[Rictor]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2517816,00.html

NASA is drawing up a shortlist of ideas to be unveiled early next year for diverting a 40m-ton asteroid that is on course to pass dangerously close to Earth.

The schemes will be presented and discussed at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Fears that the planet may be in danger from asteroids were heightened by the discovery of one orbiting the sun that, on its present path, will pass within 22,000 miles — a hair’s breadth in astronomical terms — in April 2029.

Nasa’s idea is to engineer a minor shift in its trajectory that would make the asteroid miss Earth by a wider margin on this and all subsequent passes. Under one possible plan, a robotic craft would be sent to the asteroid to attempt to alter its course. One option might be to install a propulsion system on the surface to nudge it onto a new course.

The studies follow the discovery of hundreds of small asteroids orbiting the sun that repeatedly cross Earth’s orbit, raising the possibility of a devastating collision. The one causing most concern is a rock of more than 1,000ft called Apophis, the Greek name for the Egyptian god Apep, known as “the Destroyer”. It will come so close that it will pass under many satellites and may destroy some.

Quick, get Bruce Willis and Ben Afleck on the phone! And Robert Duval too. Maybe if we sacrfice them to the gods, they will be appeased and spare our wretched planet.

[Shade]

22.000 miles. That's close. Should make for a nice spectacle in the sky if it passes at night, if nothing else when it starts clearing out any satellites that get in its way. Definitely gonna grab a telescope and camp out in some dark place for the night if it passes at the right time and is above the horizon

[Unknown Target]

For comparison: the Earth's average distance from the Moon is 385,000 kilometers, or 239,227.909 miles (all hail Google!). That asteroid will be super close.

[Ghost]

Holy ****. Solution: "The use of nuclear weapons is now authorized." -William Adama


Seriously, though. Jesus. That's kinda scary. I vote instead of altering the asteroid's course, we slow down Earth's orbit. =D

[Shade]

That asteroid will be super close.

Yep. Geosynchronous orbit is about 35.700km, so it's actually right about there unless my conversions are off. Which should get interesting, I bet there will be more than a few geo-sync satellite operators biting their nails while that thing flies by.

[Sarafan]

Thats good news, now the american and russian governments can actually have a chance to use all those nuclear missiles they built, its not like they would be ever used for anything else.

If its passing that close wouldnt it be caught by Earth's gravity? Then wouldnt it either stay on the orbit or crash into us?

[Bobboau]

Quick, get Bruce Willis and Ben Afleck on the phone! And Robert Duval too. Maybe if we sacrfice them to the gods, they will be appeased and spare our wretched planet.

screw them we need O'Neil, Carter, Jackson, and Teal'c, I mean how many times have they killed him already.

[Shade]

At that distance, the orbit will definitely be altered by Earth's gravity, but to be caught it'd have to be moving slower than geo-sync satellites. As it is, it's moving faster than the escape velocity for Earth (just checked), so it'll pass us and keep going. The chance of its orbit being altered in such a way that it would hit us later would be very small, as it's just too small a window given how much difference even the minutest deflection now will make over the course of several years.

[Edit] Would have been cool though, if it was caught by Earth's gravity. Suddenly having two moons would definitely be something, satellite chaos nonwithstanding

[Centrixo]

i guess your talking about that asteroid that will come by here in 2012. ive got no worries i trust what americans say, it should be interesting .

that asteroid will be coming by earth again in the year 3000 after its passed by earth in a few years time, a combined effort from ukraine, russia, scotland and usa to launch thier aging nukes.. finally a world where nukes will be a thing of the past, well except korea (cant remember witch side) and iran.

atleast thats what i remember from 1998.

[Shade]

You know, it says which asteroid and when it will pass us right there in the quote in the first post. Apophis, April 2029. As for the rest... whatever. Not worth the effort.

[Nuke]

At that distance, the orbit will definitely be altered by Earth's gravity, but to be caught it'd have to be moving slower than geo-sync satellites. As it is, it's moving faster than the escape velocity for Earth (just checked), so it'll pass us and keep going. The chance of its orbit being altered in such a way that it would hit us later would be very small, as it's just too small a window given how much difference even the minutest deflection now will make over the course of several years.

