Armageddon-how are we going to beat it?

[Smackman]

ummm the explosion of a nuke is pure force. when they say theyre however many megatons thats how much mass their force displaces (under earths gravity mind you) so if the force of the mass x velocity of the asteroid is less that 2000megatons of force in earths gravity... (1kg=12 newtons of force on earth I think, so like 24 000 000 newtons or something) vs an asteroid that probably weighs like 800 tons, going at least 11 m/s if its a threat. rought like 9 million newtons.

[talin]

So basically the rock would probably be knocked off course if not destroyed and if it did shatter into millions of pieces it would just act like one of the hundreds of meteor showers earth gets every year that simply burn up in the atmosphere occasionally letting a few big rocks through after shrinking them down to rocks the size of a child's fist. Crisis averted and scientists can study the effects of nuclear weapons in space while the magnetic van allen belts stop most of the radiation like it does with the sun's radiation. no threat posed to earth and the space junkies have something new to talk about. We also get to start weaponizing space, fun.

[BlueLight]

So basically the rock would probably be knocked off course if not destroyed and if it did shatter into millions of pieces it would just act like one of the hundreds of meteor showers earth gets every year that simply burn up in the atmosphere occasionally letting a few big rocks through after shrinking them down to rocks the size of a child's fist. Crisis averted and scientists can study the effects of nuclear weapons in space while the magnetic van allen belts stop most of the radiation like it does with the sun's radiation. no threat posed to earth and the space junkies have something new to talk about. We also get to start weaponizing space, fun.

You can not create, nor destroy matter. The burning space crap goes some where.

[Zeus Kabob]

ummm the explosion of a nuke is pure force. when they say theyre however many megatons thats how much mass their force displaces (under earths gravity mind you) so if the force of the mass x velocity of the asteroid is less that 2000megatons of force in earths gravity... (1kg=12 newtons of force on earth I think, so like 24 000 000 newtons or something) vs an asteroid that probably weighs like 800 tons, going at least 11 m/s if its a threat. rought like 9 million newtons.

Nope nope nope. A nuclear explosion isn't force, it's heat and radiation (from infrared to gamma).

Megaton of TNT is a measure of energy, not force.

The asteroid weighs 120,000 metric tons (less than I thought!) and is going at least 10,000 m/s.

Sorry, guys. I made a mistake here. The 2012 DA14 (the asteroid we're talking about) is only 45 meters in radius, with only 2.54 Megaton equivalent in kinetic energy. The crash would be locally devastating, but not really serious. We could easily nuke it and be fine, but that's not an optimal solution for catastrophic incoming asteroids. Raining rocks would be annoying, but wouldn't block enough solar energy to make a global winter.

Still, we need better solutions than nukes. I suggest that humans put more effort into efficient propulsion methods and ways to get into space.

[BlueLight]

ummm the explosion of a nuke is pure force. when they say theyre however many megatons thats how much mass their force displaces (under earths gravity mind you) so if the force of the mass x velocity of the asteroid is less that 2000megatons of force in earths gravity... (1kg=12 newtons of force on earth I think, so like 24 000 000 newtons or something) vs an asteroid that probably weighs like 800 tons, going at least 11 m/s if its a threat. rought like 9 million newtons.

Nope nope nope. A nuclear explosion isn't force, it's heat and radiation (from infrared to gamma).

Megaton of TNT is a measure of energy, not force.

The asteroid weighs 120,000 metric tons (less than I thought!) and is going at least 10,000 m/s.

Sorry, guys. I made a mistake here. The 2012 DA14 (the asteroid we're talking about) is only 45 meters in radius, with only 2.54 Megaton equivalent in kinetic energy. The crash would be locally devastating, but not really serious. We could easily nuke it and be fine, but that's not an optimal solution for catastrophic incoming asteroids. Raining rocks would be annoying, but wouldn't block enough solar energy to make a global winter.

Still, we need better solutions than nukes. I suggest that humans put more effort into efficient propulsion methods and ways to get into space.

So I wasn't given a name, just the size of the thing. So lets say we could build a ship to land on this thing. Do you think we could build a rocket booster like rig? We'd need to carry oxygen with us but if we were able build this rig, we could maybe change it's course to miss the earth.

Thoughts?

[Zeus Kabob]

Yes. This would be a good way to push it off course except for the fact that one would have to put all of the materials for a rocket booster rig onto the asteroid. A simpler approach would be to make a space ship for the sole purpose of landing on asteroids and knocking them off course. This ship would hopefully have ion engines and a large solar array (foldable) so that it could touch down on the asteroid, hook in, and push the asteroid with its boosters. This would remove the necessity of building an entire booster rig onto the asteroid, and it would be re-usable.

[talin]

Where are these Ion engines you are referring to? Do they work like pulse engines which is basically shooting particles against a "sail" and letting the energy from them push it forward? if so then we will need a MASSIVE and LONG LASTING power supply which we have yet to make a sufficient portable version of. I drew up an idea for a perpetual magnetic generator that requires a void vaccum to operate but funding to see if works is non-existent. The idea was all about the fact that things only slow down if there is resistance slowing it down, thus a spinning magnet in a >0.2 G environment would not stop spinning and if it had no air around it and the stabilizers keeping it in the center would be electro-magnets so they could be adjusted as needed with little power. The whole thing was a bit complex but broken down into pieces it was quite simple. Problem is I have no exact data on it and no way to gain it due to NASA being to busy sending satellites and exploratory probes to accept an idea from a GED freshman college student, at least,not without them possibly taking over the idea, making a few improvements and patenting it for there own uses.

