Asteroid defense ideas

[dimreepr]

Just now, Moontanman said:

by the time we make a decision the impact has already occured

No, I assumed you understood the physics of a black hole.

[Mordred]

21 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

I would have to agree since that is exactly what I have been saying, given time (in our current state I would bet we would need 20 years lead time, probably take 5 years just to make a decision) we can use whatever method is best but we don't always get much warning in fact I would say we seldom do. 

 

What you assume that ? We are currently researching solutions. Previous research greatly reduces the time for decision making. Even as slow as our Politicians are. Early detection everyone agrees is the key to success. 

 

[Moontanman]

7 minutes ago, Mordred said:

What you assume that ? We are currently researching solutions. Previous research greatly reduces the time for decision making. Even as slow as our Politicians are. Early detection everyone agrees is the key to success. 

 

Mordred, lets set up a hypothetical, today NASA finds out a 250 meter asteroid is going to impact the Atlantic ocean near Bermuda in one year... what do you propose we do?

[zapatos]

1 hour ago, Moontanman said:

Not as foolish as allowing an unhinged fear of nukes to allow an asteroid strike. 

NO ONE here is suggesting such a thing or displaying an unhinged fear of nukes. You seem to be arguing with some boogeyman rather than anyone participating in this thread.

Edited May 25 by zapatos

[Mordred]

11 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Mordred, lets set up a hypothetical, today NASA finds out a 250 meter asteroid is going to impact the Atlantic ocean near Bermuda in one year... what do you propose we do?

Hire Spacex immediately to transport as much fuel as possible into orbit. Set up several craft, rather than one to refuel in space with that fuel. Use Solar sails if possible to reduce fuel consumption on those spacecraft.  We have plenty of mass already in orbit. One could for example strip material from the International space station to get mass. Then fly to the asteroid and start with the gravity tractor. Those same craft can later be used to impact the asteroid if the gravity tractor doesn't work. Set up the nukes as an emergency option. Get them into orbit and refueled. Use them only if the first two options don't work.

You don't need to wait around for these options other than the planning and execution stages.

Of course another option is to take the asteroid orbiting Earth and redirect it to impact the incoming asteroid 

Edited May 25 by Mordred

[Moontanman]

3 minutes ago, zapatos said:

NO ONE here is suggesting such a thing or displaying an unhinged fear of nukes. You seem to be arguing with some boogeyman rather than anyone participating in this thread.

Quite the contrary you seem to fear a nuke worse than an asteroid strike, a nuke is not the end of the world, a major asteroid strike might very well be!

[Mordred]

2 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Quite the contrary you seem to fear a nuke worse than an asteroid strike, a nuke is not the end of the world, a major asteroid strike might very well be!

no one is stating that. Its obvious that if the asteroid leads to an extinction event then using nukes becomes acceptable.

Where we disagree is that you seem to feel it should be the first option 

[Moontanman]

4 minutes ago, Mordred said:

Hire Spacex immediately to transport as much fuel as possible into orbit. Set up several craft, rather than one to refuel in space with that fuel. Use Solar sails if possible to reduce fuel consumption on those spacecraft.  We have plenty of mass already in orbit. One could for example strip material from the International space station to get mass. Then fly to the asteroid and start with the gravity tractor. Those same craft can later be used to impact the asteroid if the gravity tractor doesn't work. Set up the nukes as an emergency option. Get them into orbit and refueled. Use them only if the first two options don't work.

You don't need to wait around for these options other than the planning and execution stages.

Mordred, it would take more than a year to even coordinate such an effort, solar sails? There are no operational solar sails, we have no space craft capable of flying to the moon much less an asteroid. A gravity tractor is an idea, none actually exist, the ability to get to the asteroid doesn't exist, refueling in orbit is an idea, the actual process doesn't exist. You have a year not 20 years. 

Just now, Mordred said:

no one is stating that. Its obvious that if the asteroid leads to an extinction event then using nukes becomes acceptable.

