> -----Original Message----- > From: Vivec [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 2:32 PM > To: CF-Community > Subject: Asteroid may hit mars January 30th. > > http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/12/21/mars.asteroid.ap/index.htm > l > > Isn't it about time that Earth has a definite response to a possible > impact?
There are a lot of plans... but none of them are currently feasible for large "planet killer" objects. We could dump billions into a stand-by solution but a really large object (something several miles across) would be beyond any of our current capabilities. A truly large object (say half-the size of the moon) is beyond anything we've even got on the drawing board. This is an odd thing tho' - there are MANY things that could destroy us (or at least our civilation). A few (like asteroids) we MIGHT be able to deal with technologically but many we won't. Super volcanoes, run-away ice ages (human-aided climate change or not), pandemics, etc The chances for catastrophic impacts increase steadily as size goes down. The chances also go down as a solar system ages and the crap's cleared out... it may very well be that a second-generation civilation (something that might arise in a few hundred million years if we get wiped out) would have much better odds. But as far as funding goes it's hard to argue that we've got the bandwidth to deal with this in any practical matter (as in creating a delivery system and managing it) when we still have the kind of problems we've got. Unfortunately I doubt we'll see any kind of practical consideration for this kind of thing until after we approach a truly global economy and government. Basically until we start considering ourselves a planetary community I doubt we'll start considering any sort of planetary threats. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:248905 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
