# Asteroids: If Only Dinosaurs Had Had Stupid Movies



## J-Sun (Feb 16, 2013)

John Shirley's been on a roll lately. (Completely "irrelephant" to the point but I thought his discussion on being a chick magnet was funny.) But, to the point: Asteroids could be Great For Us and Stupid Movies Could Save the World. Perhaps this was inspired by DA14 and the thing that just messed up Russia (Meteor Explodes Over Central Russia Triggering Destructive Sonic Blast). Here in the US, some of our politicians aren't being as stupid as our politicians usually are, saying that it's Not spacey to study asteroids and advocating Doing Something About It.

I'm not unaware that both the pols cited represent space-states who would profit from all this but stimulating the economy - as the politically opposite Shirley suggests - wouldn't be a bad thing. And the idea that "the budget is tight" infuriates me. Americans think a massive 2.4% of the budget goes to NASA when it's *one half* of *one percent*. Rather than becoming extinct, I think we should be able to move a few dollars from anywhere else into space defense.

But, either way, since this is far more important than just about anything and since we have more obviously been in the crosshairs of the cosmic shooting gallery lately and gotten our hair parted, I like these reactions and ideas and that they come from high, low, left, right, politics, art, entertainment, science, whatever.


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## Dave (Feb 16, 2013)

J-Sun said:


> ...this is far more important than just about anything and since we have more obviously been in the crosshairs of the cosmic shooting gallery lately and gotten our hair parted...


This is the ultimate Black Swan Event, so you can't expect that much time and money to be invested into it, however as Donald Rumsfeld would say, it is a known unknown rather than an unknown unknown. Therefore, we should make plans to avoid it. Just as long as it isn't an unknown known!


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## J-Sun (Feb 16, 2013)

Dave said:


> This is the ultimate Black Swan Event, so you can't expect that much time and money to be invested into it, however as Donald Rumsfeld would say, it is a known unknown rather than an unknown unknown. Therefore, we should make plans to avoid it. Just as long as it isn't an unknown known!



Yeah - it's just one of those upside/downside things: on the one hand, we have some investment which might take away a half percent of the budget of one country to *double* its space expenditure and, against that, we have the extinction of most of the life on earth including us. And, as stated in some of the articles, this provides jobs, scientific research, helps pave the way for further explorations of and industries in space and, oh by the way, could save the species from one particular fatal menace. I mean, basically, it's like not paying a nickel (or equivalent) for a helmet when people are shooting at you. Maybe the people shooting are blindfolded and unlikely to hit you immediately but they likely will at some point and it's just a nickel. I'd hope we'd value our lives more highly than that.

And Dana Rohrabacher and John Shirley and I agree so it's either the sign of the apocalypse itself or it's gotta be right!


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## Lady of Winterfell (Feb 16, 2013)

It's not if we get hit, its when. 

As J-Sun pointed out, *one half* of *one percent* is the fraction of the US Budget allocated to NASA. Just one more bit of info to add to that: Of that amount, *one twentieth* of *one percent* is allocated to finding killer asteroids (from one of my favorite people, Neil DeGrasse Tyson).

I think humans have their priorities a bit wrong.


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## Mirannan (Feb 16, 2013)

Dave said:


> This is the ultimate Black Swan Event, so you can't expect that much time and money to be invested into it, however as Donald Rumsfeld would say, it is a known unknown rather than an unknown unknown. Therefore, we should make plans to avoid it. Just as long as it isn't an unknown known!



Sorry, but I disagree. Asteroid impact is the antithesis of a Black Swan event. Why? Because it has happened before (leading to our existence!) and will happen again. The only real question is when.

Earth has been hit by impactors in the 30kT to 30MT range (or thereabouts) at least four times, maybe more, since 1903. (Tunguska, Brazil in 1930, Namibia and northern Norway in the 2000s, and now Russia in 2013.) In addition to which, we have witnessed Jupiter being hit by multi-gigaton impacts by the dozen.

If I was religious, I'd be thinking that Someone was saying "PAY FECKING ATTENTION!"


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## Dave (Feb 17, 2013)

That's why it is a known unknown - it may be an event with a very small likelihood but with a large impact, but that risk is a quantifiable risk - and therefore I agree with you all that more research should be done so that we are not caught napping when the big one comes.

