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A Killer Asteroid (one that is big enough to wipe out all humanity) on a guaranteed course to collide with Earth within the next 10 years unless we do something

A Killer Asteroid (one that is big enough to wipe out all humanity) on a guaranteed course to collide with Earth within the next 10 years unless we do something about it. If basic self preservation against a visible and quantifiable threat will not unite humanity - I have very little hope for anything else.

arethuza 16y ago
The problem with a Killer Asteroid for the purposes of this discussion is that the solution would have to be extremely high tech (presumably large H-bombs on large rockets). Apart from paying larger taxes I'm not sure what most of us could do to contribute to such a project, so as far as "uniting humanity" goes I suspect we would see fracturing along lines of: - It's a government plot to get us to pay more taxes and remove personal freedoms - It is God's will and trying to do anything to stop it is evil - I'll be OK if I dig a deep enough hole and take enough food, guns and ammo - Who cares, I'm going to make sure I enjoy the next ten years
- zeemonkee 16y ago
  > extremely high tech (presumably large H-bombs on large rockets) How is 40s/50s technology high tech ?
  - arethuza 16y ago
    You don't think designing a system that can deliver bombs deep into space is high tech? It's not like we could get a Saturn-5 out of storage, fuel it up, stick a Tsar Bomba on the top and hope for the best.
    - borism 16y ago
      H-bombs are sitting on tops of 30-year old space rockets right now. Sending them to defeat asteroid might be even more devastating than not sending them though.
      - arethuza 16y ago
        ICBMs don't even make it to orbit - if you wait till an asteroid is close enough that an ICBM could hit it then you might as well not bother. [NB I do know that the SS-25 could do fractional orbits.]
        zeemonkee 16y ago
        No, but we've had rockets capable of delivering space probes across interplanetary distances for decades. Replace payload with nuclear warhead. Is that hard ? Maybe, but the manned Moon landings were hard, and we did those decades ago. Hard, but not "high tech". Now whether or not such a solution would actually work is another matter. The original comment however was "extremely high tech such as H-Bombs on rockets". Both are examples of tech that's decades old.
        arethuza 16y ago
        But that argument also applies to stored program electronic computers - which are also 40s/50s tech. So we have the technology to get a large enough device far enough out into the solar system quickly enough for it to make a difference and to engineer all of this within a limited timescale? I don't know about that....

arethuza 16y ago

The problem with a Killer Asteroid for the purposes of this discussion is that the solution would have to be extremely high tech (presumably large H-bombs on large rockets). Apart from paying larger taxes I'm not sure what most of us could do to contribute to such a project, so as far as "uniting humanity" goes I suspect we would see fracturing along lines of: - It's a government plot to get us to pay more taxes and remove personal freedoms - It is God's will and trying to do anything to stop it is evil - I'll be OK if I dig a deep enough hole and take enough food, guns and ammo - Who cares, I'm going to make sure I enjoy the next ten years

zeemonkee 16y ago
> extremely high tech (presumably large H-bombs on large rockets) How is 40s/50s technology high tech ?
- arethuza 16y ago
  You don't think designing a system that can deliver bombs deep into space is high tech? It's not like we could get a Saturn-5 out of storage, fuel it up, stick a Tsar Bomba on the top and hope for the best.
  - borism 16y ago
    H-bombs are sitting on tops of 30-year old space rockets right now. Sending them to defeat asteroid might be even more devastating than not sending them though.
    - arethuza 16y ago
      ICBMs don't even make it to orbit - if you wait till an asteroid is close enough that an ICBM could hit it then you might as well not bother. [NB I do know that the SS-25 could do fractional orbits.]
      - zeemonkee 16y ago
        No, but we've had rockets capable of delivering space probes across interplanetary distances for decades. Replace payload with nuclear warhead. Is that hard ? Maybe, but the manned Moon landings were hard, and we did those decades ago. Hard, but not "high tech". Now whether or not such a solution would actually work is another matter. The original comment however was "extremely high tech such as H-Bombs on rockets". Both are examples of tech that's decades old.
        arethuza 16y ago
        But that argument also applies to stored program electronic computers - which are also 40s/50s tech. So we have the technology to get a large enough device far enough out into the solar system quickly enough for it to make a difference and to engineer all of this within a limited timescale? I don't know about that....