Wanted: man to land on killer asteroid and gently nudge it from path to Earth

[motivez]

It is the stuff of nightmares and, until now, Hollywood thrillers. A huge asteroid is on a catastrophic collision course with Earth and mankind is poised to go the way of the dinosaurs.

To save the day, Nasa now plans to go where only Bruce Willis has gone before. The US space agency is drawing up plans to land an astronaut on an asteroid hurtling through space at more than 30,000 mph. It wants to know whether humans could master techniques needed to deflect such a doomsday object when it is eventually identified. The proposals are at an early stage, and a spacecraft needed just to send an astronaut that far into space exists only on the drawing board, but they are deadly serious. A smallish asteroid called Apophis has already been identified as a possible threat to Earth in 2036.

Chris McKay of the Nasa Johnson Space Centre in Houston told the website Space.com: "There's a lot of public resonance with the notion that Nasa ought to be doing something about killer asteroids ... to be able to send serious equipment to an asteroid.

"The public wants us to have mastered the problem of dealing with asteroids. So being able to have astronauts go out there and sort of poke one with a stick would be scientifically valuable as well as demonstrate human capabilities."

A 1bn tonne asteroid just 1km across striking the Earth at a 45 degree angle could generate the equivalent of a 50,000 megatonne thermonuclear explosion. Attempting to break it up with an atomic warhead might only generate thousands of smaller objects on a similar course, which could have time to reform. Scientists agree the best approach, given enough warning, would be to gently nudge the object into a safer orbit.

"A human mission to a near Earth asteroid would be scientifically worthwhile," Dr McKay said. "There could be testing of various approaches. We don't know enough about asteroids right now to know the best strategy for mitigation."

Matt Genge, a space researcher at Imperial College, London, has calculated that something with the mass, acceleration and thrust of a small car could push an asteroid weighing a billion tonnes out of the path of Earth in just 75 days.

Gianmarco Radice, an asteroid expert at Glasgow University, said the best approach would be to land a device to dig into the object. "You could place something on the surface to eject material that would push the asteroid in the other direction."

Mirrors, lights and even paint could change the way the object absorbed light and heat enough to shift its direction over 20 years or so. With less notice, mankind could be forced to take more drastic measures, such as setting off a massive explosion on or near the object to change its course. In 2005, Nasa's Deep Impact mission tested a different technique when it placed an object into the path of a comet.

Dr Radice said robots could do the job just as well, doing away with the need for a risky and expensive manned mission. Last year Japan showed with its Hayabusa probe that a remote spacecraft can land on an asteroid.

But with manned missions to the moon and possibly Mars on its to-do list again, Nasa is keen to extend the reach of its astronauts.

Dan Durda, a senior research scientist in the Department of Space Studies at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado said an asteroid landing mission would be a good way test the new Constellation programme spacecraft, the Apollo-style planned replacements for the space shuttle with which Nasa hopes to return to the moon.

He told Space.com: "A very natural, early extension of the exploration capabilities of this new vehicle's architecture would be a "quick-dash" near-Earth asteroid rendezvous mission."

Tom Jones, a former shuttle astronaut, said: "After a lunar visit, we face a long interval in Earth-Moon space while we build up experience and technology for a Mars mission. An asteroid mission could take us immediately into deep space, sustaining programme momentum, adding public excitement and reducing the risk of a later Mars mission."

Europe has its own efforts to tackle asteroids. Its planned Don Quijote mission will launch two robot spacecraft, one to tilt at a harmless passing space rock, and a second to film the collision and watch for any deviation in the asteroid's path.


'Not if, but when...' Hits and near misses

At Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in California, scientists monitor all "potentially hazardous asteroids" that might one day end up on a collision course with Earth. So far they number 831. The next close-ish shave - at a mere 17 times the distance from the Sun to the Earth - will be asteroid 2004QD14 on November 29.

The Earth has a long history of asteroid strikes. Thirty five million years ago, a 5km-wide asteroid ploughed into what is now Chesapeake Bay, in the US, leaving an 80km crater. In 1908, an asteroid devastated swaths of Siberia when it exploded mid-air with the force of 1,000 Hiroshimas. The theory that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a huge asteroid striking Mexico 65m years ago is controversial since scientists uncovered rocks from the crater predating the extinction of the dinosaurs by 300,000 years.

A near miss, when asteroid QW7 came within 4m km of Earth in September 2000, led Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik to declare: "It's not a case of if we will be hit, it is a question of when. Each of us is 750 times more likely to be killed by an asteroid than to win this weekend's lottery."

In January 2002, the former science minister, David Sainsbury, announced the government's response to the threat from hurtling asteroids: a new information centre based in Leicester.

Wanted: man to land on killer asteroid and gently nudge it from path to Earth | Science | Guardian Unlimited

Well, this is a pretty interesting development from NASA. I think we should be able to do stuff about asteroids with the potential to make the human race extinct..

In terms of "security," there's probably not that many issues that could have such a devastating impact on mankind.

So, do you think this is even possible to do?

[ballz2wallz]

They should practice their 'star wars' laser weapons and missiles to hit it.

Spending this much time and money on preparing to land someone on an asteroid sounds ridiculous to me.

[AVengeance]

Real-life mimicking Hollywood again?

I think we'd have better results from LASERs or MASERs than from trying to land a manned craft on it, and somehow (they don't bother to say "how") nudge it from its doomsday course.

