# Russia 'plans to stop asteroid'...



## Pyan (Dec 31, 2009)

Short on details, but, to their credit, taking the long view...



> *The head of Russia's federal space agency has said it will work to divert an asteroid which will make several passes near the Earth from 2029.*
> 
> Anatoly Perminov told the Voice of Russia radio service that the agency's science council would hold a closed meeting to discuss the issue.
> 
> Any eventual plan is likely to be an international collaboration, he said.





BBC News - Russia 'plans to stop asteroid'


----------



## Ursa major (Dec 31, 2009)

There seems to be little risk of it hitting us**, but I can see why there might be interest in interacting with the Apophis asteroid, if only for scientific reasons.




** - Though the Wiki article suggests that the Apophis asteroid will pass Earth "within the orbits of geosynchronous communication satellites" on Friday, April 13, 2029. The date alone will cause concern amongst the more excited members of our species.


----------



## The Ace (Dec 31, 2009)

Another ten years and they'll be telling us they did.


----------



## Sparrow (Dec 31, 2009)

Wow, when did Russia get so concerned with the fate of humanity?

After being responsible for the wanton brutality of tens of millions of people over the course of the last century they suddenly found their true calling?.. Guardians of the Solar System.
Color me skeptical, but me thinks something besides "people's lives are at stake", is driving this little masquerade.


----------



## The Ace (Dec 31, 2009)

Just like the space race then, Sparrow ?


----------



## Sparrow (Dec 31, 2009)

That would be my first guess.


----------



## Parson (Dec 31, 2009)

Can you say publicity? There was a phrase I liked a lot in the early sixties and still use today. "It's as dependable as a Russian promise."


----------



## skeptical (Dec 31, 2009)

The key to stopping an asteroid hitting the Earth is not some spacecraft crashing into it, or a Hollywood atomic bomb spectacular.  The key is detection and prediction.   If we can learn to monitor all space debris above a certain size that comes near the Earth, and predict their orbits some years ahead, then a relatively small intervention can do the trick.

Simply attach an ion drive rocket to the asteroid, and let it fire sideways to the Asteroid's direction for several years, and it will nudge the asteroid just a little off its predicted path, and avoid the Earth.

The key is detection and prediction.


----------



## The Ace (Dec 31, 2009)

Or rely on the Vulcans to intervene, as they did at Tunguska.


----------



## J-WO (Jan 1, 2010)

The Ace said:


> Or rely on the Vulcans to intervene, as they did at Tunguska.



Wow. Didn't know that. Makes you wonder how many Siberian tribes were utterly wiped out by those damn green-blooded hobgoblins... <_thats my Mccoy face, by the way_


Still, if anyone can pull this asteroid-bothering trick off, it'd be the Russians. They've got to be the people with the most day-to-day experience of space travel.


----------



## AE35Unit (Jan 1, 2010)

skeptical said:


> The key to stopping an asteroid hitting the Earth is not some spacecraft crashing into it, or a Hollywood atomic bomb spectacular.  The key is detection and prediction.   If we can learn to monitor all space debris above a certain size that comes near the Earth, and predict their orbits some years ahead, then a relatively small intervention can do the trick.
> 
> Simply attach an ion drive rocket to the asteroid, and let it fire sideways to the Asteroid's direction for several years, and it will nudge the asteroid just a little off its predicted path, and avoid the Earth.
> 
> The key is detection and prediction.



Yes and this is supposed to be in place by now, imagined  by Arthur C Clarke and called Space Guard (as alluded to in his novel the Hammer of God)
And as it says in that book, One day we will meet Kali....


----------



## Parson (Jan 1, 2010)

skeptical said:


> Simply attach an ion drive rocket to the asteroid, and let it fire sideways to the Asteroid's direction for several years, and it will nudge the asteroid just a little off its predicted path, and avoid the Earth.
> 
> The key is detection and prediction.



Only on a SF site would we have a quote like "Simply attach an ion drive rocket" There would be the "little" problem of getting said rocket to the asteroid/comet and attaching it. 

