Political Crossfire Forums

Gatz Nieblas · Joined: 20 Jul 2006 Posts: 99 Location: California

Knocked out of the astroid belt at speeds of 20 to 30 miles a second, and having the potential to bring the human race to its knees if it measures more than half a mile across in length, a near earth object could hit any second(NEO) can hit the world any second now and the size of the crew working on detection of NEOs large enough to strike the earth is smaller than a typical shift size at your local McDonalds.

Currently, an international program is at work to detect potentially dangerous NEOs, but the satellites used to detect dangerous NEOs detect fast moving objects in space by pure chance and can scan only so much of the night's sky. By 2009, when the project is over, scientists admit that any of the hundreds of NEOs not detected during the actual project can be heading directly towards the earth and devastate the world within a matter of seconds.

To add to that, not much has been done in the discussion on how to avert an asteroid collision with earth via stand-off blasts, giant sun reflectors, etc. due to the fact that it is quite difficult to understand what an NEO is made of or what its physical properties are. If it is solid matter with no pores then there is always the question of how powerful the blasts have to be to literally nudge the NEO out of the way and hope the nudge is enough of an impact to avert disaster when it comes near to earth. If the NEO is porous, then stand off blasts would just be absorbed.

If a NEO the size of the KT blast that took out the dinosaurs occured today, enough debris would be thrown into the air to fill Mt. Everest. This would literally cause the entire sky to turn into a scorching, firey hell and would leave the world pitch black,thus, plummeting the earth's average temperature to extremely low levels, thus freezing all life that cannot find refuge underground or in the water in time to avert death for the time being. Even then, temperatures would drop to such a level that plankton would die off and leave marine life devastated.

The only question I have is....WHAT THE HELL IS TAKING SO LONG!? This is a threat the government should be putting its money to. :wtf:

eynon · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 2:51 am Post subject:

Bah, stupid astroid, we'd blow it up good........ :wink:

Izzibeth · Joined: 12 May 2006 Posts: 423

we all gotta go sometime.

micfranklin · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:10 am Post subject:

Izzibeth wrote: we all gotta go sometime.

But I wanted to die when I was in the 80's, not this soon. Any day now, the government could be doing something to blow the damn rock out of the sky.

AllAmericanMan · Joined: 07 Mar 2005 Posts: 3606

wannabe wrote:

Bah, stupid astroid, we'd blow it up good........ :wink:

All we have to do is look for them but we are not.

John Galt · Joined: 04 May 2004 Posts: 21652 Location: Minnesota

If we all die, we all die. The event is so unlikely that if one dime was invested in attempting to track and destroy asteriods by the government I'd be pissed. Oh oh, I'm pissed.

Izzibeth · Joined: 12 May 2006 Posts: 423

micfranklin wrote: Izzibeth wrote: we all gotta go sometime.

But I wanted to die when I was in the 80's, not this soon.

me too.. but.. there are no guarantees in life. knock on wood but you can go at any time and for any reason. a big ol' asteroid doesn't have to be the cause.

Quote: Any day now, the government could be doing something to blow the damn rock out of the sky.

eh, the chances of it even working/hitting its target/having the desired effect are so miniscule that.. yes... i agree with John Galt.. i would be pissed if they were spending money on trying to develop technology to do so. this isn't a movie where the asteroid/whatever is blown into a million indistinguishable pieces before it hits earth. chances are it would get blown into two or three medium sized pieces which would still hit earth and kill us all. it's honestly not something worth worrying about. just live life! ^_^

eynon · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 3:29 pm Post subject:

AllAmericanMan wrote: wannabe wrote:

Bah, stupid astroid, we'd blow it up good........ :wink:

All we have to do is look for them but we are not.

big badda-boom!

Gatz Nieblas · Joined: 20 Jul 2006 Posts: 99 Location: California

Everyone talks about just blowing asteroids out of the sky as if it is a small task. The minimum time allowed for a stand-off blast is 10 years. If an NEO is detected less than 10 years from the planet, then the situation will become quite drastic due to the fact that none of our current missiles have the capacity to avert an asteroid less than 9 years away. Also, somebody keeps talking about blowing up comets or asteroids but the fact of the matter is that the only option is to knock NEOs large enough to destroy the planet out of the way since the chunks remaining will wreak even more havoc on the planet.

