NASA chief: Earth is DOOMED if we spot a big asteroid at short notice Billions of dollars are needed to keep the Earth safe from asteroids like the one that smashed into Russia last month, experts have told the US government. Planetoid crashes into primordial Earth While NASA has made good progress cataloguing nearly 93 per cent of larger Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), smaller meteorites like the …
As long as we don't look, the impact will have happened and not-happened at the same time. Perhaps we need then to invest in devices which help us to look LESS. Maybe we could dig very deep holes in the ground to stick all our camera's, devices and antenna's in and even bury them. We ourselves could permanently look underground, remove any senses from the surface and it will be all right. Or at least for ever uncertain.
Not even as innocent at that - they're making up a number that theyhope will give the impression that while they do a VERY GOOD JOB with their current resources, there is still a measurable improvement (which is not an unreasonably large amount as to suggest they are not doing very well, but enough to make it worth investigating whether this improvement can be met) that could be gained if they receive MORE MONEY.
FUD 101 - suggest could be much worse if you weren't here, and even better if you pay me more, but completely theoretical and unproveable in all instances.
X amount of rocks coming into and out of view, assorted sizes and directions, in a given volume of space.
Multiply the amount of rocks, a given period of time, a general volume of space.....
Like catching fish in a given volume of ocean.
IF there are X fish in Y volume of ocean, then a sample of say 10% of that volume, would give an average for the whole volume in any other area.
Comforting to know about the ones you don't know about, are not equipped to do anything about or things like the odd big one that just kind of snuck in there....
Surely protecting the planet from asteroid impacts is one of the most important things we could spend money on?
I don't get why the nations with Space Expertise Faring nations don't just get together on this...
The UK spends £1Billion a year on overseas aid, we give a fortune to India... Lets STOP giving that money to countries with the money to look after themselves and start spending it on space!
If the UK, China, Japan, Russia, USA & lets not forget the rest of the ESA contributing countries, just worked together on this, each bung in a couple of hundred million.... and then start building a decent detection network!
Then maybe once we know what is out there, we can start looking at solutions to prevent impacts...
If we don't all stop bickering and start working together, the human race might be extinct in 100 years time!
There's no rational reason why people should care about how long the human race survives. People aren't rational, of course, but by and large they still don't care much.
Therefore, any solution to prevent asteroid impacts had better be cheap enough to be justifiable in terms of the benefit it brings to individual tax payers. That may well be possible, but proponents must come up with some plausible numbers. What are the chances of an asteroid impact injuring me or my immediate family? How much money do you need to significantly reduce those chances?
"The UK spends £1Billion a year on overseas aid"
Oh not it doesn't. David Cameron has committed to spending thirteen billion quid on foreign aid this year. Most of that will go through DFID, but there's a few billion of it frittered through contributions to charities, EU aid funds, and directly to international quangos ("multilateral agencies" as the government calls them).
http://www.ifs.org.uk/budgets/gb2012/12chap7.pdf
If US government won't fund an asteroid gun that only proves they don't need an asteroid gun. Probably because they know the reptilians who now control the shadow government will not allow an asteroid to damage the Earth they want to inherit. They'e already installed obama as a test of our resolve and put sterilization drugs in our vaccinations and water supply (not mine I only drink Dr Pepper), so now we are in the end game.
"If it's coming in three weeks ... pray," Bolden replied. "The reason I can't do anything in the next three weeks is because for decades we have put it off."
Decades? It's been at least three thousand years and, if the evolutionists are right, nearer three million. The last strike of any consequence might arguably have wiped out all the dinosaurs, but nobody can seriously argue that had any significant deleterious effect, economic or otherwise. Yet, in the meantime, human populations have been decimated by successive plagues and famines and, just within the last century, we've managed to flatten a few cities with no help from outer space.
If the US really wants to save the world, its money would be better spent on surgical masks, instant noodles and better weapons.
might, many eons from now, discover signs of a previous civilization on this planet, gone extinct by a huge meteor blast, and conclude that the dumbasses spent their resources on building expensive weaponry aimed at each rather than focusing on getting off their rock and into space. - "What a stupid excuse for intelligent life! Serves them right."