I do wish that we would put more emphasis on the Ion Rocket. It is the only present technology which holds significant promise for any regular interplanetary flights. Our present ideas all are likely to be one shot or once a decade or more wonders.


----------



## Ursa major (Jan 1, 2010)

Presumably the "said rocket" could be taken to Apophis when it passes "within the orbits of geosynchronous communication satellites" round about Friday April 13 2029.






(BTW, Is is called an ion drive because it's always running flat out? )


----------



## Nik (Jan 1, 2010)

Uh, for better or worse, Ap' will be travelling a bit too quickly by then...

Trick is to sneak up on it some years out. Given the various gravitational sling-shots and corrections needed to match velocity and orbital plane, IMHO would be best if launch before the end of this decade (2010~~2020).

Then you have the modest problem of nudging it wide. IIRC, without a pathfinder mission and 'lander' to check with radar and geophones, there's no way to know if it is one solid lump, a rubble-pile, comet-ice cored or some ghastly combination. IIRC, potential worst-case is a contact binary plus rubble-- A misplaced kick could spread them enough to convert either half from 'close-miss' to 'city-killer', shower flaming fragments across a continent and shred a dozen com-sats en-passant...

Nervous consensus seems to be 'gravity tractor'. The rendezvous vehicle goes into close orbit, puts down a couple of micro-landers to keep a finger on the beast's pulse. Then, using tiny amounts of thrust over part of orbit, craft uses gravitational attraction to lead the entire beast clear...

IIRC, it is the inverse analogy to finding 'Hot Jupiters' by their doppler effect on host star...

Being SFFChrons, readers may remember 'Dorsai' series which included a line about a tethered butterfly leading a man by flimsiest thread...


----------



## Ursa major (Jan 1, 2010)

I wasn't suggesting that we wait until it's passing by, just reminding some that it will not always be a long way away (thus minimising, say, comms delay).


BTW, what will its velocity be, relative to the Earth, when it passes close by?


----------



## skeptical (Jan 1, 2010)

The big killer will not be Apophis.  It will be the one we do not detect.   

On ion drives.   Even a loosely gathered pile of debris can be controlled in the way I suggested.   Because the thing is to nudge it off Earth impact course over a period of years.   Nothing dramatic.  Just a gentle sideways push to move the orbit by an infinitesimal amount, which leads to it missing the Earth.


----------



## Nik (Jan 2, 2010)

Just a reminder...

SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

There's currently 1091 Potentially Hazardous Asteroids known. A lot more should show when several new automated observatories get up to speed. Problem, IIRC, is there are still big gaps in the sky coverage so stuff may snuck through 'under the radar'...

Uh, I've been watching the 'monthly approach' list for some time. One un-nerving aspect is that some months have a dozen-plus objects listed, while others have only two or three. Then, mid-month, there's a flurry of detections...

As Skeptical put it, the killer 'will be the one we do not detect.'


----------



## J-WO (Jan 3, 2010)

I hope we never get the ones like in *Armageddon.  *They all impacted into the centre of major cities and missed deserts entirely!


----------



## AE35Unit (Jan 3, 2010)

J-WO said:


> I hope we never get the ones like in *Armageddon.  *They all impacted into the centre of major cities and missed deserts entirely!


Be nice if it were land in the middle east, Iran and Iraq,sort the buggers out once and for all!


----------



## J-WO (Jan 3, 2010)

Erm...

Er...

Are you John Ringo?


----------



## Ursa major (Jan 3, 2010)

AE35Unit said:


> Be nice if it were land in the middle east, Iran and Iraq,sort the buggers out once and for all!


I'm not sure that would be entirely good for our continued supply of oil....


----------



## AE35Unit (Jan 3, 2010)

Ursa major said:


> I'm not sure that would be entirely good for our continued supply of oil....


Oil,shmoil,fe,its high time we ditched that stuff that's ruining this planet before we have to find another one!


----------



## AE35Unit (Jan 3, 2010)

J-WO said:


> Erm...
> 
> Er...
> 
> Are you John Ringo?


Eh,what's this gotta do with a miserable ex-Beatle?


----------

