[TML] Asteroid Deflection

[shadow at shadowgard.com]

On 15 Jul 2008 at 7:36, alan spik wrote:

> 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.

The problem is that it is likely to be spinning and the energy tied 
up in that spin could be on a par with a small nuke. Towing a 
spinning object is a real nightmare. 

For that matter, hooking up to tow it is a major project. 


Mucgh simpler to use bombs or big energy weapons to vaporize 
strategfic bits and induce a course change from the reaction.

Or yyoiu can mount a mass driver on it and fling bits off in harmless 
directions. But that may cost more and take longer.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com