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Cubie
Moderator




Registered: 01/11/08
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: Baby_Hitler]
#7923298 - 01/24/08 07:56 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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It is one
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Annom
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Registered: 12/22/02
Posts: 6,367
Loc: Europe
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: Asante]
#7923355 - 01/24/08 08:24 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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You are completely right that we have poor detection systems (It's pretty amazing already, but could be way better) and zero developed deflection designs.
If it would cost 50 billion per 100years to build and operate such a system it would cost every world citizens $5 for a lifelong insurance against asteroid impact.
Are you willing to pay that? Not all world citizens would pay that right now, but in my optimistic future we sure have/need a good asteroid deflection system.
I'm just back from an exam where I had to solve an astrodynamics problem of an incoming asteroid. Imagine the mount Everest approaching you with 15 km/s (= 33554 mph), that hurts!
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AJ4U
Cloud N9ne



Registered: 09/06/06
Posts: 5,609
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: WhiskeyClone]
#7923383 - 01/24/08 08:32 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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Quote:
WhiskeyClone said: For some reason, I am absolutely not worried about asteroids hitting the earth. I think it's a dignified way for humanity to end.
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memes
Blessed



Registered: 01/11/05
Posts: 27,785
Loc: In a Tree
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: AJ4U]
#7923392 - 01/24/08 08:38 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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AJ4u, your avatar is crazy
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AJ4U
Cloud N9ne



Registered: 09/06/06
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: memes]
#7923408 - 01/24/08 08:47 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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As is yours
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trendal
J♠



Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: Asante]
#7923416 - 01/24/08 08:49 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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If its just a relatively small asteroid like this one, a fifty megaton thermonuclear bomb would vaporize it. Such a warhead only weighs 25 tons at most. No need for advanced technologies, just raw firepower.
Sure...if we wanted to die a horrible flaming death as opposed to a cold, starving one 
All the credible researchers say that the idea of blowing up an approaching asteroid with nuclear weapons is bogus. You've been watching too much Hollywood 
You would only succeed in blowing the asteroid apart...most or it would be blown outwards by the nuclear fireball. Worse, recent discoveries (including one rendevouz with an asteroid by a Japanese probe) indicate that asteroids are not solid objects. Rather they are like giant clumps of rocks held together with dust.
What you would likely do is spread out the damage, so that all parts of the Earth get hit. The atmosphere would become heated by the millions of smaller particles that burn up in it. Not a good thing 
A much better option, and one I've heard recently, is to use a large mirror or lens to focus the sun on one side of the asteroid. The focused energy will heat up the section of asteroid under it releasing gas, and that acts as a small rocket engine to push the asteroid out of the danger zone.
Only problem, is it would take a lot longer than 56 days
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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Asante
Mage


Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 86,795
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: Annom]
#7923418 - 01/24/08 08:49 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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Quote:
it would cost every world citizens $5 for a lifelong insurance against asteroid impact.
Well, that's a steal! Build one B2 Stealth Bomber less and the world is covered for 4 years 
Quote:
Not all world citizens would pay that right now, but in my optimistic future we sure have/need a good asteroid deflection system.
We should. Every "insurmountable" problem we tackle has tons of technological offspins which often seem stupendously unrelated. An asteroid deflection system could have offspins like leaps in consumer technology, improved structural metal alloys, UV-resistant house paint and God knows what.
Quote:
I'm just back from an exam where I had to solve an astrodynamics problem of an incoming asteroid. Imagine the mount Everest approaching you with 15 km/s (= 33554 mph), that hurts!
Interesting stuff! Did you think you passed?
-------------------- Omnicyclion.org higher knowledge starts here
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trendal
J♠



Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: Asante]
#7923429 - 01/24/08 08:52 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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Have you ever read The Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke?
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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blissedout


Registered: 11/11/04
Posts: 22,320
Loc: Yonder
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: rizingfire]
#7923432 - 01/24/08 08:53 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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Quote:
rizingfire said: Whiskey, better than us destroying ourselves right? lol
Dead's dead. Any way that it happens, you'e still dead.
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WhiskeyClone
Not here


