Quote:
Originally Posted by SteamWake
Someday one of these 'small' asteroids arent going to miss and there isnt a damn thing they can do about it.
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There are
many things we can do about it! The primary one is to locate and chart them all before they hit so we can redirect them.
Redirecting them is easy and can be done with current technology.
The easy way requires a some time before impact (like years) just send a spacecraft up and have it fly next to the asteroid. The gravitational field of the spacecraft tugs at the asteroid slowly pulling it off course.
The harder way is to put a Mylar solar sail on the asteroid and have the solar wind push it out of the way. Downside is that it only works well close to the sun.
The easy and quick way is to turn the asteroid in to a big unmanned Orion drive ship. Send up a bunch of nuclear bombs and detonate them one at a time every minute or so near the surface using the force of each explosion to push the asteroid. With sufficiently big bombs a decent sized rock could be redirected in the space of days or weeks.