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Asteroid deflection mission seeks ideas


Waspie_Dwarf

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Asteroid deflection mission seeks smashing ideas

aidamissionconcept.gif

AIDA mission concept

The US-European Asteroid Impact and Deflection mission – AIDA. This innovative but low-budget transatlantic partnership involves the joint operations of two small spacecraft sent to intercept a binary asteroid. The first Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft, designed by the US Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory will collide with the smaller of the two asteroids. Meanwhile, ESA’s Asteroid Impact Monitor (AIM) craft will survey these bodies in detail, before and after the collision. The impact should change the pace at which the objects spin around each other, observable from Earth. But AIM’s close-up view will ‘ground-truth’ such observations.

Credits: ESA

15 January 2013 A space rock several hundred metres across is heading towards our planet and the last-ditch attempt to avert a disaster – an untested mission to deflect it – fails. This fictional scene of films and novels could well be a reality one day. But what can space agencies do to ensure it works?

ESA is appealing for research ideas to help guide the development of a US–European asteroid deflection mission now under study.

Concepts are being sought for both ground- and space-based investigations, seeking improved understanding of the physics of very high-speed collisions involving both man-made and natural objects in space.

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Sorry I dont work for free.

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Well, I'm certainly glad for the outreach of potential ideas.

My lack of knowledge likely precludes me from offering any ideas of substance.

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Wouldn't it be ironic if the test deflection sends the otherwise harmless asteroid into a collision course with us...

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Mine it

Yes, because mining an asteroid which is on a collision course with Earth and about to kill millions of people would make perfect sense.

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thats interesting.the only ideas that i haver is study it while its far and have time.send machines and robots whatever it takes to study it AS MUCH AS possible find its weak point in ther words like the movie armageddon they put a bomb when it blows up it going to shatter it to pieces.thats what i got so far.but we should work together not just when we have to but always for the best of humanity and benefit of all humanity.we should all stand together always as one big family the human race

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in ther words like the movie armageddon they put a bomb when it blows up it going to shatter it to pieces.thats what i got so far.

Armageddon is a particularly poor film to base theories on. It might have been a good action movie but as science fiction it was strong on fiction and extraordinarily weak on the science.

Blowing up an asteroid or comet looks good in Hollywood. However NASA and ESA operate in the real world. Many asteroids seem to be fairly loosely bound together. Nuking them wouldn't destroy them, it would simply break the asteroid up into multiple objects, all still on a collision course with Earth. Instead of one impact you have several and potentially a larger global catastrophe than if nothing had been done.

This is the reason that experts are looking at ways to deflect asteroids, not destroy them.

Deflecting asteroids has the advantage that, not only can it protect the Earth when it is immanent danger, but potentially hazardous asteroids could be moved into safe orbits long before they present a threat.

Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
typo.
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The best idea is to change the asteroid's trajectory...even a bit of a shift would equate to a good sized change in it's path. The worst idea is anything that could make the situation worse.

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There is a proposal out there that involes shooting paintballs at the Asteroid to... 1. Slightly move the trajectory everytime they shoot and... 2. Have the paint a very reflective colour that will use the Sun (photons) to help push the Asteroid in the desired direction. I am unsure how far this idea has been taken but there are rumors of experimenting on the Asteroid Apophis in the future. From data that has been "theorised" the time for the Sun to push an Asteroid (that has been paintballed) a sigificant distance is over 5 years. This requires an early warning of any target Asteroid.

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An armageddon of some sort is inevitable, whether it be a natural event or pandemic. I would argue that we should be colonizing mars as we did so successfully this planet. The most fundamental measure of a civilization's success is its ability to survive catastrophe.

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An armageddon of some sort is inevitable, whether it be a natural event or pandemic. I would argue that we should be colonizing mars as we did so successfully this planet. The most fundamental measure of a civilization's success is its ability to survive catastrophe.

A sufficiently large colony on Mars to ensure the survival of Mankind is probably some way in the distance. Protecting the earth in the near future is a sensible option. Besides one look at the surface of Mars will tell you that a colony on Mars is probably more at risk from an asteroid strike than any given point on Earth is. Deflecting an asteroid could be just as useful to human colonists on Mars.

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Instead of trying to blow up the asteroid, why not just divert it.Equip these probes with some kind of thruster and let them set down on the asteroid's surface, and then engage the thrusters which will change the asteroid's trajectory.