The other thing is that I don't think you can stop humans being curious. It is part of our nature and genetic make-up, and so exploration of space is just the next step. While computer programs are helping with spotting asteroids and comets, the vast majority are still found by amateurs sitting at a telescope in the cold.


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## J-Sun (Feb 18, 2013)

More links (all space.com) discovered today:

Today's Asteroid Flyby a Wakeup Call, Scientists Say - 9,600 down; 990,400 to go!
Russian Meteor Blast Bigger Than Thought, NASA Says - 500 kilotons o' fun.
United Nations Reviewing Asteroid Impact Threat - "Was this a cosmic warning shot? It makes you think."



Lady of Winterfell said:


> Of that amount, *one twentieth* of *one percent* is allocated to finding killer asteroids (from one of my favorite people, Neil DeGrasse Tyson).



Here's more from that very guy: transcript or direct-to-video (so to speak).


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## Lady of Winterfell (Feb 18, 2013)

Excellent, thanks J-Sun! I think Tyson is right about society needing an event like this to make us realize that we are "in what is indistinguishable from a shooting gallery in the solar system."

Thought I would share this video. It shows the discovery of asteroids from 1980 to 2010. It's only a few minutes long; I would recommend watching it full screen, and read the description he listed for the video to explain the different types they found.


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## PTeppic (Feb 18, 2013)

From the various feeds about DA14 and the Russian impactor, it seems that the majority that most that get close enough to hit us do so with no more than 24 hours notice. One question I'd have: "what's the point in knowing?"


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## Dave (Feb 18, 2013)

PTeppic said:


> ...it seems that the majority that most that get close enough to hit us do so with no more than 24 hours notice. One question I'd have: "what's the point in knowing?"


That is because we haven't mapped them and are not monitoring them all. If we had spacecraft out in the asteroid belt and whatever strategic positions are necessary we could identify the big ones and the ones likely to be tipped our way. Yes, we would also need something out in the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud for those extremely long period objects too. And yes, it wouldn't be 100% accurate and we might get the odd trajectory wrong. However, your statement is the equivalent of saying, "what is the point of a weather forecast?" - we cannot stop a hurricane, and sometimes their paths are difficult to predict.

That kind of early warning system would be very expensive, for a threat that has an extremely small chance of wiping out our civilisation in the short term.


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## MontyCircus (Feb 18, 2013)

Lady of Winterfell said:


> Excellent, thanks J-Sun! I think Tyson is right about society needing an event like this to make us realize that we are "in what is indistinguishable from a shooting gallery in the solar system."
> 
> Thought I would share this video. It shows the discovery of asteroids from 1980 to 2010. It's only a few minutes long; I would recommend watching it full screen, and read the description he listed for the video to explain the different types they found.



That's a lotta rocks!


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## PTeppic (Feb 18, 2013)

Dave said:


> However, your statement is the equivalent of saying, "what is the point of a weather forecast?" - we cannot stop a hurricane, and sometimes their paths are difficult to predict.



I guess I was thinking of planet killers when I posted the question, though up to a point for proportional reduction in size. With hurricanes, there is always SOME level of preparation, even if it's just cellar or flee. With meteors of the size I'm thinking of, no preparation will help. Just public disorder, panic, fear. Hence the question.


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## Dave (Feb 18, 2013)

I guess you have a point with planet killers, but even then we could send up a spaceship full of deep sea oil drilling engineers lead by Bruce Willis - Hmm! There might be a cheesy story there? Or, at least build underground silos and stockpile them with dried food and fresh water. Or, we could all run about calling out, "we're all gonna die!"

I'd think something that size would be relatively easy to spot. It would be an object that we already know about now, but which had been given a new orbit.


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## J-Sun (Feb 18, 2013)

Lady of Winterfell said:


> Excellent, thanks J-Sun! I think Tyson is right about society needing an event like this to make us realize that we are "in what is indistinguishable from a shooting gallery in the solar system."
> 
> Thought I would share this video. It shows the discovery of asteroids from 1980 to 2010. It's only a few minutes long; I would recommend watching it full screen, and read the description he listed for the video to explain the different types they found.



Thank you! I'm really glad you passed that on - it's an amazing video that really everybody ought to see.

(I can't help but think that part of Tyson's claim to fame, though, is demoting Pluto - which I do not approve of - and I have to ask myself what really constitutes "clearing the path". )



PTeppic said:


> From the various feeds about DA14 and the Russian impactor, it seems that the majority that most that get close enough to hit us do so with no more than 24 hours notice. One question I'd have: "what's the point in knowing?"



