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2021-05-04 Science & Technology
Mission IMPOSSIBLE: NASA warns even a nuclear bomb wouldn't stop a giant asteroid heading for Earth after massive six month simulation exercise ends in devastating impact
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Posted by Skidmark 2021-05-04 09:45|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11127 views ]  Top

#1 Haven't we known this since the movie Meteor?
Posted by swksvolFF 2021-05-04 11:10||   2021-05-04 11:10|| Front Page Top

#2 This means we could not blow it up, as a nuke may not put a dent in it

You don't 'blow it up'. You hit it to alter trajectory. Think pool.
Posted by Procopius2k 2021-05-04 11:54||   2021-05-04 11:54|| Front Page Top

#3 Did they try blowing it up after Call to Prayer?
Posted by swksvolFF 2021-05-04 12:21||   2021-05-04 12:21|| Front Page Top

#4 Let me guess, they planned to hit it with one, way late. Soon as detected, you plan on sending a stream of nukes, to start tapping the thing on a new course. You don't sit there and wait til it's too late to do anything.
Posted by Silentbrick 2021-05-04 13:33||   2021-05-04 13:33|| Front Page Top

#5 "You forgot to drill into it first, geniuses!"

Posted by Dron66046 2021-05-04 13:36||   2021-05-04 13:36|| Front Page Top

#6 I'm sure a lockdown and masks will be adequate...
Posted by M. Murcek 2021-05-04 14:19||   2021-05-04 14:19|| Front Page Top

#7 It all depends on how far away you detect it and how quickly you act. Nothing works late but almost anything works early.
Posted by Glenmore 2021-05-04 14:32||   2021-05-04 14:32|| Front Page Top

#8 Dr Fauci said it would take a double nuclear hit to stop it
Posted by Airandee 2021-05-04 14:46||   2021-05-04 14:46|| Front Page Top

#9 It's the difference between being hit with a shotgun slug versus buckshot; at the receiving, not much practical point.
Posted by ed in texas 2021-05-04 15:26||   2021-05-04 15:26|| Front Page Top

#10 So, four days before impact, they know where it's gonna hit. Now what? Tell everybody and see them all crushed in the stampede? Evacuate all the 'right people' and let the proles die in their sleep?

How does one get on the list of 'right people'? Asking for a friend.
Posted by Bobby 2021-05-04 15:45||   2021-05-04 15:45|| Front Page Top

#11 ^ That's what's lovely about the universe, Bobby. It don't care. The right velocity behind a 50 km wide rock would put every one of our irreconcilable differences on political theory to rest dust.
Posted by Dron66046 2021-05-04 15:58||   2021-05-04 15:58|| Front Page Top

#12 The movie Meteor was in 1979.

Earth suffered severe damage but not destruction in 1998 in the movie Armageddon.

Earth suffered even more damage later in 1998 in the movie Deep Impact, Morgan Freemen is the first black President whose mistakes are catastrophic.
Posted by Lord Garth 2021-05-04 16:00||   2021-05-04 16:00|| Front Page Top

#13 Keep in mind you're not trying to blow up the meteor, you want to just smack it a few times so it goes somewhere else.
Posted by Silentbrick 2021-05-04 17:54||   2021-05-04 17:54|| Front Page Top

#14 So, four days before impact, they know where it's gonna hit.

I don't think so...

Out of control 21-TON Chinese rocket is falling to Earth and nobody knows where it could land: Fears it could shower debris over New York, Madrid and Beijing
Posted by Skidmark 2021-05-04 18:09||   2021-05-04 18:09|| Front Page Top

#15 nothing a few billion dollars tax raise won't stop prolong.
Posted by Retard Strength 2021-05-04 20:20||   2021-05-04 20:20|| Front Page Top

#16 Wymyns and Chilluns hardest hit!
Posted by Frank G 2021-05-04 20:30||   2021-05-04 20:30|| Front Page Top

#17 And Bill Gates is worried about blocking the sun. He made his billions how?
Posted by Clem 2021-05-04 20:46||   2021-05-04 20:46|| Front Page Top

#18 ^ ...through market manipulation, tying, trash-talking rivals ("Fear Uncertainty & Doubt" aka FUD) and selling shoddy buggy software at inflated prices
Posted by Unutch Bluetooth7902 2021-05-04 20:51||   2021-05-04 20:51|| Front Page Top

#19 Scientists determined that six months is not enough time to prepare a spacecraft to smash into the asteroid and that a nuclear bomb... would not take the monster space rock down.

A some thoughts...
..Once Elon Musk gets done commercializing space, launching a rocket isn't going to be a big deal.
.. A nuclear explosion in a vacuum has no blast effect like it would in the atmosphere
.. We think of an asteroid as a big-ass rock, but recent missions suggest they are more likely to be big piles of gravel and boulders. Deflecting a rubble pile might be problematic.
.. If we ever get around to mining the asteroid belt, exactly the same technology would be useful for dealing with rogue asteroids.
Posted by SteveS 2021-05-04 20:52||   2021-05-04 20:52|| Front Page Top

#20  big piles of gravel and boulders

A big pile of gravel and boulders will mostly burn up in the atmosphere, unlike a big-ass dinosaur-killer rock.
Posted by trailing wife 2021-05-04 22:38||   2021-05-04 22:38|| Front Page Top

#21 A big pile of gravel and boulders will mostly burn up in the atmosphere,

It depends on the meaning of 'big'. The asteroids are basically chunks of broken up planet and come in all sizes. Really big chunks, like the one that waxed the dinosaurs or formed Barringer Crater in Arizona make it all the way to the ground and convert their insane kinetic energy into an Earth-shattering KABOOM.

Smaller bits burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere, like our annual meteor showers. But you don't need to hit the ground to do damage. The Tunguska event appears to have been an air burst, wide devastation but no sign of a crater. Chelyabinsk, guestimated at 20 meters, exploded in the air and did a respectable amout of damage. Ryugu, target of a recent space mission, is about a kilometer in diameter.
Posted by SteveS 2021-05-04 23:33||   2021-05-04 23:33|| Front Page Top

23:34 CrazyFool
23:33 SteveS
23:03 Zorba Ulimble3833
22:38 trailing wife
22:32 trailing wife
22:11 Zorba Ulimble3833
21:42 Clem
21:27 Raj
21:05 Chert Prince of the Pixies5538
20:59 SteveS
20:57 SteveS
20:56 Boss Unavith6309
20:55 rjschwarz
20:52 SteveS
20:51 Unutch Bluetooth7902
20:46 Clem
20:45 Hupaving Darling of the Leprechauns9055
20:43 Zorba Ulimble3833
20:43 Elmerelet Lumplump6659
20:30 Frank G
20:27 Cromotle Munster6116
20:26 Frank G
20:20 Retard Strength
20:19 Spike Peacock2773
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