Where we disagree is that you seem to feel it should be the first option 

It should be the first option if no other option is credible, I see no reason to discount nukes, you seem to think a nuke is somehow a threat to the planet despite that being obviously hyped anti nuke propaganda.  

[zapatos]

8 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Quite the contrary you seem to fear a nuke worse than an asteroid strike, a nuke is not the end of the world, a major asteroid strike might very well be!

 You have completely misread my comments. It is no wonder we are not getting anywhere.

[Mordred]

Really and do you believe we have nukes that can just immediately fly out there without using spacecraft in the first place  ? It a huge coordinated effort regardless if nukes are used or not. Our nukes are not capable of getting to the asteroid without using spacecraft.

So quite frankly your stuck with using spacecraft and the coordinated effort is no different regardless of method. All methods will require a huge coordinated effort.

19 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Mordred, it would take more than a year to even coordinate such an effort, solar sails? There are no operational solar sails,

We have produced and tested solar sails as early as 2005. 

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20050209928/downloads/20050209928.pdf

its already been tested as a viable option.

20 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

 we have no space craft capable of flying to the moon much less an asteroid. A gravity tractor is an idea, none actually exist,

You only need a spacecraft with mass to get a gravity tractor. So stating none exist is plain wrong. We have spacecraft so we have the capability at this very moment.

Edited May 25 by Mordred

[dimreepr]

40 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Quite the contrary you seem to fear a nuke worse than an asteroid strike,

What sort of question is that? When a Tesla could fall on your head?

40 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

It should be the first option if no other option is credible, I see no reason to discount nukes, you seem to think a nuke is somehow a threat to the planet despite that being obviously hyped anti nuke propaganda.

The first option is to think about it?

[Moontanman]

Nuclear power and bombs are not the existential threat so often hyped up by anti nuke activists. I honestly do not understand why the use of nukes in space is so feared. A nuclear warhead detonated in space away from the Earth poses essentially no threat to the earth but could be an effective tool against an asteroid strike. A rocket to deliver such a payload could be built out of existing stock in just a few weeks, months at most. 

All the other methods would be fine if they were already in place, its practically a crime we don't already have them in place! But if we were confronted with such a threat with little time I see no other alternative except maybe just hunkering down and riding it out and that might be the right move for a small asteroid like the Tunguska event. In fact if we are presented with a Tunguska sized asteroid it would be a great reason to try and test the non nuke methods. If of course we could get some warning of such an event which I doubt is likely.  

It would take years to develop, build,and deploy the technologies that might work while a nuke is simple, easy to deploy and most importantly already available! I am not suggesting detonating a nuke in low earth orbit, I would assume it would be deployed as far away as time allowed but to suggest that the fall out from the detonation of a few nukes on an asteroid millions of miles away would threaten the earth in some existential way is preposterous. 

Between 1945 and 1980 507 atmospheric nuclear tests were carried out none of them resulted in widespread damage to the environment or the destruction of civilization. If I remember correctly IVY Mike was the worst of these, it resulted in some pretty bad contamination but that was due to poor planning and less than accurate science. I doubt detonating nukes on an asteroid millions of miles away would be the end of our civilization or be any real threat to anything.

Chernobyl, as bad as it was, didn't do that and and it released far more radioactive contamination than a few nukes would.  

Nor would a war head accidentally falling to the ground from orbit cause widespread damage or even widespread contamination. 

Preparation is the key, at this time I see no viable short term alternative but I wholeheartedly agree we should be preparing a way to counteract this threat and asserting that nukes should not be used really needs to be thought out a bit more clearly. 

So far all I see are vague notions of some harm a nuke might cause exaggerated beyond all reason. 

[Mordred]

Why would you believe firing nukes in space poses no threat ? You have EMP so you would need to be further out than the lunar orbit with the average yield warhead. That's a threat. You have an asteroid that gets radiated that if it does enter our atmosphere will contaminate our atmosphere.

That's a threat. Stating nukes fired in space poses no threat is plain wrong. The threat is real radiation and EMP is a threat. No amount of denial changes those facts.

