3 ms·
Couple months? You could maybe track it and predict a large impact zone, and evacuate if needed. No chance to move it; nobody has a rocket that can be ready in
by jccooper 13y ago
Couple months? You could maybe track it and predict a large impact zone, and evacuate if needed. No chance to move it; nobody has a rocket that can be ready in that timeframe, much less a vehicle to intercept and move the rock. And even if you could, it was such a small rock that it's probably cheaper to let it hit and replace everything on the ground. For launch alone: F9 is $54M, Proton $72M, and SLS $1.5B (should it ever exist). There's not much the Chelyabinsk could have hit that would cost as much as trying to stop it. Even pretty big rocks have to get lucky to cause much damage, as sparse as development is, but since you can't tell where exactly they will hit until quite late, it may be better to move any sufficiently large Earth-interceptor to avoid the possibility of an unlucky hit.