(and consider the ensuing conversation quoted)

Yeah, I think we think we have a pretty good handle on the large NEOs but the small ones can still cause quite a bit of devastation and, of course, the shooting gallery is large. So in terms of the use, the more we know and the more advance warning we have, the better - forewarned is forearmed and all. But, no, it likely wouldn't do any good at all if it really mattered in species terms and some of the small ones will sneak by us. But the more we know, the more videos can be created that Lady can post and the more the human race can get mobilized. History and science are a long road (we hope) and it's just a step on the way. It's all nothing without a genuine presence in space, though, and a human presence at that.

Or, like Dave says, maybe we can ship Bruce out there real quick.  (I haven't actually seen the movie but I think I get the reference.)


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## Lady of Winterfell (Feb 18, 2013)

You are very welcome! I'm just happy to have some fellow space/science lovers who can appreciate it. And yes, Tyson did get the Pluto ball rolling but the rest of the astronomical community didn't have to go along with him (and some of them still don't. ) I have read Tyson's The Pluto Files, which was kind of fun just to see the effect it has had on the general public. The guy got hate mail from elementary school kids! There is another book, How I Killed Pluto by Mike Brown, which I haven't read yet, so perhaps it wasn't all Tyson.

As for What's the point in knowing? If it's a planet killer, an asteroid that could wipe us out, I think we should know about it. There are ways (on paper) of deflecting the asteroid, changing its orbit, etc and these things would be easier to accomplish the sooner we know about it. See J-Sun's link above, Tyson mentions that we have plans/theories on how to accomplish this but none of them are funded. I imagine if we found a killer asteroid that we knew was going to hit us, we might find a way to fund these projects...and quickly.  I think its better that we know, and try to do whatever we can to avoid the impact, than to just sit back and watch the world burn...so to speak.


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## Gordian Knot (Feb 19, 2013)

To put NASA's budget in perspective. It's yearly budget is equal to six hours of the military's budget for the year. I cannot imagine the entire military complex would collapse if we took another six hours from their yearly budget to double NASA's budget.


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## J-Sun (Feb 22, 2013)

Relevant stuff keeps popping up. I'd seen this or something a lot like it long before, on Centauri Dreams, I think, but this was yesterday's APOD: Gravitational Tractor (with a link to the abstract of the concept). I actually prefer something like this to attempts to break one apart as shotguns will kill you just as dead as a cannon and that could be the effect if it went wrong, but there are multiple ways to go.

'Course, this one takes 20 years for a 20 ton tractor to tow a 200m asteroid so we'd definitely need a heads-up but many factors can make this more manageable.

But can you imagine? The concept doesn't specify the manner of control, manned or unmanned though, with a mission time of 20 years in the example and the complexities of a manned mission, it'd seem to be unmanned. However, it seems to me there could be issues with responding to unforeseen circumstances - repair, lag time, whatever - that would make some manned mission profiles preferable. But either as an astronaut in space or a controller on the ground... you'd be saving. the freaking. human race.

Call me crazy but I say we do it!


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## Lady of Winterfell (Feb 22, 2013)

I just saw something similar to this on the TV Show How The Universe Works. I don't think you're crazy at all J-Sun, I would say lets do it too!

The episode I saw about it said it would be unmanned. And 20 years is a big warning, but didn't we have something similar to that with Apophis? We know now it's not going to hit us, but I thought when they first discovered it they thought it might hit us in 2036 or something (I could be very wrong about that date though).

Is the 20 years just for the Tractor to move the asteroid? That doesn't include actually building it and sending it out to the asteroid? If so, we would need more than a 20 year time frame.


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## J-Sun (Feb 22, 2013)

Yeah, I don't recall the specifics about Apophis but those sound generally right. And I think they're still not _positive_ about its trajectory - they're just very confident it won't be a problem.

And, yeah, that was my impression, too: the example given was for a 20 year mission assuming the ship already exists. Of course, it was purely an example: differently sized or configured ships and differently sized asteroids and other details can change things. But, yeah, we have zip zero zilch now (we're hitching rides with Russians things that go boom just to get to the space station) and we'd have to build a sort of anti-asteroid Earth Defense from the ground up, first. Of course, this shouldn't be a national thing - it'd be a lot faster and easier (in theory, assuming international conflict and bureaucracy didn't actually slow things down) to do it as a multinational thing - but _nobody_ has anything like this yet, so we'd all need to get cracking.


