Asteroid Could Hit Earth in 2182

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38434537/ns/technology_and_science-space/

Now, before Vigil goes to town with this one, I suggest two options:

1. Blow it up real good right now.

2. Wait until 2182, and then ferry it to the Charon Relay, where it can be safely launched to somewhere else in space.

My Solution

thats 172 years from now, not our problem, our children and grand childrens problem, and mostlikly by then we'll have planetary defences and what not

Mij Gilamar wrote:thats 172 years from now, not our problem, our children and grand childrens problem, and mostlikly by then we'll have planetary defences and what not

Putting the problem off is always a good idea

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

we should worry more about this

I don't remember any news of an asteroid striking Earth in Mass Effect, so we'll be fine.

Bringing down the sky ring a bell?

Though that was going to hit Terra Nova, not Earth.

Ironically around the same time as this asteroid too.

1. Game over man! 2. We need to do something about this.

Lets fire an equally sized asteroid at it made out of pieces of the moon and duct tape

Lets all not pretend like any of us actually have a say in it as not a single one of us are over 25?

That's weird, in the UK 18 is the age at which you get the right to vote on matters involving asteroids, comets, meteors and all things spacey.

We already have enough nukes to blow the earth up several times, and nukes aren't even our most powerful weapon anymore. Just get some weapons that work in space and launch em and the thing. If we can't figure out how to do that in the next 172 years, we deserve to be blown up.

Wait, nukes aren't the most powerful anymore?
What's the stronger thing?

RX wrote:Wait, nukes aren't the most powerful anymore?
What's the stronger thing?

My fists.

Or, DISEASE SPREADING EPIDEMIC!

RX wrote:Wait, nukes aren't the most powerful anymore?
What's the stronger thing?

What do you think?

nukes are powerful, but the problem with a nuke in space is that there is no atmosphere for a shock wave... it has lots of heat and radiation... but there would be no pressure wave in space to push the asteroid in a different direction

What about a missle? Your still hitting it with kinetic energy, which would be transfered to the asteroid, and as there is no friction or resistance in space, you could change its momentum pretty easily.

thats what I believe would be best... attack a rocket array to the side... if you deflect it by an inch you will have changed its trajectory by millions of miles by the time it would have hit earth

How do they think it will hit anyway? How do they know it wont hit other space junk that will deflect it? how do they know the earth WILL be in it cross hairs... i should ask that girl in my class who goes to space camp...

Because it would have to be a pretty big chunk of space rock to move it, and asteroid are the only thing that might do that naturally. The asteroid belt doesn't have the huge asteroid depicted in movies, it's more like sand and small pebbles than mile wide chunks of rock.

The solution: Pea Gravel.

When we have a functioning Moon Base, we build a 1000mm supergun and load it with rocket-assisted canisters of pea gravel. These canisters explode on proximity to the target, showering the asteroid in a fine spray of high-velocity pea gravel. This should be enough to either wear it down or push it out of the way of Earth, given enough shots.

Angatar wrote:Because it would have to be a pretty big chunk of space rock to move it, and asteroid are the only thing that might do that naturally. The asteroid belt doesn't have the huge asteroid depicted in movies, it's more like sand and small pebbles than mile wide chunks of rock.

actually the asteroid belt has a large amount of earth killers in it by itself.


but as Douglas Adams put it... Space is big... so it is unlikely of anything sizeable crossing paths with anything that was coming toward our plant

Earths been around for a few billion years along with all the other planets in the solar system.


None have been "destroyed" (in complete format) so far, doubt it'll happen in the next 200 years.

Mars probably had the worse deal. It probably used to sustain life.