John Galt, I am quite green when it comes to my experience on this site, but I believe you stated "we all have to go some time". From what I read, you have quite the libertarian opinion, like me, but I am shocked that you are so careless when it comes to the potential collision of earth and an NEO. If we can stop the threat, then it would seem like the pro-human thing to do would to be to avert this disaster.

bob.appleyard · Joined: 15 Oct 2005 Posts: 7747 Location: Manchestar, innit

wannabe wrote:

Bah, stupid astroid, we'd blow it up good........ :wink:

No... we wouldn't. First of all, our nukes are pointed at each other, not the heavens, and the delivery systems would have to be modified significantly. Secondly, with all the nukes in the world we probably wouldn't make a dent in an ELE ojects's course.

There is little to nothing we could do to prevent such an occurrence. Just try not to worry about it.

toddytodd · Joined: 20 May 2006 Posts: 2736

Gatz Nieblas wrote: Knocked out of the astroid belt at speeds of 20 to 30 miles a second, and having the potential to bring the human race to its knees if it measures more than half a mile across in length, a near earth object could hit any second(NEO) can hit the world any second now and the size of the crew working on detection of NEOs large enough to strike the earth is smaller than a typical shift size at your local McDonalds.

Currently, an international program is at work to detect potentially dangerous NEOs, but the satellites used to detect dangerous NEOs detect fast moving objects in space by pure chance and can scan only so much of the night's sky. By 2009, when the project is over, scientists admit that any of the hundreds of NEOs not detected during the actual project can be heading directly towards the earth and devastate the world within a matter of seconds.

To add to that, not much has been done in the discussion on how to avert an asteroid collision with earth via stand-off blasts, giant sun reflectors, etc. due to the fact that it is quite difficult to understand what an NEO is made of or what its physical properties are. If it is solid matter with no pores then there is always the question of how powerful the blasts have to be to literally nudge the NEO out of the way and hope the nudge is enough of an impact to avert disaster when it comes near to earth. If the NEO is porous, then stand off blasts would just be absorbed.

If a NEO the size of the KT blast that took out the dinosaurs occured today, enough debris would be thrown into the air to fill Mt. Everest. This would literally cause the entire sky to turn into a scorching, firey hell and would leave the world pitch black,thus, plummeting the earth's average temperature to extremely low levels, thus freezing all life that cannot find refuge underground or in the water in time to avert death for the time being. Even then, temperatures would drop to such a level that plankton would die off and leave marine life devastated.

The only question I have is....WHAT THE HELL IS TAKING SO LONG!? This is a threat the government should be putting its money to. :wtf:

Really won't matter if they find one (or two) or not, as there isn't much that could be done. Not that we shouldn't try to find something to help eliminate the threat. Makes you feel very insignificant though...

Selfish_Meme · Joined: 31 Jan 2006 Posts: 726

Best way to eliminate the threat to the entire race is to disburse into space so we are not confined to one target.

sparsely · Joined: 20 May 2006 Posts: 2296 Location: Passamaquoddy

Thanks, Jupiter! :tu:

XiangYu · Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 3838 Location: US

We need to learn to live underground, with warrens, hydroponic farms and such...

But seriously, if a rock is coming our way, we should know about it, and have a plan to deal with it. With all the fat, wasteful office workers we have at our disposal there is no reason why more human resources can be used to detect NEO's. At least we'll find a real use for all those nukes that have been built around the world.

Wyatt Earp · Joined: 03 Jul 2006 Posts: 358

TwinkieDP wrote: We need to learn to live underground, with warrens, hydroponic farms and such...

But seriously, if a rock is coming our way, we should know about it, and have a plan to deal with it. With all the fat, wasteful office workers we have at our disposal there is no reason why more human resources can be used to detect NEO's. At least we'll find a real use for all those nukes that have been built around the world.

