pieces, but just close enough to heat up one side. This will cause outgassing (or something like that) from the object. The reaction would nudge it a little and hopefully enough.

 

But all those ideas are useless when you don't know it exists until less than 36 hours before impact!

How much of an impact on earth would exploding a nuke next to the object have? I am sure the effects of the nuke would be better than the impact of the object. As for the problem of detection.....would it buy us any time to put some type of monitoring station on the moon?

A while back, using a missle, the US Navy successfully shot down a small satellite as is plummeted back to earth. I realize this was a very small scale compared to what you are describing, but is it likely that the Department Of Defense possesses the missle power to deflect a large object?

Wasn't the "Star Wars" project of the Reagan administration designed to detect and perhaps defend against, not only ICBM, but NEO threats? I was under the impression that Reagan could not push it through due to funding. Was it actually a lack of scientific feasibility? Also, sorry to sound facetiuos, but maybe with all the space debris we have up there these NEO threats will will be deflected away from earth when they start colliding with all the garbage?????????

You are in the same universe as all matter and governed by the same laws of physics. All the stuff on earth was made from more or less the same stuff. All life descended from a common ancestor. Other than that, I can't think of a deeper connection.

Yes, exactly what I have been bouncing around in my head. What is amazing to me, is that it has taken 43 years for me to grasp what should be a fundamental premise.

Boulder hanging there,

some detritus to greet us,

waiting for a sneeze.

 

Quaking breaking free!

Nature's nostril accretion

now lodged in mustache.

Outstanding!