The radiation from a nuke isn't the same as the radiation from the sun nor cosmic radiation. There is two main categories of nuclear radiation. Those categories are determined by the radiatio halflife . Short half life and long half life.

The Short term you get with EMP is damaging but goes away after a few years. The long halflife Euclidean can stay with us for thousands of years.

The region around Chernobyl won't be safely habitable for another 20, 000 years how is it that's safe ?

Edited May 25 by Mordred

[Moontanman]

2 minutes ago, Mordred said:

Why would you believe firing nukes in space poses no threat ? You have EMP so you would need to be further out than the lunar orbit with the average yield warhead. That's a threat.

Citation please, how far out would a nuke have to be to have a EMP effect on the Earth? I was assuming a nuke or any other means of deflection would have to used way before the moons orbit was breached by the object. Once it got that close it would essentially be only a few minutes to impact!  

 

2 minutes ago, Mordred said:

You have an asteroid that gets radiated that if it does enter our atmosphere will contaminate our atmosphere.

Even if that is true and the entire radiation load of the war head was transferred to the Earths atmosphere how is that any different than a nuclear test back in the era of atmospheric tests which we know didn't have much if any long term effects. 

2 minutes ago, Mordred said:

That's a threat. Stating nukes fired in space poses no threat is plain wrong. The threat is real radiation and EMP is a threat. No amount of denial changes those facts.

Citation please your assertions need to be backed up by more than your fear of nukes. 

[Mordred]

Really you can't spend 30 seconds using Google? Fine 

Here is one such link

https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/resources/health/health-effects-chernobyl-accident/

This describes the global effect of EMP from Starfish test.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime

https://www.osti.gov/biblio/4421057

Edited May 25 by Mordred

[Moontanman]

4 minutes ago, Mordred said:

Really you can't spend 30 seconds using Google? Fine 

Here is one such link

https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/resources/health/health-effects-chernobyl-accident/

Why is this relevant? Please explain. 

4 minutes ago, Mordred said:

This describes the global effect of EMP from Starfish test.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime

Starfish Prime was detonated in very low earth orbit not the distance of the moon! Citation for your assertions that a nuclear explosion inside the moons orbit would cause a EMP please.  

[Mordred]

https://www.epa.gov/radiation/federal-guidance-report-no-3-health-implications-fallout-nuclear-weapons-testing-through

18 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Why is this relevant? Please explain. 

Starfish Prime was detonated in very low earth orbit not the distance of the moon! Citation for your assertions that a nuclear explosion inside the moons orbit would cause a EMP please.  

Do you understand the 1/r^2 relation with EMP? Do you also understand that Starfish was only 1.4 megaton. What happens at 100 megatons ? You don't need a citation when simple physics will suffice you can mathematically run the calculations 

 

18 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Why is this relevant? Please explain. 

 

It's relevant ad you do not understand what threat nuclear weapons pose on both longterm and short term effect. I'd you believe there  is no threat. 

Considering I posted those links less than 5 minutes previous of your last response you obviously never took the time to even study them.

Edited May 25 by Mordred

[Moontanman]

1 minute ago, Mordred said:

https://www.epa.gov/radiation/federal-guidance-report-no-3-health-implications-fallout-nuclear-weapons-testing-through

I don't doubt that nuclear fallout can be dangerous what I am asserting it that the fall out from a bomb detonated millions of miles from the earth will not be significant. The amount of fall out is what is dangerous, a single bomb doesn't have the ability to significantly affect the environment, the fact that 507 didn't do it long term suggest that the idea of a nuclear explosions millions of miles away wouldn't do it either. 

You do realize that radioactivity is part of the natural environment and that the actual amount is what is important not that any amount exists.. right? 

I'm not suggesting there is no risk, I am asserting that the risk is far less than a asteroid hitting the earth. Risk management is the important thing here. What poses the most risk, an asteroid impact or the detonation of a warhead millions of miles away? 

 

[Mordred]

FiNALLY you realize a threat is possible now what happens if that asteroid shatters into smaller pieces and still enters Earths atmosphere ?

