3 ms·
> It's about momentum, not energy. Near Earth, you can get energy from the Sun quite easily, or fuel a nuclear reactor with the asteroid. I'm not sure if you'r
by myrmidon 4y ago
> It's about momentum, not energy. Near Earth, you can get energy from the Sun quite easily, or fuel a nuclear reactor with the asteroid.
I'm not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse. Momentum does absolutely nothing for you by itself-- it does not even affect penetration depth of your asteroid.
The only thing momentum does is that it scales with speed (hint: like kinetic energy).
If you have enough fuel for a nuclear reactor to throw pieces of asteroid into space, then MAAAYYYYYBE just launch nuke at the planet?!
Because that is:
1) Easier to build
2) Simpler
3) Harder to detect
4) Harder to defend against
edit: Sorry for the tone. This whole topic just really infuriates me because I absolutely can not understand how anyone with even elementary physics education could ever defend this concept as viable...
- marcosdumay 4y ago> The only thing momentum does is that it scales with speed And mass... If you have a fixed amount of energy, the amount of destruction you can create on your target is a complex function of how much delta-v you need. But the maximum is never on the extreme of "just emit all the energy there at once". It can always improve by adding some mass. On those other comparisons, you probably have a point, assuming the people tech looks like the things we can imagine at realistic sci-fi.