On Mon, 8 Oct 2001, Bruce Moomaw wrote:
> Forgive me for saying so, but you have a complete bee in your bonnet on the
> urgency of asteroid deflection.
Bruce, it is precisely because I understand the laws of statistics
that I have such a bee. I have sat at the roulette tables in Las
Vegas attempting to play the odds and lost. It is precisely because
you cannot guarantee that the heavy hitter against civilization will
come in 10 million years vs. tomorrow that I argue that attention is
required. The fundamental question is this -- How much would you be
willing to pay such that you are alive tomorrow?
> It will be tens of millions of years before another dinosaur-killer asteroid
> hits Earth -- and by that time, humanity will either be spread all over the
> Solar System or (more probably) will have totally exterminated itself, even
> if we expand into space at only a very slow trickle.
You *CANNOT* guarantee with 100% probability that a dinosaur-killer
asteroid will not strike the Earth tomorrow. You are simply hoping
that the statistical probabilities are in your favor such that you
have 10 million years before such an event. Are you willing to bet
humanity on such odds? More importantly -- can you convince me that
*I* should bet humanity on such odds.
> The only significant short-term risk from an impact is that
> another Tunguska-size event might panic a nation into thinking it was under
> nuclear attack -- and that (along with the need for evacuation of the small
> impact area), is why a Spacewatch network is cost-justifiable, but your
> proposed huge project is not.
Why? I'll note that the U.S. is planning to spend between $15 -$100 BILLION
on the loss of ~5000 individuals. This is equal to an ~2-5 year NASA budget
allocation. Go compute the frequency of impact likely to wipe out 5000
people -- Is NASA spending $1-$5 billion a year on preventing that?
To assess this properly one needs to place a valuation on risks to major
population centers, years of potential life lost, etc. I do not believe
that this has been done in detail. Sure the loss of Oshkosh, WI
would be less than that of NY, NY, but presumably both are equally
at risk.
> (Moreover, if we ever do decide to deflect an asteroid or comet, we could
> do it right now -- without any need for a major manned presence in space
> -- just by aiming unmanned vehicles at the object.)
Bruce, if you really believe this, you need to review the literature further.
Have we identified the targets, do we have the vehicles, can we accelerate them
towards and intercept the objects with sufficient kinetic energy, etc., etc.
I do not believe that is the case. I would further argue that our current
knowledge with regard to potential hazards is so insufficient that even
if we did have the capability of deflecting them we do not know their
whereabouts and trajectories sufficiently to use such capabilities effectively.
> If we're going to spend such a huge amount of money on the security of the
> human race, it makes infinitely more sense to spend it on techniques to try
> and protect the human race from attacking itself with nuclear and biological
> weapons.
It makes sense to develop a *complete* equation with regard to the risks
and allocate funds accordingly. Nuclear weapons are a serious concern but
we can develop detection technologies for those. Biological weapons we can
be by and large be vaccinated against. Rocks falling out of the sky onto
our ill-prepared adobes is something that needs to be factored into the
equation. I can individually request that my physician vaccintate me
against Yersina pestis (the plague organism) -- I *cannot* individually
hope to shelter myself from a rain of asteroids unless I can afford
to live many meters underground.
Robert
==
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