Defending the Earth from Asteroids... what to do?

[Diggs]

Tin foil hats?

 

[Drago]

Alas, missile interceptor missiles kind of made Star Wars redundant for targets launched from Earth as they didn't require any major breakthroughs on technology and are comparatively cheap.

ICBMs are essentially spacecraft. At apogee the bus and its payload are well beyond the Earths the atmosphere by hundreds of miles. There no reason in physics why the larger versions, SS 18 etc, couldn't launch a smaller payload (a single warhead instead of an array of MIRVs) beyond Earth orbit. However the politics, physical challenges of retasking a missile, and even the law all stand in the way of their use for kicking ass like Robert Duvall.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Encase in pastry and @vernon will dispatch it very rapidly

 

[Lullabelle]

I say Nukes!

So instead of having 1 asteroid colliding with the earth we will have lots of bits of asteroids hitting the earth hmm....

 

[Tin Pot]

Alas, missile interceptor missiles kind of made Star Wars redundant for targets launched from Earth as they didn't require any major breakthroughs on technology and are comparatively cheap.

ICBMs are essentially spacecraft. At apogee the bus and its payload are well beyond the Earths the atmosphere by hundreds of miles. There no reason in physics why the larger versions, SS 18 etc, couldn't launch a smaller payload (a single warhead instead of an array of MIRVs) beyond Earth orbit. However the politics, physical challenges of retasking a missile, and even the law all stand in the way of their use for kicking ass like Robert Duvall.

True, but as I understand it, the use of deflecting explosions is pretty tricky when you look at the velocities and masses involved with asteroids. As posted previously, non-solid masses would pretty much ignore it. I'd prefer something more precise that guides objects away.

With Star Wars, research into various anti-missile laser technologies would have moved forward quicker though, and we might even have had space based chemical lasers right now if the programme had gone ahead.

Probably not fit for purpose, but having advanced our knowledge to inform their use elsewhere.

Plus, it's frickin lasers eh?

 

[Tin Pot]

So instead of having 1 asteroid colliding with the earth we will have lots of bits of asteroids hitting the earth hmm....

Although there is a lot of truth to that, splitting it up into lots of smaller pieces each impacting across the whole atmosphere could well work.

 

[Drago]

Catch an object far enough away and even the tiniest nudge will translate to millions of miles by the time it reaches our orbit. In relative terms the force needn't be huge - properly vectored an artillery shell could successfully divert an asteroid the size of Net York without risk of fragmenting it, IF you were to do it far enough out.

 

[mybike]

 

[Andy_R]

Catch an object far enough away and even the tiniest nudge will translate to millions of miles by the time it reaches our orbit. In relative terms the force needn't be huge - properly vectored an artillery shell could successfully divert an asteroid the size of Net York without risk of fragmenting it, IF you were to do it far enough out.

But what about Gross York, which is of course, bigger

 

[MontyVeda]

So instead of having 1 asteroid colliding with the earth we will have lots of bits of asteroids hitting the earth hmm....

We'll take those out one by one, possibly using Earth's remaining non-nuclear missiles.

 

[mustang1]

Let the asteroids hit. That way we can see what happened the last time one of these big suckers hit us and made life extinct. Only this time we'll have proof!

 

[Levo-Lon]

We could pray to a god...yer that's it

 

[Andy_R]

Let the asteroids hit. That way we can see what happened the last time one of these big suckers hit us and made life extinct. Only this time we'll have proof!

It wasn't an asteroid or meteorite that killed off the dinosaurs, as this picture clearly demonstrates:

 

[Slioch]

Could we not just get a very large cannon and fire Kanye West at it?

And if that doesn't work, then just call International Rescue.

 

[Saluki]

Join the Earthcrossers society, buy a tin hat and a catchers mitt?
Maybe I should read less Jasper Fforde though