#FINETUNE ODDS ASTEROID EARTH HOW TO#
No matter how many nice uses of nuclear power there are for space, the same concerns boil down to not trusting everyone to keep the nuclear material safe enough that some "rogue element" won't weaponize them and turn them against the humans on planet Earth.Īnd this is not purely a political issue, this is one of those " letting the genie out of the bottle" issues humanity faces as we get good at developing technology (biological weapons are a concern too), where we don't know how to keep planet Earth safe from lots of loose nuclear weapons. In which case the reason why we don't use such propulsion techniques is because we'd be putting NUCLEAR BOMBS IN SPACE. If we're not talking about using nuclear weapons for destruction, disabling, or deterrence, of an asteroid, then essentially you're talking about using some form of nuclear pulse propulsion - which is an old idea. Once the asteroid is closer, a second batch of nuclear explosives would be launched to fine-tune the asteroid's into a deep aerobreaking trajectory into Earth's polar regions (either Antarctica or on the frozen tundra of Alaska/Canada/Greenland etc.) Would that be an viable option? One potential solution is to launch several "batches" of nuclear explosives: the first "batch" would bring the asteroid to a near collision trajectory with Earth. The bigger challenge is whether we could bring such an asteroid to earth without causing a major global catastrophe. (10302) 1989 ML: ~600m diameter, iron nickel & cobalt rich composition A few examples I could think of are:ġ997 RT: ~300m diameter rare O-type asteroid, thought to be rich in platinumĤ660 Nereus: 510 m × 330 m × 241 m, E-type asteroid The target would be a sub-kilometer M-type or metal-rich S, E or O type asteroid, hopefully already on a "convenient" close approach orbit relative to Earh. The selectable yield of nuclear charges would allow for relatively precise trajectory corrections. The process would be similar to the approach outlined in the NASA 2006 Near-Earth Object Survey and Deflection Study ( ), except now using SLS to carry either 6-8 variable yield nuclear explosives (up to 1.2 megatons each based on the B83 warhead). While there are plenty of discussions about using nuclear explosives for near Earth object (NEO) impact avoidance, not much is said about using similar methods to intentionally bring asteroids on collision course with Earth for scientific or commercial purposes. "I think that, overall, the situation has improved."Read more of this story at Slashdot.On the subject of potential peaceful applications of nuclear explosives for space exploration (other than as spacecraft propulsion), would it possible to use several precisely delivered nuclear explosive charges to "safely (in a highly elastic sense)" bring a sub-kilometer asteroid to Earth surface, for scientific and/or commercial mineral extraction purposes? "The impact probability went up just a little bit but it's not a significant change, the impact probability is pretty much the same," lead author Davide Farnocchia, who works at NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies in California, said during a news conference held Wednesday (Aug. And besides, the lessons the research offers for asteroid trajectory calculation could reduce concerns about potential impacts by other asteroids more than enough to compensate. Technically, that's a small increase in risk, but the scientists behind the new research say they aren't worried about a potential impact.
While a slightly higher risk than past estimates, it represents a minuscule change in an already minuscule risk, NASA said. From the report: Estimates produced before OSIRIS-REx arrived at the space rock tallied the cumulative probability of a Bennu impact between the years 21 at 1 in 2,700, according to NASA.
"As a result, scientists behind new research now say they're confident that the asteroid's total impact probability through 2300 is just 1 in 1,750," reports.
NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has been orbiting an asteroid called Bennu for more than two years to fine-tune the agency's existing models of its trajectory.
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