4 ms·

What would we do if an asteroid was on a collision course? Nuke it? Can ICBMs even go to into space?

by vimy 5y ago

graderjs 5y ago
Counterintelligence is the first consideration we must never let the public know anything of significant truth value. Whatever it takes to ensure this mission--is justified. Also we must build underground and off-world bunkers where both genetic subsampling of the population and those who are able to contribute to the construction efforts (a la the film 2012) are provided shelter from the coming apocalypse. But why stop there The apocalypse likely provides many opportunities for which we can extract significant profits. By carefully coordinating the amounts of chaos and confusion in society we can maximize our benefit. Surely it's basically a linear optimization problem.
- willis936 5y ago
  This is way deep in conspiracy. Asteroid tracking is open sourced. There are no secrets to be kept.
  - loopz 5y ago
    He forgot the /s tag.
    - graderjs 5y ago
      He did nothing of the sort
  - graderjs 5y ago
    No secrets every person on the planet has access to a high grade telescope nothing is censored we can access all data across all frequencies across all portions of the sky. There's absolutely no control... Nothing to see here citizen. Move along quietly now You'll be like the anti-vaxxetss saying the virus is a hoax as they lie dying of pneumonia. When the elites are funneled into their underground bases you'll be saying the asteroid and the cover-up is a hoax as the blinding flash obliterates everything you love Edit: Hey someone should rewrite this Truth for The gentle cottonwool-coddled hn minds that prefer the peaceful vista to the real one before their eyes... Transmit the same truth but share it in a gentler more familiar package to ensure delivery
akreal 5y ago
Redirect it. Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission is going to test soon if this would work in practice: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Asteroid_Redirection_Test https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Asteroid_Redirection_...
- graderjs 5y ago
  The Daily Tribune: "thank the heavens! Earth saved by Wikipedia article"
  - rsstack 5y ago
    https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart linked from the Wikipedia article
    - graderjs 5y ago
      The world is ending--so what? My life is complete: I learned the word, 'moonlet.' GORGEOUS!!!!! :P;) xx
- phh 5y ago
  Thanks that's interesting. The article says 0.5mm/s of change is enough to miss the earth, but how much time ahead do we need to find the asteroid? (Assuming we launch the day we find the asteroid, which is politically-wise unlikely but well)
  - icegreentea2 5y ago
    So with an end-stage interaction where you're not considering keyhole effects, you very roughly you need to accumulate an Earth diameter of position change. So Earth diameter is ~13000km, so that works out 26 billion seconds or 825 years. So in real terms, we'd probably wanna do a but more delta V than that. At 1cm/s, you're down to 41 years for example.
    - 5y ago
foxrider 5y ago
We can only hope that said asteroid isn't too big and evacuate the area of impact. We can't do anything to prevent it. ICBMs can't even target something in space, and even if we blow the asteroid with one the same mass would still be flying towards earth as a shrapnel. Theoretically we can try shooting it with a laser to evaporate part of it creating thrust to divert it, but we don't have lasers that powerful and probably wouldn't. This is uncomfortable truth - we are completely defenseless against asteroids.
dustinls 5y ago
Trivialize the threat publicly, buy/sell off all relevant stocks, then announce threat is worse than anticipated. Deny again that asteroid is a threat. Redraw a different course in red sharpie over the actual trajectory showing a path missing earth. Discredit astronomy, discredit nasa, discredit physicists like there's no tomorrow.
- ianai 5y ago
  Only if they were making money off the asteroid. There’d be more money to make in redirecting it. Especially if we’re talking 150+ years from now with much better space capacities.
acranox 5y ago
This summarizes one possible scenario. https://twitter.com/mycoliza/status/1417539271192309761 https://twitter.com/mycoliza/status/1417539271192309761

What would we do if an asteroid was on a collision course? Nuke it? Can ICBMs even go to into space?

by vimy 5y ago

What would we do if an asteroid was on a collision course? Nuke it? Can ICBMs even go to into space?

Counterintelligence is the first consideration we must never let the public know anything of significant truth value. Whatever it takes to ensure this mission--is justified. Also we must build underground and off-world bunkers where both genetic subsampling of the population and those who are able to contribute to the construction efforts (a la the film 2012) are provided shelter from the coming apocalypse. But why stop there The apocalypse likely provides many opportunities for which we can extract significant profits. By carefully coordinating the amounts of chaos and confusion in society we can maximize our benefit. Surely it's basically a linear optimization problem.

willis936 5y ago
This is way deep in conspiracy. Asteroid tracking is open sourced. There are no secrets to be kept.
- loopz 5y ago
  He forgot the /s tag.
  - graderjs 5y ago
    He did nothing of the sort
- graderjs 5y ago
  No secrets every person on the planet has access to a high grade telescope nothing is censored we can access all data across all frequencies across all portions of the sky. There's absolutely no control... Nothing to see here citizen. Move along quietly now You'll be like the anti-vaxxetss saying the virus is a hoax as they lie dying of pneumonia. When the elites are funneled into their underground bases you'll be saying the asteroid and the cover-up is a hoax as the blinding flash obliterates everything you love Edit: Hey someone should rewrite this Truth for The gentle cottonwool-coddled hn minds that prefer the peaceful vista to the real one before their eyes... Transmit the same truth but share it in a gentler more familiar package to ensure delivery

akreal 5y ago

Redirect it. Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission is going to test soon if this would work in practice: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Asteroid_Redirection_Test https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Asteroid_Redirection_...

graderjs 5y ago
The Daily Tribune: "thank the heavens! Earth saved by Wikipedia article"
- rsstack 5y ago
  https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart linked from the Wikipedia article
  - graderjs 5y ago
    The world is ending--so what? My life is complete: I learned the word, 'moonlet.' GORGEOUS!!!!! :P;) xx
phh 5y ago
Thanks that's interesting. The article says 0.5mm/s of change is enough to miss the earth, but how much time ahead do we need to find the asteroid? (Assuming we launch the day we find the asteroid, which is politically-wise unlikely but well)
- icegreentea2 5y ago
  So with an end-stage interaction where you're not considering keyhole effects, you very roughly you need to accumulate an Earth diameter of position change. So Earth diameter is ~13000km, so that works out 26 billion seconds or 825 years. So in real terms, we'd probably wanna do a but more delta V than that. At 1cm/s, you're down to 41 years for example.
  - 5y ago

foxrider 5y ago

We can only hope that said asteroid isn't too big and evacuate the area of impact. We can't do anything to prevent it. ICBMs can't even target something in space, and even if we blow the asteroid with one the same mass would still be flying towards earth as a shrapnel. Theoretically we can try shooting it with a laser to evaporate part of it creating thrust to divert it, but we don't have lasers that powerful and probably wouldn't. This is uncomfortable truth - we are completely defenseless against asteroids.

dustinls 5y ago

Trivialize the threat publicly, buy/sell off all relevant stocks, then announce threat is worse than anticipated. Deny again that asteroid is a threat. Redraw a different course in red sharpie over the actual trajectory showing a path missing earth. Discredit astronomy, discredit nasa, discredit physicists like there's no tomorrow.

ianai 5y ago
Only if they were making money off the asteroid. There’d be more money to make in redirecting it. Especially if we’re talking 150+ years from now with much better space capacities.

acranox 5y ago

This summarizes one possible scenario. https://twitter.com/mycoliza/status/1417539271192309761 https://twitter.com/mycoliza/status/1417539271192309761