Preparing Earth For Neo's

[Deepwater6]

http://www.space.com/16033-asteroid-strike-global-warning-system.html

 

This article in Space.com explains the effort to get some organization and communication should a NEO approach Earth. Cooperation would go a long way if one comes up on us fast. I don't see why any government would have a problem with it. Hopefully it's set up before a strike and not after.

[Turtle]

i think the article should have clarified the difference between NEO's (Near Earth Objects) and PHA's (Potentially Hazardous Asteroids). while PHA's are NEO's, the PHA's are the ones with...well, the potential to hit us with serious consequences. according to NASA, they currently number 1,311 which is a considerably smaller number than the 9,000 NEO's the article talks about.

 

governments may have a problem with issuing alerts due to the likelihood of panic, whether that panic is justified or not. (Panic: a sudden and unreasoning fear in the face of real or imagined danger.) i do think the outfits watching these things, as well as amateurs, would be the ones to sound the alarm and the governments would have little choice in the matter. while people might be alerted soon enough to be able to take actions such as evacuations in the event of a strike that could say decimate a large city, a really big hit such as 65 million years ago off Yucatan would leave nowhere to hide. use your imagination as to what people will do in that circumstance.

 

given people's cavalier attitude to government warnings about earthquakes, in the US at any rate, i think a program to educate folks on NEO's would fair little better.

 

here's a link to NASA's Near-Earth Object Group. they have orbit diagrams, images, lists, impact risks and other data for the public.

 

>> Near Earth Object Program

[CraigD]

How best to handle a future catastrophic meteorite impact is, obviously, not to have it, which requires two main capabilities:

• the ability to detect a large body headed for Earth or the Moon;
• and the ability to change its course to prevent the collision.
  

The various national and multi-national administered observation and tracking programs seem to me to have the detection capability well-started and improving, but work toward a prevention capability seems to me a shambles. This latter involves greater space engineering challenges than any previously met: a spacecraft must travel to and change the course of a body many times its mass, complicated by the likelihood that the body is not very solid, but a “gravel pile”. As best I can tell, beyond some speculative papers (eg: these linked to from a wikipedia article), little serious research into this has been done on the subject.

 

I think public money would be better spent on a permanent office of space scientists and engineers to develop a sure-fire design for such a system than on the international warning system the Space.com article describes.

 

Perhaps such an office already exists, and I (and apparently the Space.com writer Mike Wall) just don’t know of it, but I doubt it.

[Village Idiot]

How best to handle a future catastrophic meteorite impact is, obviously, not to have it, which requires two main capabilities:

• the ability to detect a large body headed for Earth or the Moon;
• and the ability to change its course to prevent the collision.
  

 

If a significantly dangerous meteor were selected for preventive measures, it might be helpful to contemplate the traction availed by our galaxy upon electrically charged matter. Presuming the galactic electric field to be inward-pointing, positive charged bodies should be expected to receive - a minuscule acceleration toward the galactic center, and negative charged bodies - a minuscule acceleration toward the closest point of the galactic rim.

 

This would suggest that if large meteors were to be pulverized and the particles brought to high electric charge of appropriate polarity in sufficient time before a catastrophic event is otherwise due, then we might get at least one oar in the water to hinder disaster.

[Lancewen]

How best to handle a future catastrophic meteorite impact is, obviously, not to have it, which requires two main capabilities:

• the ability to detect a large body headed for Earth or the Moon;
• and the ability to change its course to prevent the collision.

The various national and multi-national administered observation and tracking programs seem to me to have the detection capability well-started and improving, but work toward a prevention capability seems to me a shambles. This latter involves greater space engineering challenges than any previously met: a spacecraft must travel to and change the course of a body many times its mass, complicated by the likelihood that the body is not very solid, but a “gravel pile”. As best I can tell, beyond some speculative papers (eg: these linked to from a wikipedia article), little serious research into this has been done on the subject.

 

I think public money would be better spent on a permanent office of space scientists and engineers to develop a sure-fire design for such a system than on the international warning system the Space.com article describes.

 

Perhaps such an office already exists, and I (and apparently the Space.com writer Mike Wall) just don’t know of it, but I doubt it.

 

The topic I started on July 5, is addressing this issue. We may not have the means or the plans now. But if we located an object that was going to strike earth in 20 years. I believe it would focus our attention to the point where we could come up with a solution in time. But you first have to know you have a problem and the time to respond to it.

 

http://scienceforums.com/topic/25678-b612-sentinel-the-first-privately-funded-deep-space-mission/page__p__319527#entry319527