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Sorry I dont work for free.

You will when the thing is heading your way. lol.

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I like your thinking Waspie The Old Shell game, maybe in the distant future we will be able to do such things. But for now Its Lets finger out our World and its people.

Man I miss Mid ! He would Love to commit on this . And actually have the numbers and common sence to show why and why not . Cheers All ! :tu:

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Yes, because mining an asteroid which is on a collision course with Earth and about to kill millions of people would make perfect sense.

Using the deflection methiod would take months to years to work, assuming worked at all. As some else pointed out you might make it worse.

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Using the deflection methiod would take months to years to work, assuming worked at all.

And your point is. We are currently searching for and cataloging NEOs. We will now which ones pose a threat years or decades in advance. Those objects which appear out of nowhere are not going to give us tome to mount a mission anyway.

As some else pointed out you might make it worse.

How exactly? Orbital mechanics is something that has been understood for centuries. NASA can launch a spacecraft fro Earth in 1977, have it's orbit altered by Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus and still stove at Neptune exactly as predicted 12 years later. Deflecting an asteroid requires the same mathematic principles.

You might not understand the principles but the scientists do. Besides if a large asteroid is on a collision course with Earth and you attempt to deflect it the worse case scenario is that you fail to deflect it and it still hits Earth, how can that make it worse?

Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
typos... darn phone spell checker.
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And your point is. We are currently searching for and cataloging BROs. We will now which ones pose a threat years or decades in advance. Those objects which appear out of nowhere are not going to give us tome to mount a mission anyway.

How exactly? Orbital mechanics is something that has been understood for centuries. NASA can launch a spacecraft fro Earth in 1977, have it's orbit altered by Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus and still stove at Neptune exactly as predicted 12 years later. Deflecting an asteroid requires the same mathematic principles.

You might not understand the principles but the scientists do. Besides if a large asteroid is on a collision course with Earth and you attempt to deflect it the worse case scenario is that you fail to deflect it and it still hits Earth, how can that make it worse?

Yes, we know how things work. But considering we only know about 10% of what's out there, we wouldn't know if hadn't sent it too another body or gravity field. Besides when was the last man did anything without messing it up.

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Sorry ma'am but that is the samething as the opening post.

Deflection via small impacts is one idea being looked at, towing via a gravitational tractor is another (posed by 2 former astronauts).

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I say pull it over with Flashing Blue lights ,read-em-there rights.Give them a speeding ticket and throw the books at them ! THose pesky Assteroids ! :gun:

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Yes, we know how things work.

Well clearly you don't given the gibberish you spout as fact.

But considering we only know about 10% of what's out there, we wouldn't know if hadn't sent it too another body or gravity field.

How do you know that we only now 10% of what is out there? I see that your long period away hasn't cured you of your habit is simply making stuff up and pretending it is fact.

Best estimates are that we know know over 80% of the Near Earth Objects over 1km in diameter. So where does your 10% come from.

You really have no idea what you are talking about do you. Objects don't just magically appear and deflect other objects, if they did it would be impossible to predict the orbital path of any object in the solar system. That is not the case, the EXACT position of an asteroid can be predicted decades in advance.

Gravity is a surprisingly weak force. In order to significantly influence an asteroid by gravity field an object would need to be either massive (and there are no hidden bodies that massive in the inner solar system) or, as in Lilly's example, remain in close proximity to our asteroid for many years.

Space is also very big. The chances of us deflecting an asteroid and it just happening to come into close proximity with another object which amazingly we managed not to notice are so vanishingly small as to be not worth worrying about.

Any asteroid we try to deflect would have it's orbit extremely well known (otherwiswe we wouldn't know it posses a threat) and it's mass can be estimated to a high degree of accuracy then it is a simple matter to calculate the forces necessary to deflect it.

By the way I'm still waiting for an answer to this question I asked you:

Besides if a large asteroid is on a collision course with Earth and you attempt to deflect it the worse case scenario is that you fail to deflect it and it still hits Earth, how can that make it worse?

So come on Daniel, I'm waiting, how is deflecting an asteroid going to make things worse?

Besides when was the last man did anything without messing it up.

Speak for yourself.

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If all else fails, we can revert to ancient methods like praying, drumming, maybe sacrifice a virgin or two... see if that works.

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