This is interesting Quasar. Have they started building these already or sending them out and about? How much would one cost? How long would they run? Thinking of the various aspects...
hugs!
It would be nice to see if short-sighted politicians are going to follow up on this. This is one of the few extinction level disasters Humanity has the wherewithall to prevent.
Also this technique would be useful as a way to build large space habitats. Sink a shaft through the asteroid, plug one end, fill will water, plug the other end up, start rotating it slowly and use the mirrors to reflect sunlight onto the darn thing. The outside should get nice and molten if done correctly. When the heat reaches the water, the resulting steam will expand the asteroid like a balloon. Voila! A nice, large habitat without all the digging!
An old idea to be sure, but so is using mirrors and sunlight to boil off reaction mass. Sometimes the simple ways are the best!
lol Katie does it matter how much they'll cost if they can prevent say New York or London being wiped out, on impact.
We can 'see' these things coming, so we can act with plenty of warning - six months or even more.
ESA already have a Cluster in space. The four Cluster spacecraft have spent several years passing in and out of our planet's magnetic field. Their mission is be to complete the most detailed investigation ever made into the ways in which the Sun and Earth interact.
Hi dad2059, you mean turn the asteroid into a piece of real estate and hitch a ride
I prefer the paint part of the astroid option. Paint is cheap.
lol Dr John,
What colour would you paint it
Wow this is so clever. Like drinking alcohol to get over a hangover. [Very crazy example - but you get what I mean?]
they could send up Paris Hilton with a compact mirror and make up... any self-respecting asteroid would run in the opposite direction...
so here we are a scared race,trying to protect ourself?or are we just becoming wiser?
Hmm, are they made clever enough to be sent up at the drop of a hat (short notice) and be turned in any direction and re-used again and again for protection? And what if it looked likely to land in a poor country ... would the humans argue about protection or let it hit???
I like the Paris Hilton idea!
Awww common Candoor,
her bank balance is quite cute
but I catch your drift, we could just send a shuttle full of papparazi and they could scare the satellite away with their flashes
lol Random,
I guess we could just bombard it with loads of alka seltzer.
Hi Vishesh, not exactly 'running' scared
though extinction causing asteroids are extremely rare, sizeable asteroids do hit every 5000 years or so - still rare and unlikely - unless it happens to occur in our lifetime
just trying to apply knowledge and technology
you know "art for art's sake, and money for science's sake"
Hi Abigail,
we get a fair bit of warning, but yeah they'd have to be deployed pretty much at the drop of a hat. And of course when it comes to the cost, it would 'depend' where it is likely to hit - there's the rub
If it's about to hit Beijing or a major city in India, would NASA care, and if it's likely to hit Paris - how much would NASA charge. I guess ESA would need to be able to deploy it's own swarm or flock of mirrors.
lol Casdok,
if only sacrificing one person were enough to save the world, there are many others I'd send before Paris Hilton.
you mean turn the asteroid into a piece of real estate
You betcha. If I live love enough to get good life extension therapy, I'd find a way to buy up alot of those mirror-sats and get them to NEOs and make a bunch of those empty habitats and sell them to exiled political groups, homesteading families, corporations or whomever. The political groups and corps would have to sign a contract to pay me in hard currency like water, various volatles(verrry valuable in space)and metals. Homesteading families I would cut a break for, payment installments in metals alone, not water or the votatles.
Good business model I'd say.
Hi dad2059,
that's the only snah with space compared to colising america or australia - one has to get there, and one has to carry one's own water supply and oxygen tank.
Mind you if you had a means to make unlimited supplies of oxygen and water you'd have a better business than real estate - lol!
It is not money (mining or business) that will lead manned space flight, and space colonisation (Moon Base) but the sheer competitive will of government's to be the first, or to be involved. And it will take the kind of funding and investment only governments can provide (supply).
After all how many billionaires or multi-millionaires are going to sign up for Virgin Space free fall day trips, a dozen or so a year. And if there is no space station or Moon Base, where are space travellers gonna go? - A shuttle service between the ISS and a Moon Base should be child's play.
Don't discount private enterprise totally Q9, Bigelow Aerospace already has two inflated space habitat modules in LOE, just for the reasons that you gave, millionaires would have a place to go to. The next issue is getting to them cheaply. Right now Bigelow leases Russian rockets, they would like to have their own.
I agree that governments are presently the major source of funding, China, India and Japan are going to be the biggest players in the foreseeable future. Japanse satellites are presently mapping out areas on the Moon that would be primo colony/mining sites. And I agree that getting to near-earth-objects would require carrying your own supplies first, rather expensively.
But after you got to your destination, living off the land is necessary, for income and survival.
Heck, like you said, come up with a practical "kit" to sell that enables customers to convert volatles into water and oxygen, you'd get rich from that alone! Good idea Q9!
Also Q9, never discount human greed either. If a company or a consortium can come up with a cheap way to exploit NEOs, it'll happen. Colonists will soon follow.
If you build it, they will come!
Hi dad2059,
living off the land is where it is at
Even to build a biosphere or biodome, you still need to have Oxygen and water, and when you build it you need more oxygen and more water - but then you can start recycling biomass too.
I'd love to grow tomatoes on the Moon or even Mars.
Alas for me its a matter of being happy on Earth, I'm past my space travel sell by date - but would love to see the next generation make it a reality - at least the Moon Base and six month manned missions in space are within our reach (grasp).
I am always in awe at the data you managed to collect, another stunning post.
Well Elle, much is going on
they could have celebrated 50 years of Space, not just with one day, or one week, or one month, or even one year - but a whole decade. Wonder whether there'll be any fireworks to celebrate the Centenary of Space.
Commenting by HaloScan
