Author Topic: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA  (Read 6343 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Mobius

  • Back where he started
  • 213
  • Porto l'azzurro Dolce Stil Novo nella fantascienza
    • Skype
    • Twitter
    • The Lightblue Ribbon | Cultural Project
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
"Apophis -- The Killer Astroid."
[/quote]

Eh?

There's time to destroy it or change its course. Where' the problem?
The Lightblue Ribbon

Inferno: Nostos - Alliance
Series Resurrecta: {{FS Wiki Portal}} -  Gehenna's Gate - The Spirit of Ptah - Serendipity (WIP) - <REDACTED> (WIP)
FreeSpace Campaign Restoration Project
A tribute to FreeSpace in my book: Riflessioni dall'Infinito

 

Offline Flipside

  • əp!sd!l£
  • 212
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
Time and practicality are two separate things. We have time to do something about it, but it's not actually all that certain that anything we can do will have any real effect, even hitting it with nukes isn't a certain bet, we don't have the technology to do that using an Earth-Launch until it is dangerously close, and orbital launchers are still more part of the whole 'Star-Wars' thing than a viable concept.

I suspect we could take action against it, but that action will still be hit or miss, we'd do better, to be honest, looking at something like a coilgun or particle accelerator of some description, you can launch from much further away, giving you a few goes at hitting it.

 

Offline IceFire

  • GTVI Section 3
  • 212
    • http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/ce
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
Apparently even the slightest nudge (in relative terms) would be enough to move this asteroid off course and away from us.  If it proves to be a problem I'm sure we'll be able to deal with it.
- IceFire
BlackWater Ops, Cold Element
"Burn the land, boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me..."

 

Offline Kosh

  • A year behind what's funny
  • 210
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
Apparently even the slightest nudge (in relative terms) would be enough to move this asteroid off course and away from us.  If it proves to be a problem I'm sure we'll be able to deal with it.

Exactly, so why aren't we doing that?
"The reason for this is that the original Fortran got so convoluted and extensive (10's of millions of lines of code) that no-one can actually figure out how it works, there's a massive project going on to decode the original Fortran and write a more modern system, but until then, the UK communication network is actually relying heavily on 35 year old Fortran that nobody understands." - Flipside

Brain I/O error
Replace and press any key

 

Offline Nuke

  • Ka-Boom!
  • 212
  • Mutants Worship Me
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
the thing is going to pass really close to geosync orbit. if we capture it, it would give us something to build that space elevator thing off of.
I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

Nuke's Scripting SVN

 

Offline Flipside

  • əp!sd!l£
  • 212
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
If it goes geo-sync, chances are it will be mined for iridium, I would have thought.

 

Offline Mefustae

  • 210
  • Chevron locked...
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
the thing is going to pass really close to geosync orbit. if we capture it, it would give us something to build that space elevator thing off of.
And just how do you expect to not only stop something with a mass roughly that of the Hoover Dam and moving at over 30 kilometres a second, but guide it into a stable orbit without losing it or raising the chance of an impact event?

 

Offline Flipside

  • əp!sd!l£
  • 212
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
I think the governmental reasoning behind the lack of action is as follows:

a) If we have weapons in orbit, we don't want the other guys finding out.
b) If we don't have weapons in orbit, we don't want the others guys putting some up there
c) It's very expensive to put a weapon in orbit, we can wait for the other guy to do it and then raise hell about it afterwards.
d) The longer we leave it, the more grateful everyone will be when we save them.

 

Offline General Battuta

  • Poe's Law In Action
  • 214
  • i wonder when my postcount will exceed my iq
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
UPDATE: turns out the boy's correction was wrong, NASA was right.

So much for that.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/esa_german_schoolboy_apophis_denial/

 

Offline IceFire

  • GTVI Section 3
  • 212
    • http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/ce
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
So at this point it will make a very near pass and likely not cause any immediate issues.  I imagine that Apophis will be watched closely and if any refined calculations put the likelyhood in a more dangerous spot then something will be done.
- IceFire
BlackWater Ops, Cold Element
"Burn the land, boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me..."

 

Offline Nuke

  • Ka-Boom!
  • 212
  • Mutants Worship Me
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
the thing is going to pass really close to geosync orbit. if we capture it, it would give us something to build that space elevator thing off of.
And just how do you expect to not only stop something with a mass roughly that of the Hoover Dam and moving at over 30 kilometres a second, but guide it into a stable orbit without losing it or raising the chance of an impact event?

its not like you have to launch the thing, just slow it down to geosync velocity. its not like we need to catch it the first time, its supposed to come back. as for how, a little thing called aerobraking. :nervous:
I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

Nuke's Scripting SVN

 

Offline General Battuta

  • Poe's Law In Action
  • 214
  • i wonder when my postcount will exceed my iq
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
the thing is going to pass really close to geosync orbit. if we capture it, it would give us something to build that space elevator thing off of.
And just how do you expect to not only stop something with a mass roughly that of the Hoover Dam and moving at over 30 kilometres a second, but guide it into a stable orbit without losing it or raising the chance of an impact event?

its not like you have to launch the thing, just slow it down to geosync velocity. its not like we need to catch it the first time, its supposed to come back. as for how, a little thing called aerobraking. :nervous:

I'm pretty sure the risk/benefit analysis doesn't support that option.