All the useless time I had watching History,Discovery and Science channel''s, had series on this subject, nukes won't do it instead of one big object coming at us, we blow it up, then we would have 100's of smaller object's coming at us. Also with Meteorite's some have a solid core (Iron or what not) ands some have been found to be pours.

What needs to be done is strap onto a rocket some blow hard like Rush Limbaugh or Al Franklin and land them on the NEO, and they can blow it out of the way

Gatz Nieblas · Joined: 20 Jul 2006 Posts: 99 Location: California

Though I dont advocate blowing up rush limbaugh like the previous individual, the fact of the matter is that it is common knowledge amongst the scientific community that, instead of blowing up the NEO, scientist must knock the object of its earth-bound path so it can barely miss the earth. The question is; how powerful must the explosion/s be to knock the NEO of its path? Could scientists possible use a more creative means like a giant reflector that uses the sun to burn the object? Could scientists develop a rocket that lands on the NEO and literally moves it out of the way? With so many possibilities and great scientific minds in the US, it would be the ultimate sign of human ingenuity if science can develop an effective means of averting this eminent disaster.

eynon · Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 10:41 pm Post subject:

Wyatt Earp wrote: TwinkieDP wrote: We need to learn to live underground, with warrens, hydroponic farms and such...

But seriously, if a rock is coming our way, we should know about it, and have a plan to deal with it. With all the fat, wasteful office workers we have at our disposal there is no reason why more human resources can be used to detect NEO's. At least we'll find a real use for all those nukes that have been built around the world.

All the useless time I had watching History,Discovery and Science channel''s, had series on this subject, nukes won't do it instead of one big object coming at us, we blow it up, then we would have 100's of smaller object's coming at us. Also with Meteorite's some have a solid core (Iron or what not) ands some have been found to be pours.

What needs to be done is strap onto a rocket some blow hard like Rush Limbaugh or Al Franklin and land them on the NEO, and they can blow it out of the way

use more then one nuke......use dozens if you have too......

Gatz Nieblas · Joined: 20 Jul 2006 Posts: 99 Location: California

Does the preceding poster have a single idea of what that could do the the environment? The explosion of an NEO will be bad enough. In fact, the falling fragments from the NEO alone would literally create fire in the sky. Nukes, on a large number, only seem acceptabe if we are discussing a 10-year stand-off blast in an attempt to throw the NEO off its earth-bound path.

Wyatt Earp · Joined: 03 Jul 2006 Posts: 358

Gatz Nieblas wrote: Though I dont advocate blowing up rush limbaugh like the previous individual, the fact of the matter is that it is common knowledge amongst the scientific community that, instead of blowing up the NEO, scientist must knock the object of its earth-bound path so it can barely miss the earth. The question is; how powerful must the explosion/s be to knock the NEO of its path? Could scientists possible use a more creative means like a giant reflector that uses the sun to burn the object? Could scientists develop a rocket that lands on the NEO and literally moves it out of the way? With so many possibilities and great scientific minds in the US, it would be the ultimate sign of human ingenuity if science can develop an effective means of averting this eminent disaster.

Oh lord, I said/ meant landing Al or Rush, on a NEO and they give/ blow the NEO off of a collision with earth, If we detect it far enough away, all it would take is a little little push so it would just graze our atmoshere.
Nukes will not work. like I said instead of 1 big piece a mile wide, you blow it up, then you would have 100 little pieces, a 10th of a mile wide and the meteorite the exploded into Tunguska, Russia in the early 1900's was probably that big a (10th of a mile)

http://newsfromrussia.com/society/2002/06/29/31473.html

XiangYu · Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 3838 Location: US

You know, considering that the Earth and all the accompanying planets constantly revolve around the Sun, and considering the gravity fields of all these neighboring bodies, it is quite amazing that a large space rock would happen to actually hit the Earth. Well, if we can knock the Space Rock off its trajectory at a far enough Stand-Off distance, you would imagine it could conceivably get pulled into the gravity fields of other objects in our Solar System, thereby averting disaster.