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Now this is what I'm talking about! Really cool stuff! I think this was kind of a wake up call that we don't have any kind of rapid-response system ready and w
by Mizza 9y ago
Now this is what I'm talking about! Really cool stuff!
I think this was kind of a wake up call that we don't have any kind of rapid-response system ready and waiting to intercept interstellar objects. Even if we don't get this one, we should damn sure be ready for the next one.
- JoeDaDude 9y agoI briefly worked with members of the planetary defense scientific community, the folk thinking up ideas to defend the Earth from asteroids. This would be great opportunity for them to demonstrate their technology, if they had ever received any funding.
- paulmd 9y agoI was thinking about this earlier - what could we have done better to intercept this one? Because that's the only way we'll catch the next one... Maybe wide-field Hubble-equivalents in the LaGrange points of the outer planets to help spot them on the way in? Ideally larger satellites with 25/50/100 years of cryogens available for long-duration missions? Although past a certain point your cryogen consumption would be constant - you're not getting heat from Sol, you're getting heat from your detectors/equipment... so a sunshield is useless.