Asteroid heading towards earth - "Don't worry folks, we've had it on the radar for months. Nothing to see here. We're definitely not incompetent."
Asteroid passes the earth - (Hang on there's the opportunity for some funding here). "Yeah, Earth's detection systems are woefully inadequate - we need lots of more cash now. Before you spend it all on healthcare."
Forget asteroids. A star could go supernova at any point. It could obliterate our solar system. Our Galaxy could collide with another, destroying the entire, well, um, galaxy.
Likewise, risk vs probability vs cost etc. Some of these things might happen, some of these things might happen millions or billions of years from now. Some of our actions might be able to reduce their occurrence. However, much easier than trying to stop an asteroid, trying to stop the self destruction of a star or trying to stop the collision of two galaxies, is just trying to be as self sufficient as possible.
Don't go exploding your own back yard, and you'll have at least one less thing to destroy your back yard. Change the things you can change first, and not waste resources on things that don't give a return.
An example would be, trying to move the planet to avoid an asteroid. When really it's much more achievable to move the asteroid out of the way of the planet. Taken a step further, it's much easier to move people away from an impact site than it is to move an asteroid. Taken even further, if we spent less time trying to harm each other, there would be more time to spend trying to move asteroids, move people etc.
I'm sure it has been said already, but it is quite depressing to know that the U.S. spent more on the bank bailout than the entire history of NASA's budget. Too bad there isn't enough money in space for NASA to have it's own lobbyists. Too bad our gov is more interested in profit than pure research in general.
Since they are tracking 90% of 1 mile+ sized asteroids... other than the 10% we're not sure about yet.. is there any in the nexty sa 100 years that are going to impact us?
I agree with a previous post, Leftwinger wrote about how there are plenty of countries, that if pooled together, could easily mass billions right now with minimal impact on their budgets. Shoot, I read that 212 more people made it to the billionaire list in 2012. If I had a 100 million, I'd like to donate 1 million to help. With 1000's of people earning that kind of money if not way more, why not put out some sort of tax writeoff to fund this project? I mean, think about it.. next to some sort of crazy disease, nucelar war.. there really isn't anything else that we know of that would wipe use out so quickly and easily. Why is it those in power always seem to not give a crap about anything well..frankly, of utmost importance to the existence of.. us? Do they have some super secret space ship they get to live in if the world is about to end so they don't care? I don't understand how something of such importance can be overlooked for the sake of money.. with which they could easily get 100x the needed amount to get this going in the next couple of years, not 20+.
As long as we are confined to one planet, then something will eventually wipe us out. War, super viruses, pollution, meteors, a nova - it is just a matter of time before something does the job. Self-sufficient colonies on other worlds are the best, and the only real, chance we have.
This would be a perfect time to "repurpose" those spare multi-megaton nukes that the USA, Russia and China can't seem to dispose of into an Orion aka "nuclear pulse jet" asteroid nudge system.
No need to drill into said asteroid, just impact it off axis at 0.05C and the inertia will do the rest.
Simplez!
The NASA website tells us that comets have orbits that extend up to millions of years : http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/special/smbod.htm .
I am not surprised, all things are possible up to the extreme of the sun's gravity. It is a long way to our second nearest star.
Loose rocks in space can have the same extremely elliptical orbits. From the limited sample af recent observations nobody can have the faintest idea what is out there, and could arrive on this planet within a few months of discovery.
...transferring all that money to the Vogons and asking them
a) to relocate the hyper-space bypass just far enough out of original path to take out putative asteroid (say 5% of required total bribe err, development fund)
b) to PLEASE not recite any of their poetry (remaining 95% of funds).
Had this covered in a Hammer from God. All you need to do is pop a big f**k off rocket on the thing, while it's somewhere between Neptune and Jupiter, to deflect it and hope that a bunch of religious lunatics don't sabotage said rocket.
If plan A fails, try to nuke it and remember to set the timer right on the big f**k off bomb you send towards it.
"NASA believes it has discovered 93 per cent of the largest asteroids in near-Earth orbit, those one kilometre or larger. But what about the other seven per cent remaining"
If NASA believes that's it's discovered 93% of the largest asteroids, and therefore must know that there are 7% more out there, doesn't this mean they have discovered 100% of the largest asteroids?!
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