*I* saw that movie. ;-) Mike, in all seriousness, I think that's probably about the way it's going to play out.
But already there are a dozen or so competing technologies for "mitigation". These are being well developed, at least in principle. (we really have VERY little Space-faring capability now, however; not much of a springboard from which to mount a campaign). The winningest methods are ways of deflection, not disintegration: Tai Chi, not K'ung Fu; "Four-ounces, to deflect a blow of a hundred pounds". But the earlier we apply the deflection force(s), the better. In any case, though, a miss is as good as a mile. We might only have to change the speed of an object by one inch per second, if we do it early enough. But it could return on its new orbit to hit us later! So we have to do lots of homework to get the new trajectory right, to keep us safe for long-enough time until technology and economy are good enough to do something MORE effective, like remove the object from near-earth orbit entirely. A mission to an asteroid is being mounted from here soon. We won a big grant from NASA to do _in situ_ sampling of an asteroid. It's a science-project, not an attempt at deflecting an object. But we must have info on the material making up the things we'll typically need to deflect: How strong are they? How much force can we put on them before they (unfortunately...) break up? Etc. Our project is called OSIRIS REx. 800 million smackeroos, US. --Joe --- In [email protected], mike brown <uerusuboyo@...> wrote: >...I'd just sit back and wait until an asteroid is detected on an imminent >collision course with Earth and only then should NASA get involved by training >a few maverick miners to stop it. Simple. ------------------------------------ Current Book Discussion: any Zen book that you recently have read or are reading! Talk about it today!Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Zen_Forum/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Zen_Forum/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
