[TML] Asteroid Deflection

[Michael Jenkins]

2008/7/15 alan spik <babyduck1 at cox.net>:
> shadow at shadowgard.com wrote:
>> On 14 Jul 2008 at 12:55, Rob Davenport wrote:
>>
>>> 1)  What about jump drives (in the far future obviously)? Could one or
>>> more be attached to an incoming rock (a non-near-C type rock probably) and
>>> just jump it (or as much of it as possible) somewhere else? Never mind
>>> about a misjump, in fact that'd probably be preferred. (Induced misjump?).
>>
>> If the rock is big enough to be dangerous, it's *way* bigger than
>> most ships.
>>
>> Ok, I take that back. Something the size of a house made the
>> Barringer crater. So ship sized rocks are dangerous. But it's a hell
>> of a lot easier to deflect them than to fit them with a jump drive.
>>
>> And the dinosaur killers are kilometer sized. That's going to be hard
>> to find a drive for.
>>
>> "Civilized" systems will have done a sky survey and know where
>> potential problems are *years* before they get close. And on that
>> scale, a fewq nukes exploded near the proper side of the rock will
>> cause it to eject enough mass (the x-rays from the nuke get absorbed
>> mostly a ways *under the surface, causing the surface materials to
>> get blasted out at a ffair speed). And the ejected mass wikll change
>> the orbit.
>
> Maybe a tug could just push/pull it into a new orbit? Save all the
> destruction and scattering of debris.

Oh oh ... here we go!    :)

Er ... don't you need a tug that can match vectors with a near-c rock?

Easier said than done, and do you have enough time?

If we're talking just a regular asteroid in a stellar orbit, sure.

If it's got resources, you could even move a mining ship in.

-- 
Regards,
Michael Jenkins
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