[Edit] Would have been cool though, if it was caught by Earth's gravity. Suddenly having two moons would definitely be something, satellite chaos nonwithstanding

i doubt earth has any capture potential. that thing most likesly follows a comet like orbit. meaning it will be going hella fast, without an actual means to slow down, save perhaps auto-aireobraking in our atmoshphere as it passes theres no way it would end up staying for any period of time, more likely it will be accelerated by earths gravity and slingshotted away, changin it orbit drasticly enough so we dont have to deal with it ever again. still if it hits us, cool, if it dont, cool,if nasa blows it up, cool. i dont see any way it can go wrong

[perihelion]

Heh.  I vote they try to capture the thing.  You want a sure-fire way to make earth-orbit interesting and profitable, place that puppy in GSO.

Not that I think for one minute NASA has either the cojones or the capability to perform such a braking maneuver, but gosh that would be cool.  An extra moon, a source of raw materials with an escape velocity of virtually zero, and a radiation shielded platform upon which to construct a real space station.  Buy yours today!  Operators are standing by...

[Unknown Target]

Yea, and while we're at it, let's **** up the Earth's seasons, climates, and tide effects due to the increased gravitational pull

[Nuke]

not sure if a small asteroid has much gravitational pull, try orbiting phobos in orbiter, it has so little gravity you need to use your rcs thrusters

[Taristin]

What if the moon is in the way of this asteoid...?

[Centrixo]

then were in deep dark brown pool of excrement, with a nice aroma  .

[Rictor]

No, I've got it! We should just hitch a ride on it. It's a free, fast natural spacecraft. We send up a team when it's close, they latch on and just wait until it gets close to Mars or some other planet, and then they get of. We could even send up a mutliple team or probes, one for each planet the asteroid is likely to get close to.

Not only would we be cheating death, we would also be cheating the universe. How's that for chutzpah. As for the asteroid hitting us, I'm not too worried.

Even if NASA does nothing, or their plan fails, you gotta believe the Russians have a nice, fat nuke ready and waiting to greet it. I imagine whoever happens to be the President of Russia at the time getting really drunk and yelling up at the sky "Come on motherfuker, we'll take you! You wanna dance? Let's dance. We got enough nukes to blow up the sun! You don't **** with the Motherland and live to tell about it, ****ing rock!"

[Centrixo]

umm typical sterotypical attidtude about russia.

now-a-days its politics on a secret level inside the kremlin. the bbc did a inside view of the kremlin and how politics work.

its much different compared to the western world, i think russia would launch a nuke anyway, not only protect its people but to have a better image in the eyes of the world, instead of this 'motherland russia'.

besides dont mafia bosses say these lines 'you wanna dance? lets dance'? 

[Unknown Target]

I think it was a joke Centrixo

[perihelion]

Nuke's right.  Lunar tides are caused by 7.3477×10²² kg orbiting around us.  Apophis only has a mass of 5×10¹⁰ kg.  In other words, the thing is 12 orders of magnitude smaller than the Moon.  I wouldn't worry about messing up the tide or seasons.  In fact, I seriously doubt it would even be (readily) visible from the ground.  It'd be like Sirius or one of the planets.  You can usually see them if they are in right part of the sky, but you kind of need to already know where to look.

Anyway, 'tis just a thought experiment.  I wanted to go "up" since before I learned how to read.  One of the biggest obstacles to real development in space is that once you get out of LEO, you have essentially no protection from radiation.  It's too expensive to lift the material and equipment needed for "conventional" radiation shielding (i.e., put something thick and dense between yourself and the radiation source), and we don't have any promising leads on a more lightweight "active" protection system (read: forcefields).  So, my pitch is that the cheapest way to protect people from radiation in space is to use protection that's already up there to begin with.  Capture an asteroid.

Now.  Any bright ideas on how to do that?  Deflecting an asteroid off its current trajectory is hard enough.  hmm... it might be smarter to move it into a lunar orbit instead.  At least there if you screw up, you are less likely to, ya-know, end civilization and whatnot.  Seriously though.  If you wanted to capture an asteroid, how would you do it?