Saving the World

[Airbrush]

How much of the NASA budget should go towards exploration of NEOs with robotic probes and testing methods of deflection? Manned space missions to the Moon or Mars are comparatively costly, and not an imperative. We would look like the good guys to the rest of the world, for a change, if we shifted the emphasis of our future space exploration budget, maybe up to 50%, towards protecting our planet. Even if the probability is very low that we will suffer a major impact in the next few decades, we should vastly expand detection stations and start testing defensive methods long before we ever detect the real thing. How about telescopes on the far side of the moon? They would always be facing away from Earth scanning our surrounding space? Then they relay messages to satelites orbiting the Moon to send back to Earth.

Edited September 15, 2009 by Airbrush

[Arch2008]

So instead of finding tritium deposits on the Moon for our fusion reactors, we should spend approximately 8.7 billion USD on saving the world? If we spent half of the foreign aid on doing this it would be 10+ billion USD. I mean, you describe this as foreign aid right? I just think that defeating malaria or world hunger demands our immediate attention. The only threat from space that we can possibly defeat is one that is decades away and we are doing some things to meet that threat already.

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/

[insane_alien]

we don't need tritium from the moon(we can get it from the ocean easily enough) what we want from the moon is helium-3 (currently at a ridiculously large cost, somewhere around $1000 per gram) for use in fusion.

[Airbrush]

I just think that defeating malaria or world hunger demands our immediate attention. The only threat from space that we can possibly defeat is one that is decades away and we are doing some things to meet that threat already.

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/

 

Thanks for the link Arch. That is an interesting site. No, defeating malaria and world hunger are not the top priority. Population control, global warming, and environmental degredation trumps them. So you give impoverished countries food. The local war lords just steal it, and whatever is left over just gives people the energy to rape each other to make more starving people.

 

The threats from space are not known. We need to scan more local space. We will probably not be annihilated over the next few decades, but it will TAKE decades, at the snail pace space exploration is now going, before we have tested defense systems on line ready to go. You think it is more important to send a probe to Europa to look for bacteria under miles of water ice, than to secure this planet from dangerous, or even catastrophic impacts?

 

BTW, fusion power is far off in the distant future. Wind and solar, along with improved batteries, are more promising for the near future.

[Arch2008]

You're welcome. The problem with lecturing starving people about population control, global warming and environmental degradation is that they are starving. Also, malaria kills over 800,000 people a year, every year. If world opinion can affect population control, global warming and environmental degradation, then maybe we should use it to get warlords to feed their people.

 

We have a program to search for NEO's. We have not identified a specific, dangerous threat, and certainly not a pending catastrophic impact, requiring a Manhattan type program to secure this planet. I think that it is important to do science, and everything else, until we do.

 

BTW, I don't have a crystal ball, but fusion power may come in my lifetime. So why not have wind, solar and fusion?

[Airbrush]

We have a small, under-funded program to search for NEOs. I only propose we scale it up so we can detect 99% of all NEOs that can cause more than local damage within the next decade. Instead of spending so much on other kinds of space exploration, devote more on planetary defense. If our enemies know we are working on systems to save THEM and their loved ones, that will take SOME of the steam out of their terrorist attacks.

 

We need to develop two kinds of threat mitigation strategies, the direct method, and the indirect method. I have discussed these here before but basically the direct methods are much cheaper and intended for short-notice threats, such as nuclear explosions in close proximity or kinetic impactors. The indirect methods are more costly and take much longer to deploy because they must travel to the object and change course up to 180 degrees to match the speed and direction of the object. Then using techniques such as gravity tractors or laser cannons to slowly nudge it off course over a period of years.

 

We still may do something to control malaria and world hunger, but those are not from NASA's budget.

 

I would like to see fusion power in the near term, but it seems so difficult to accomplish, maintaining a core temperature of over 200 million degrees F. Over the next few decades I think we can do a lot more with wind, solar, nuclear, and perhaps tidal power, along with improved energy efficiency.

