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Print E-mail del.icio.us Listen to this article. Powered by Odiogo.com 10 comment(s) - last by 100whey.. on Dec 31 at 9:38 PM

Plan lacks any input from oil field workers

Hollywood has made several movies that center on how humans could destroy an asteroid or comet that was on a trajectory to hit the Earth. Some astronomers believe that the chance of an asteroid impact is high enough to warrant preparation and plans to be readied to prevent such a catastrophe.

The most credible asteroid threat to the Earth that we know of today is the Apophis asteroid that was estimated to have a one in 250,000 chance of striking the Earth. NASA announced in October 2009 that the asteroid is expected to pass within 18,000 miles of Earth in 2029. NASA later said that it has "all but ruled out" the chance of the asteroid hitting the Earth in 2036.

Despite NASA determining that the asteroid will not hit the Earth, Russian scientists are readying a plan to prevent the potential impact. The Russian plan reads like something Bruce Willis would be involved with, yet the plan is surprisingly void of oil field workers. The Russian researchers are considering a plan to send a spacecraft to bump the large asteroid to a safer orbit.

Scientist Anatoly Perminov told a Russian radio station Golos Rossii, "People's lives are at stake. We should pay several hundred million dollars and build a system that would allow us to prevent a collision, rather than sit and wait for it to happen and kill hundreds of thousands of people."

He continued saying, "Calculations show that it's possible to create a special-purpose spacecraft within the time we have, which would help avoid the collision. The threat of collision can be averted."

Perminov states that the details of the plan still need to be worked out, but he invited NASA, the ESA, and other space agencies to participate in the planning. The Guardian reports that space researcher Matt Genge from the Imperial College London has calculated that a spaceship to move the asteroid to a different trajectory would only need to have the approximate mass, acceleration, and thrust of a small car to push the asteroid out of the path of Earth in 75 days.

Other methods to change the trajectory of an asteroid include mirrors, light, or paint to change the way the asteroid absorbs heat enough to shift its direction. These methods would take about 20 years to change the path of the asteroid.



Comments     Threshold


the cruel irony
By RU482 on 12/31/09, Rating: 0
RE: the cruel irony
By Nfarce on 12/31/2009 11:31:09 AM , Rating: 2
...or at the very least maybe give the Norwegians another cool blue spiral in the night sky to gaze at.

But seriously, I wonder if there will be as much international negative references to this as there was when the US "showed off" its tech when it blew a dying spy satellite to smithereens in 2008.


RE: the cruel irony
By zkln on 12/31/2009 11:39:55 AM , Rating: 2
Oh man...Edgar J. Hoover is dead. You can stop now.


RE: the cruel irony
By ClownPuncher on 12/31/2009 11:44:21 AM , Rating: 3
No, we want 2000 years of hate, just like in the middle east.


RE: the cruel irony
By Smartless on 12/31/2009 1:20:07 PM , Rating: 2
... and we'll the world hostage for 1 MILLION DOLLARS.

We'll call this operation "Armageddon".


RE: the cruel irony
By TSS on 12/31/2009 4:04:57 PM , Rating: 2
In Soviet Russia, Trajectory changes You.

In all seriousness though, i doubt blasting 10 orso of the 100 megaton nuke design the ruskies already have laying around into the side of that asteroid won't do anything. We all know it'll most likely come down to that because everything else will be technologically out of our reach for another couple hundred of years.


RE: the cruel irony
By 100whey on 12/31/2009 9:38:57 PM , Rating: 2
at least theyre trying to do something about it. They will only try to prevent it hitting if they know its going to hit anyway so it wouldn't be ironic. Good ol' USA would just sit there in its fat slump not taking it seriously until its too late because it wouldn't make anyone any money doing something about it. Oh hey there USA wanna try save your life and the lives of billions of others? Not if I don't make money out of it!


yeah sure
By glennforum on 12/31/2009 1:11:35 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah I believe their intentions are to deflect an asteroid...more like a mask for their space weapons program.

Wake up sheeple!




RE: yeah sure
By Kurz on 12/31/2009 2:27:10 PM , Rating: 2
Who isn't thinking of Space weapons?


By ariendautre on 12/31/2009 1:31:06 PM , Rating: 2
Going to be the last date with the rock, I bet the team will make up a nice bit of fire show up there right after it passes the Globe.

Make sputniks .... not missiles (-:




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