Registered: 06/25/01
Posts: 16,509
Loc: Longitudinal Center of Canada ...
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: Asante]
#7923530 - 01/24/08 09:32 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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Quote:
Wiccan_Seeker said:
We owe it to the starfishes and the zebras that we prevent this if we can. It wouldn't just be humanity wiped out, but perhaps all life on earth. 4.5 G years of evolution could have been in vain, and what a waste it would be.
Besides, the chance of an asteroid like Tuesday's blammo hitting first is far, far more likely than a 50km Doomsday whopper falling from the skies. One that will only cause mass-suffering, not total extinction. A kind of Nuclear Winter could be the result.
It's not just us humans on the planet, we have all possible lifeforms to defend here. Harmless little critters who's survival depends on us getting our heads out of our asses and taking planetary responsibility.
Maybe mankind is Evolution's answer to being pommeled with Extinction Level Event asteroids every odd hundred million years, ever think of that one? We are a young species in a destructive type of civilization now, but perhaps our role in the grand scheme of things is to preserve life on earth and spread it among the stars.
One thing I think we should clarify here: 'Near misses' are far more frequent than impacts.
You said the object will pass within 500,000 km, correct? The earth's diameter is 12,700km. The cross-sectional area of the 'near-miss' sphere is 500,0002*pi, which is an area of 785,300,000,000km2. The cross-sectional area of earth is (12700/2)2* pi, which equals 126,700,000km2.
This means a near-miss (if we define that as a pass within 500,000km) occurs over six thousand times as often as a strike.
We could invest billions in developing systems that may have a chance of preventing one of these events, given that the one that IS headed for us is of manageable size.
Far more likely to exterminate (or merely decimate) humanity are disease, pollution, nuclear war, climate change, and biological evolution. To me it makes much more sense to address more immediate concerns than the possibility of earth getting hit by a rock. I just don't think it's very likely to occur in such a timeframe that would make it practical to invest billions in a defense system, while we are still using natural resources at an unbridled, unsustainable rate. Compare it to building a storm cellar in your house before putting out the grease fire on the stove.
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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Annom
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Registered: 12/22/02
Posts: 6,367
Loc: Europe
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: Asante]
#7923535 - 01/24/08 09:35 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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Quote:
Well, that's a steal! Build one B2 Stealth Bomber less and the world is covered for 4 years.
Its amazing that the US (and many other nations) can spend so much on tools for war.
Quote:
Interesting stuff! Did you think you passed?
Astrodynamics(celestial mechanics) is one of the courses I enjoyed most. I think I just passed. Next semester I have the second part of the course so there is more interesting stuff to discover.
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: memes]
#7923540 - 01/24/08 09:36 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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Quote:
by an astronomical hair's width (0.5 Mkm) as it soars through the solar system. It's approximately 0.3 km across.
Lets stick with common scales... 0.3km across at a distance of 500000 km from Earth. For reference, the moon is around 384000 km from Earth.
Quote:
If its just a relatively small asteroid like this one, a fifty megaton thermonuclear bomb would vaporize it. Such a warhead only weighs 25 tons at most. No need for advanced technologies, just raw firepower.
Have you done the math to see how difficult it is to get 25 tons out of earth orbit? Zarya, part of the ISS, weighed in at 22 tons and had to be launched by Russia because the US couldn't get anything that large into orbit. Even then, they only had to get it into low Earth orbit, not escape Earths gravity completely.
Quote:
maybe... but im still skeptical of our abilities as far as this goes.
Time is the important factor. We only have to nudge something an itty bitty tiny bit if we discover it soon enough. The closer it gets before hitting us, the less we are able to do anything about it. This tidbit was one of the few technical mistakes made in the Bruce Willis movie. (The other mistake is that the drilled hole + bomb would act as a rocket jet to move the asteroid rather than blowing it up; this would have been difficult to explain in a movie.)
Quote:
i am looking forward to the day one finally does hit us, and i hope im still alive to see it happen when it does.
There is a decent fictional book that deals with characters that survive a large asteroid hit. Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven (author of Ringworld).
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Annom
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Registered: 12/22/02
Posts: 6,367
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: Seuss]
#7923604 - 01/24/08 09:58 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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>Have you done the math to see how difficult it is to get 25 tons out of earth orbit?
We could do it in a single shot with the retired Satrun V Or with a few "cheap" Soyuz launches.
I like the idea of early detection and sending a swarm of pushing/pulling spacecraft, with ion engines powered by RTGs or solar cells. I had a study project where we used gravity as a chord between the asteroid and heavy spacecraft to deflect it. Time is indeed the important factor.
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Visionary Tools