Then, how many BILLIONS of years has Earth been around, and how long has it been since a doomsday space rock hit it? Yea.

[Thomas Crown]

I don't have a problem with reasonable preparation. The probabilities say the longer it has been since one hit us, the sooner one will be here. I think we need to perfect a technology terestrially first though.

[AVengeance]

Originally Posted by Thomas Crown

I don't have a problem with reasonable preparation. The probabilities say the longer it has been since one hit us, the sooner one will be here. I think we need to perfect a technology terestrially first though.

I'm sorry, but that's not the way probability works, or everyone would have a much better idea of what lottery numbers to play.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by AVengeance

I'm sorry, but that's not the way probability works, or everyone would have a much better idea of what lottery numbers to play.

Lottery numbers are random and the variables are reset every time though.

The course of an asteroid is something that can be predicted, as long as information about it is known. Statistics say it's already not a matter of if, but when.

[AVengeance]

Originally Posted by motivez

Lottery numbers are random and the variables are reset every time though.

The course of an asteroid is something that can be predicted, as long as information about it is known. Statistics say it's already not a matter of if, but when.

You're talking apples and oranges again. First you say the course of an asteroid, then you say statistics. If we're talking about a SPECIFIC celestial body, then that's one thing. If we're talking about random chance putting an unknown object in the path of Earth's Solar orbit, that unknown means the numbers are reset every time you want to calculate it.

BTW, just to scare everybody, this rogue asteroid wouldn't even have to hit Earth. Imagine what would happen if Luna got knocked out of orbit or destroyed!!!

[Publius]

Honestly, we would probably be more successful just launching several probes at an asteroid that are carrying nuclear devices. We've already managed to strike a comet with a probe so we've proved the feasibility of it, and with a nuclear detonation in space you only need to be in the neighborhood to change the asteroid's course enough to make it miss Earth, assuming we do it early enough.

Hell, just an object striking a comet without explosives aboard made a 200m wide, 30-50m deep crater... 9P/Tempel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I see no need for a manned mission to do it.

[Ardentfrost]

Originally Posted by Publius

Honestly, we would probably be more successful just launching several probes at an asteroid that are carrying nuclear devices. We've already managed to strike a comet with a probe so we've proved the feasibility of it, and with a nuclear detonation in space you only need to be in the neighborhood to change the asteroid's course enough to make it miss Earth, assuming we do it early enough.

Hell, just an object striking a comment without explosives aboard made a 200m wide, 30-50m deep crater... 9P/Tempel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I see no need for a manned mission to do it.

B/c hollywood told us it needed to be done that way!

[AVengeance]

Originally Posted by Publius

Hell, just an object striking a comment without explosives aboard made a 200m wide, 30-50m deep crater... I see no need for a manned mission to do it.

I agree, but an asteroid is very different from a comet. Comets are actually pretty fragile (compared to asteroids). It's the difference between a snowball and a rock.

Still, though, using a LASER to heat up one side of the rock, or using nukes in the vicinity to alter the course... there are just so many other easier, cheaper, more reliable methods than trying to land people on it.

[Diamond Cross]

I'd do it.

[ManiacusXtremus]

last i heard, those NASA guys were trying to perfect 2 methods, one was to blast it in half, and the other was to gently pull it out of the fatal strike path using artificial gravities generated by some satellites orbiting around it... what do you guys think... worth the shot????

[7960]

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

I'd do it.

You wouldn't come back.

You'd have to go now to intercept it at a point where it's "20/30/40 years away"...since we can't fly at the speed of light it'd take at least half that to get there, then again to get home. You're looking at a decades-long round trip.

It's a suicide mission but not because you'd die blowing it up. It would probably just take so long that you'd grow old and die on the ship.

Originally Posted by Thomas Crown

The probabilities say the longer it has been since one hit us, the sooner one will be here.

This misunderstanding of probability makes me sad.

When the Challenger shuttle blew up I remember hearing a "scientist" say it *MUST* have been hit by a meteor because "we've been sending ships up for "so long" and none have ever been hit by a meteor so "we were due."

... I forget the news show it was but I do remember they didn't have that guy back.

[7960]

Originally Posted by ManiacusXtremus

last i heard, those NASA guys were trying to perfect 2 methods, one was to blast it in half, and the other was to gently pull it out of the fatal strike path using artificial gravities generated by some satellites orbiting around it... what do you guys think... worth the shot????

No. Breaking it in half would just mean we'd be hit by two pieces instead of one. It would be WORSE.

And if someone from NASA said

• we can generate artificial gravity, or
• we can build a satelite big enough to have its natural gravity affect an asteroid, or
• something in ORBIT around a satelite would change it's path

then he's probably eating alone at the NASA lunch table since then with all the other scientists mocking him and throwing their peas and corn just past his head and yelling "did you feel the gravity on that one!!"

All of those are rediculous.

[motivez]

I thought that it didn't really take much of anything to artificially change the trajectory of an asteroid?

[7960]

Originally Posted by motivez

I thought that it didn't really take much of anything to artificially change the trajectory of an asteroid?

It wouldn't. But we also wouldn't be able to send much out to meet it. Last I read scientists believed a nuclear explosion near it would sort of "cook" one side and cause it to eject gas and nudge it. The explosion wouldn't do much of anything...it was the "cooking" and gas ejection that was going to actually move it.

It's a theory........ who knows how it'd work in real life. Good thing is we at least have some practice getting a satelite close to a comet. A meteor shouldn't be much different.