 

Offline Hellstryker

  • waffles
  • 210
    • Skype
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
UPDATE: turns out the boy's correction was wrong, NASA was right.

So much for that.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/esa_german_schoolboy_apophis_denial/

Lies. Why would NASA say he was right and then wrong again? somthing smells fishy >_>. I mean, they even claimed they never said differantly, which, of course, they did...

 

Offline Mars

  • I have no originality
  • 211
  • Attempting unreasonable levels of reasonable
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
UPDATE: turns out the boy's correction was wrong, NASA was right.

So much for that.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/esa_german_schoolboy_apophis_denial/

Lies. Why would NASA say he was right and then wrong again? somthing smells fishy >_>. I mean, they even claimed they never said differantly, which, of course, they did...

Quote from: That Article
There's only one problem with the story: the kid's sums are in fact wrong, NASA's are right, and the ESA swear blind they never said any different
]

 

Offline Hellstryker

  • waffles
  • 210
    • Skype
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
UPDATE: turns out the boy's correction was wrong, NASA was right.

So much for that.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/esa_german_schoolboy_apophis_denial/

Lies. Why would NASA say he was right and then wrong again? somthing smells fishy >_>. I mean, they even claimed they never said differantly, which, of course, they did...

Quote from: That Article
There's only one problem with the story: the kid's sums are in fact wrong, NASA's are right, and the ESA swear blind they never said any different
]

 

Offline Stealth

  • Braiiins...
  • 211
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
i still think we should try to capture it :D

haha nice Nuke :p

reading through this thread, there are so many 'gold' comments.  i love it.  bookmarked! :D

  

Offline watsisname

Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
I say what NEEDS to be done is for the government to put more funding into projects to help find the rest of the 'roids out there that can potentially hit us.  As of last year we've found about 60% of NEO's larger than 1km, and a whopping 4 or 5% of NEO's larger than 140 meters. 

A chunk of rock 140 meters wide hitting at ~20km/s can wipe out an entire city, so that's a bit worrisome.  Unless we find and track more of them then odds are we won't even catch the one that hits us.  :blah:
In my world of sleepers, everything will be erased.
I'll be your religion, your only endless ideal.
Slowly we crawl in the dark.
Swallowed by the seductive night.

 

Offline IceyJones

  • Maker of Cutscenes
  • 28
  • ATM busy
    • IceyJones.de
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
jesus.....NEVER BELIEVE THE GERMAN "BILD"-"news"paper......

it´s like any other crappy tabloid press....

problem is, that it is common practice to copy articles from an agency and use them in their own newspaper. so it can happen, that a lie from BILD makes it into quick messages in normaly good newspapers....

but here a very good german article about this whole accident:
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/weltall/0,1518,547965,00.html
here is the balbefish translation (very bad):
http://world.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=de_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fwissenschaft%2Fweltall%2F0%2C1518%2C547965%2C00.html

main problem of the BILD is, that thy interview professionals but the quotes are then cutted and/or put in wrong connection the to text in order to guide the reader to false conclusions....

main thing for them is to have a big headline! nothing more! i even don´t belive the date, printed in the bild.....

 

Offline karajorma

  • King Louie - Jungle VIP
  • Administrator
  • 214
    • Karajorma's Freespace FAQ
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
A chunk of rock 140 meters wide hitting at ~20km/s can wipe out an entire city, so that's a bit worrisome.  Unless we find and track more of them then odds are we won't even catch the one that hits us.  :blah:

A chunk of iron 10m wide can wipe out a city. And given how we could stop those now it makes not putting something in place to deal with it stupid.
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]

 

Offline Mobius

  • Back where he started
  • 213
  • Porto l'azzurro Dolce Stil Novo nella fantascienza
    • Skype
    • Twitter
    • The Lightblue Ribbon | Cultural Project
Re: 13 Year Old German Corrects NASA
A very small object hitting a space station at high speed can cause immense damage, too.
The Lightblue Ribbon

Inferno: Nostos - Alliance
Series Resurrecta: {{FS Wiki Portal}} -  Gehenna's Gate - The Spirit of Ptah - Serendipity (WIP) - <REDACTED> (WIP)
FreeSpace Campaign Restoration Project
A tribute to FreeSpace in my book: Riflessioni dall'Infinito