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## Lady of Winterfell (Feb 22, 2013)

Well, when it becomes necessary, lets hope we humans can get our act together, and start _working_ together. I imagine (or desperately hope) the fact that we as a species could be wiped out would be the one thing that could make that happen. It really is too bad the US and NASA are no longer the superpower they once were, but I agree something like this should be a worldwide effort.

It is interesting to see what people much smarter than me are coming up with as far as asteroid/Earth defense though.


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## Vertigo (Feb 23, 2013)

I've always thought the sunshine and mirrors solution to be one of the most elegant: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12761-are-mirrors-the-best-way-to-deflect-asteroids.html


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## J-Sun (Feb 23, 2013)

Vertigo said:


> I've always thought the sunshine and mirrors solution to be one of the most elegant: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12761-are-mirrors-the-best-way-to-deflect-asteroids.html



Thanks for that article. I agree that that's a pretty spiffy one but it seems like that would depend on the composition of the asteroid and, if you ended up frying a fissure, could even result in fragmentation. But on the right rock, it would indeed be elegant. And that's the thing - I think the last scientist is touching on it with the "tools in the toolbox" but I think he's just speaking conceptually - there may be no One Best Way but rather a good generic solution and better specific solutions depending on the object and we need to be multi-capable. Another thing it seems like all this stuff leaves out - all of this is on deflecting - is that there are also ways to capture these potentially extremely valuable mining opportunities and _that_ is really elegant and would say something cool about the human race: that the thing that wiped out dinosaurs and could wipe us out is actually an opportunity we turn to our advantage.  But, first things first, just deflection is good enough.


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## Vertigo (Feb 23, 2013)

To follow on from your theme J-Sun, one of the things I like about the mirror technology is that exactly the same technology could be used for mining asteroids. You could use it to 'drill' down into the interior, provide energy and as a furnace to smelt metals out of the rock.


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## Lady of Winterfell (Feb 25, 2013)

Interesting, I had not heard of that method before. (For some reason I could only read the first page, my computer blocked the 2nd page saying there was a virus.)

I agree that the more options we have, the better! But man, 5000 mirrors is a lot. Did it say anything about the length of time to produce them?


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## Vertigo (Feb 26, 2013)

If you google around you should find plenty of other articles on that method; it's been touted around for a long time now. I'm not sure how long it would take to produce the mirrors but probably not as long as you might think. They would probably very light, collapsible things. They wouldn't need to be anything like as precise as say a telescope mirror. So for example they would probably be a lot cheaper and quicker to make and easier to transport than the gravity method.


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## Harpo (Mar 5, 2013)

Another newly discovered asteroid passed close by yesterday.
http://www.universetoday.com/100440/newly-found-asteroid-to-pass-within-moons-orbit-on-march-4-2013/

I appreciate that it wasn't _really_ close, but it worries me that we're encountering more asteroids at short notice.  Would 12 months be enough warning to put Bruce Willis into space with nukes?


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## Bowler1 (Mar 5, 2013)

Why zap 'em, why not grab 'em?

The one above is a bit small, but considering lots of asteriods are metal for the most part their a natural resource waiting for us to come along and grab 'em. 

Yes, send Bruce up there with his mining equipment, and send these rocks toward Earth.

See a book by O Neill written in the 60's I think about the economics of space "mining" for a better term!


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## Lady of Winterfell (Mar 5, 2013)

I think we are finding more asteroids because more people are looking these days. I posted a video earlier in this thread that shows the rate at which we are discovering asteroids; you should take a look, its pretty amazing.


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## PTeppic (Mar 6, 2013)

Bowler1 said:


> Why zap 'em, why not grab 'em?
> 
> The one above is a bit small, but considering lots of asteriods are metal for the most part their a natural resource waiting for us to come along and grab 'em.
> 
> ...



They're looking at it...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21144769


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## Bowler1 (Mar 6, 2013)

Yipee, a good link.

Nasa, the bloated giant bring back a small amount of material for 1 billion is no surprise. I think there potentail here, and it's all just floating around out there waiting to be collected!


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## J-Sun (Aug 14, 2013)

What, me worry?

That picture looks like it was made by a kid with a spirograph but without his ritalin.


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## Lady of Winterfell (Aug 15, 2013)

That's a fairly accurate description of what that looks like.


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