[Moontanman]

15 minutes ago, Mordred said:

https://www.epa.gov/radiation/federal-guidance-report-no-3-health-implications-fallout-nuclear-weapons-testing-through

Do you understand the 1/r^2 relation with EMP? Do you also understand that Starfish was only 1.4 megaton. What happens at 100 megatons ? You don't need a citation when simple physics will suffice you can mathematically run the calculations 

Who is suggesting a 100 megaton explosion? 

15 minutes ago, Mordred said:

 

It's relevant ad you do not understand what threat nuclear weapons pose on both longterm and short term effect. I'd you believe there  is no threat. 

I never said there is no threat, I said the risk is minimal and not significant to what we already have. 

15 minutes ago, Mordred said:

Considering I posted those links less than 5 minutes previous of your last response you obviously never took the time to even study them.

You forget that I might already be familiar with them, this is an area I was obsessed with many years ago. 

1 minute ago, Mordred said:

FiNALLY you realize a threat is possible now what happens if that asteroid shatters into smaller pieces and still enters Earths atmosphere ?

I am well aware of that, are you aware that the risk of shattering the asteroid can be mitigated? If the pieces still hit the earth the radiation will be the least of your worries. 

Now how about a citation that actually supports your assertions?  EMP inside the moons orbit, can you support that assertion? 

[zapatos]

3 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

You forget that I might already be familiar with them, this is an area I was obsessed with many years ago. 

Given that you asked for the citations then asked about their relevance, you can perhaps forgive Mordred for questioning your familiarity with the subject.

[Moontanman]

8 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Given that you asked for the citations then asked about their relevance, you can perhaps forgive Mordred for questioning your familiarity with the subject.

Before this I was up for forgiving Mordred for lots of things but his assertions need to be backed up. I am well aware of the dangers of radioactivity he apparently is not and keep insisting on exaggerating the dangers with no reason other than his assertions. The links he has provided so far do not back up his assertions at all and in fact support my view of mitigating risks. 

Dilution is the solution to pollution!  

[zapatos]

11 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

I am well aware of the dangers of radioactivity he apparently is not and keep insisting on exaggerating the dangers with no reason other than his assertions.

Perhaps it is just me but I cannot see where he has been exaggerating the dangers. Can you please show a specific statement he made that was an exaggeration so that we can dive down into the details and evaluate it?

[Moontanman]

10 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Perhaps it is just me but I cannot see where he has been exaggerating the dangers. Can you please show a specific statement he made that was an exaggeration so that we can dive down into the details and evaluate it?

Yes, he asserts that a nuke detonated in space millions of miles from the earth would create enough radioactivity to threaten the earth... citation please!

So far all he has done is show that radiation from past bombs exist and he equates the deep space detonation with the 507 bombs that resulted in part of our radiation exposure on the Earth. 

Show me that one or even several detonations would do any such thing, even if they all detonated on the Earth the vast majority of the people on the planet would remain as oblivious as they were of the past detonations. I am not saying that would be a good thing I am saying it wouldn't be worse than an asteroid impact.  

Risk mitigation, which is worse the release of a small amount of radiation or the impact of an asteroid. Even Tunguska would have been much worse than a modern nuke of 1.5 megatons exploding in space to try to prevent it. His assertion that nuke in space inside the orbit of the moon would cause an EMP needs a citation! 

Can he not defend himself? 

Edited May 25 by Moontanman

[Mordred]

Can you answer what happens if a radiated asteroid enters the atmosphere ? We cannot assume you will get 100 percent deflection.

Secondly I mentioned you do not get the kinetic explosion that you do in the atmosphere. So you require higher a  megaton explosion to get the radiation caused outgassing. The 100 Megatons is simply a random approximation.

As far as EMP the 1/r^2 relation is well known and understood it doesn't require citation.

Lastly if you read back a page or two I mentioned nukes could be safely used provided you can

100 percent guarantee total deflection 

Edited May 25 by Mordred