Edited September 16, 2009 by Airbrush

[Arch2008]

Well the existing small, under-funded program plans on finding 90% of all NEO's over the next decade. This page has a report on how to deflect an identified NEO using Apophis as a test case:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/pdc_paper.html

The report considers a Gravity Tractor for NEO's where decades are available to deflect them. A Kinetic Energy impactor deflection approach is recommended when more urgency is required and the two methods can be combined. So wheels are turning and what you propose is not beyond our means. Would a 9% greater discovery rate make an NEO "Czar" necessary? Would an untested "NEO killer" on the launch pad right now make us any safer? The existing system did not find/warn of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Mediterranean_Event

or this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitim_event

So your more articulate argument can certainly be made.

[Airbrush]

Thanks for your thoughts and links Arch! This subject fascinates me. I wish I could help work on these, but I am only a bookkeeper for a restaurant.

[Arch2008]

You're welcome. Einstein was a patent clerk, so never underestimate what you might figure out for the rest of us.

[Airbrush]

Nice to know that. Anyone looking for someone to sweep up around the telescopes or cleaning around the computers? I have a BS degree in accounting and could help out with number crunching. If I had a job working on finding NEOs or helping the NEO search folks in other ways, like a gofer, there would be wings on my feet and I would sail to work each day with enthusiasm rather than the tedium of crunching numbers for a restaurant

 

Anyone hiring?

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Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

Here is my idea for a kinetic slapper for short-notice impactors (SNI). For SNI only a direct method stands any chance for success. The kinetic slapper would be a rocket that just before impact splits up into a giant net to soften the impact and thus not break apart the bolide. The kinetic slapper would be built in multitudes and all assigned the same mission: hundreds of them speed towards the SNI at highest closing speeds possible, maybe 10 to 20 miles per second, and just before impact they split apart into a number of sections extending a giant net. The combined effect of hundreds of these kamakazi rockets could be just enough to cause it to skip off the atmosphere and go away.

Edited September 17, 2009 by Airbrush

[Airbrush]

What is the world going to do with it's nuclear arsenal? You are right, convert them into defense against short notice impactors (SNI). I have never heard the term "SNI". It distinguishes among NEOs and comets. It means an object that is big enough to cause significant damage on Earth that has been determined IT WILL IMPACT EARTH within perhaps a few years. Then the best you can do is convert as many nuclear missiles as possible to rocket into outer space towards the object and detonate close enough to cause outgasing from the object that can push it like millions of tiny rockets the other way. If enough of the nukes explode properly, it might be enough to save the Earth from a deadly impact.

Edited September 24, 2009 by Airbrush

[Severian]

While I agree that manned space flight is probably not the best way to spend the money, I think you need to put it in perspective. The NASA budget is something like 4% of the money that was spent on the financial bail out. I personally think scientific research should be one of our top priorities for spending, not some backwater getting any lose change we can spare from somewhere else.

[Mr Skeptic]

Here is my idea for a kinetic slapper for short-notice impactors (SNI). For SNI only a direct method stands any chance for success. The kinetic slapper would be a rocket that just before impact splits up into a giant net to soften the impact and thus not break apart the bolide. The kinetic slapper would be built in multitudes and all assigned the same mission: hundreds of them speed towards the SNI at highest closing speeds possible, maybe 10 to 20 miles per second, and just before impact they split apart into a number of sections extending a giant net. The combined effect of hundreds of these kamakazi rockets could be just enough to cause it to skip off the atmosphere and go away.

 

That is very similar to the idea I had, that you take a kinetic impactor and shoot a big net at the asteroid. The bulk of the craft is attached to the net with a long cable on a reel. The bulk of the craft may miss the asteroid (should actually), and apply a gentle force as the cable unreels. No fear of this "impactor" breaking the asteroid into rubble or poking through it. As a bonus, the craft can survive and could use it's remaining fuel to accelerate, so long as it doesn't cut the cable. This should be far more efficient than a gravity tractor.

[Airbrush]

That sounds good Mr Skeptic. Maybe just before impact the Slapper splits into 3 rockets that spread the net and rocket past the object at very high closing speed, maybe 20 or 30 miles per second. Even a modest mass at such high velocity will deliver a high kinetic push (KE = 1/2mv^2). The cables may need some elasticity to soften the impact. After contact, ion rockets can continue pushing the object away. The angle of contact would be somewhere between 100 to 180 degrees.