Nuking an incoming asteroid is a daft idea - as all NASA's plans seem of late

[Jimbuna]

Would a radar tracking station on Mars give sufficient warning ? :hmm:

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Would a radar tracking station on Mars give sufficient warning ? :hmm:

Dubious. Mars is on an orbit too. It may be farther away from the object than earth is.


edit-wait, was that a joke or reference?

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

Dubious. Mars is on an orbit too. It may be farther away from the object than earth is.


edit-wait, was that a joke or reference?

A bit of both actually.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

Tell you what, you go to congress and convince them to devote funds to building asteroid-annihilating mirrors and I'll go try to convince them to blow that same money on some generic, failure-prone social program or perhaps a huge foreign aid package to a country they have never heard of where it will be stolen by warlords and corrupt officials before it ever reaches the people. Whoever convinces them wins.


Too late I already won:rotfl:


Sadly, we will probably have to suffer a significant asteroid impact or come very,very close to one before they ever do anything about it.

I bet I have a chance! Congress is so screwed up at this point, they can't even vote properly on a social program properly right now, yet might pass something weird like this much to everyones surprise!

-S

[August]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Did you read my anaology about a bullet through a paper target?

I did read it, but a nuke isn't a solid projectile Subman, it's an explosive, detonated on contact or just before contact. A better analogy would be a firecracker.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by August

I did read it, but a nuke isn't a solid projectile Subman, it's an explosive, detonated on contact or just before contact. A better analogy would be a firecracker.

The point being is energy transfer. There is no energy transfer into a non solid object. You simply break it apart and in continues on as normal as even refrenced by both the Astronaut and the article above and in every simulation done on a non solid asteroid.

Put your firecracker near your piece of paper and you will put a hole in it, but you won't send it flying!

-S

[August]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

The point being is energy transfer. There is no energy transfer into a non solid object. You simply break it apart and in continues on as normal as even refrenced by both the Astronaut and the article above and in every simulation done on a non solid asteroid.

Put your firecracker near your piece of paper and you will put a hole in it, but you won't send it flying!

-S

I'd say that depends on the size of the firecracker more than anything else. Besides, who ever said they would only shoot ONE nuke? How about 50? 500?

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by August

I'd say that depends on the size of the firecracker more than anything else. Besides, who ever said they would only shoot ONE nuke? How about 50? 500?

Who knows. Create ever smaller rocks to hit the Earth. Probably not a good plan.

But since I don't do the data modeling myself, a better person to argue with would probably be the scientists themselves. They are the nuke engineers that study the blast damage for a living.

-S

[ASWnut101]

Originally Posted by Zachstar

What are you talking about? The solar mirrors have been developed. It is called thin foil....

With a small amount of weight you can make an area the size of a football field.

I was thinking of something totally different that what Subman posted below.