Registered: 06/23/07
Posts: 7,953
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: memes]
#7923650 - 01/24/08 10:19 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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I was planning on spending time with my friends in feburary. I may go to London sooner than that.
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YidakiMan
Stranger


Registered: 09/28/02
Posts: 2,023
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: memes]
#7923679 - 01/24/08 10:27 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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Discovery did a documentary, don't remember what it was called, but it postulated what would've happened if the Yucatan impact had instead happened now.
It was kinda sad when that poor stupid fucker hiked all the way through the desert just to find ground zero.
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badchad
Mad Scientist

Registered: 03/02/05
Posts: 13,372
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: YidakiMan]
#7923777 - 01/24/08 10:59 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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So has there been any analysis on the chances of an asteroid actually hitting?
-------------------- ...the whole experience is (and is as) a profound piece of knowledge. It is an indellible experience; it is forever known. I have known myself in a way I doubt I would have ever occurred except as it did. Smith, P. Bull. Menninger Clinic (1959) 23:20-27; p. 27. ...most subjects find the experience valuable, some find it frightening, and many say that is it uniquely lovely. Osmond, H. Annals, NY Acad Science (1957) 66:418-434; p.436
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Cubie
Moderator




Registered: 01/11/08
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: badchad]
#7923780 - 01/24/08 11:01 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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The 2029 one has a good chance
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demiu5
humans, lol


Registered: 08/18/05
Posts: 43,948
Loc: the popcorn stadium
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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: Asante]
#7923856 - 01/24/08 11:25 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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Quote:
Wiccan_Seeker said:
Quote:
omg, let's put our shields up and blast that inanimate, inorganic rock out of the sky that is hell-bent on destroying us and everything we hold dear
You haven't actually read the post have you?
This particular comet isn't the problem, it's how little we do to prevent one from one day actually hitting us.
you didn't understand my post, did you?
i don't understand why you would be so afraid of a comet hitting us and our planet being destroyed, or even a portion of it, considering this is another process/occurrence in life. it's not like you don't risk death getting in a vehicle or going to the store, or doing many other daily activities.
i don't think it's something we should attempt to destroy or wage war against. that'd be like trying to do the same against a tornado/hurricane/powerful lightning storm
edit: not to mention that you stated in your first post that we should devote more funding to scientists watching and planning ways for comet defense
-------------------- channel your inner Larry David
Edited by demius (01/24/08 11:26 AM)
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers



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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: demiu5]
#7923884 - 01/24/08 11:40 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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That's a crazy attitude!
So you don't take medicine when you're sick, or eat when you're hungry?
Why would you passively sit back and accept whatever happens to you w/out taking any effort to affect your own destiny?
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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debianlinux
Myconerd - DBK




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Re: 2007TU24 -- We are so fucked [Re: demiu5]
#7923889 - 01/24/08 11:42 AM (16 years, 8 days ago) |
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The OP pointed out things like blast radius and tsunamis but I was of the understanding that the real threat lies in the dust/steam cloud that suffocates and blots out the sun.
And whoever is arguing that we should just ignore the asteroid threats deserve to die; i.e. survival of the fittest. If we have the means to prevent the collision, and I argue that we do, then we should prepare and practice those very means.
Also, on a conspiracy theory note, I believe knowledge of these incoming asteroids far pre-dates the dates being bandied in this discussion. The dates being posted are just the ones leaked to the unwashed masses. For consideration I present exhibit A; the mainstream fascination with astroidal ELE that took place oh, 9 years ago. "They" knew but weren't telling because the resulting panic would have caused "them" to lose too much control over the populace.
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