[Smackman]

the nuke wouldnt really knock it off course, but it would shatter the thing and generally send all the peices in the opposite directions outward. and yeah there is a shit tonne of force displaced from a nuke

[Gorbaz]

I vote building a base on the moon with it's own hydroponics, air recycling, and whatonot. That way, they can have a little spaceship docked there which can be lanched off to drag asteroids off in other directions if they are believed to get too close. I recall hearing something about the moon being a readily available source of rocket fuel components

[Zeus Kabob]

Massive and long lasting power supply? Try the sun.

One thing you fail to take into account with your spinning magnet is diamagnetism. When you move a magnetic field through a conductor, the conductor generates a magnetic field in the opposite direction, slowing said field. This would quickly stop your spinning magnet. Also, due to conservation of energy, there's nothing you could do to the spinning magnet to extract energy from it without dulling the spinning.

Yes, Gorbaz, that would be very cool. I'd live on the moon.

[Gorbaz]

What I would really like to see, is every nation of the world getting together to build a super-rocket, fly off to Mercury, latch on to it and pull it back toward Earth, and then smack the asteroid with Mercury! I would call it.... the U.E.S McGuffin!

I know it's extremely unlikley to happen, but I can dream!

[Rooiehaan #2]

the asteroid that would be big enough to crash and kill earth would probably be big enough to maintain speed after mercury crossed its path. even worse, what if mercury would commit mutiny and crash against earth as well? no, no~ we wouldn't want that.
We can't possibly face any aliens and say: "ya, we used to live on earth, but it got hit by mercury". it would be the laughingstock of the ages.
Instead, we should send some thruster rockets to the meteor, and latch them the surface to the right, thus thrusting it left and away from the earth. better yet, we could shove it into the direction of the sun. two things can happen:
1. the sun dies. = mass death. oh well.
2. the sun noms the meteor. = the sun, about to retire in a couple of billion years might think 'nah, pension is too boring for me'

:3
did that make any sense at all?

[Zeus Kabob]

It made sense, yeah.

The first thing that could happen as the asteroid went into the sun would never happen. Huge balls of plasma sitting in space don't tend to get worried by tiny chunks of rock.

[talin]

Massive and long lasting power supply? Try the sun.

One thing you fail to take into account with your spinning magnet is diamagnetism. When you move a magnetic field through a conductor, the conductor generates a magnetic field in the opposite direction, slowing said field. This would quickly stop your spinning magnet. Also, due to conservation of energy, there's nothing you could do to the spinning magnet to extract energy from it without dulling the spinning.

Yes, Gorbaz, that would be very cool. I'd live on the moon.

Not trying to be rude but you will need to get a lot of solar panels to power something like a particle based engine and it would be very fragile and only work near the sun. I suppose it's a start though.

I've also looked into setting up a kind of clock work model to cause the suspension magnets to rotate back and forth and adding to the spinning effect plus a machine for re-polarizing magnets. All we would need are a few of them running at once and some spare magnets that we can swap out while they are running. Once again, it's a start.

I just realized that we completely overlooked the answer that was siting in front of us all along. Nuclear reactors! (derp! well now i feel stupid.)

Now we just need you to show us that we have a working Ion engine design to power.

[Gorbaz]

How about.... we sit back and enjoy the time we've got here as, realistically speaking, there's probably nothing we can do to influence the path of cosmic objects, or are likley to convince enough nations around the world that it's worth stopping stabbing each other in the back, selling secrets, and blowing everyone up down here, to deal with the mutual threat of a large lump of space debris.

What will happen, will happen

[dndman997]

the asteroid crashing to earth is like one and a billion shot that it would actually happen. however humanity will end itself by warring with one another. thats how i see things

[Zeus Kabob]

We've got an up-and-coming ion engine called the VASIMR that is expected to hit 1 pound of thrust. Combine that with a month of sitting on an asteroid and pushing it and you have 2,592,000 pound-seconds of momentum change. That's enough to significantly change the heading of a moderately sized asteroid. (on the incoming DA14 asteroid, that would change the trajectory by around .32 feet/second. If we saw it significantly beforehand, we could change its trajectory more.) We might even put 3 or 4 of these thrusters onto a space vessel, and we can always put multiple vessels into space.

In conclusion, there are quite a few things that have to happen for us to significantly influence an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, but it's completely possible to knock it off course.

[dndman997]

ion engines have been in the make for awhile o.0 and were proven to be slower then normal rocket engines we use today

[Zeus Kabob]

That's why I mention this new one. At 200 kW, it produces 4.5 N. That's a significant amount for an ion engine.

Also, give me a good proposal for how to lift booster rockets into the air. *laugh*

[talin]

Makes sense so progress has been achieved! tbh, I think we should raise all hell about this if only to get humanity in space rather than move a rock that might hit us. I'd still want to rock moved so it has a 0% chance of hitting us but if we could actually get humanity to at least partially unite for a single purpose then we would be able to actually get over some of the crap we do to ourselves and become a single race rather than a bunch of irrational superstitious idiots.