The earth had a tough time too early on. But weather and tectonic forces have wiped out all but the most recent and biggest strike evidence.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Even a bus sized rock has been hit many times by smaller rocks.

I never sought a 34 km long bus :P

Even a bus sized rock has been hit many times by smaller rocks.

I never sought a 34 km long bus :P

I thought that was a good picture of a bus from 200,000 miles away. ALW American News Network, the quoted link, must be part of Russia Today.

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Where is NORAD when we need them??


With nothing less at stake than the future of Earth, NASA has decided to invite ideas to detect and track asteroids that have the potential to wipe out life as we know it.

After a previously undetected, 19.8-metre-wide asteroid exploded over Russia in February 2013, unleashing the force of 500,000 tonnes of TNT, NASA launched a series of contests for smart folks around the globe to come up with ways to keep an eye on asteroids that could threaten Earth.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/nasa-seeks-help-to-save-earth-from-killer-asteroids-20140507-zr66t.html
NASA seeks help to save Earth from killer asteroids

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Doing something about it is another matter. Perhaps the film Meteor might point the way ....

It would be interesting to see what can/will be done if the world had say a year warning of an extinction size strike. Will there be cooperation between militaries, do any have the ability to deflect/destroy a rock far enough out. I assume the great unwashed will call upon "The Great Satan" to save them.

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Doing something about it is another matter. Perhaps the film Meteor might point the way ....

It would be interesting to see what can/will be done if the world had say a year warning of an extinction size strike. Will there be cooperation between militaries, do any have the ability to deflect/destroy a rock far enough out. I assume the great unwashed will call upon "The Great Satan" to save them.

You don't want to know... I don't! I hardly watch the news these days...

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rOZZ
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In the film of course, both Russia and the USA had supposedly secret nuclear armed satellites. I suspect that it isn't true in real life, and that the earth doesn't have any similar means to deal with a big enough lump of rock. If it happens it happens. All mankind could do would be to move to the other side of the globe from the impact.

If it ever happens, we should all remain calm and accept, but that's just me...

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rOZZ
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We should fund asteroid-oriented projects, like B612 project and Laser Bees.

We should fund asteroid-oriented projects, like B612 project and Laser Bees.

I know! Orbit@home is still 'half' online, thanx for the links:)

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rOZZ
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Laser bees sounds a bit far fetched to me.

True and who is going to fund and operate it? The best chance would be seeing the rock far enough out and figuring out the exact trajectory to know it will hit. Then it would only take a small nudge with a rocket, not necessarily nuclear, to change its trajectory enough to make it miss. The closer it is the more it will take to make it miss.

With US paying for Obamacare and watching Putin I don't see Asteroid deflection being given much attention; sorry NASA.

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Laser bees sounds a bit far fetched to me.

True and who is going to fund and operate it? The best chance would be seeing the rock far enough out and figuring out the exact trajectory to know it will hit. Then it would only take a small nudge with a rocket, not necessarily nuclear, to change its trajectory enough to make it miss. The closer it is the more it will take to make it miss.

With US paying for Obamacare and watching Putin I don't see Asteroid deflection being given much attention; sorry NASA.

But it's just the thought, the security...

[edit]When you know you're crunching a project dedicated to asteroids who are a danger to hit Earth I mean...

[same edit] Go Orbit!

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rOZZ
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Laser bees sounds a bit far fetched to me.

At this moment, Laser Bees is in the testing phase on the ground --that is, testing the basic technology in a laboratory. This phase is what is funded by The Planetary Society. If that goes well, then a prototype will be tested in space, probably with ESA's funding.

I know! Orbit@home is still 'half' online, thanx for the links:)

I'll try it in October :) --I don't compute in summer, we have 30-35ºC now.

The best chance would be seeing the rock far enough out

But we don't have the technology to launch a rocket into space that far out.

NASA landed a 1,100 pound rocket on a rock 196 million miles away. It would be much easier to just hit one as hard as necessary. At a couple of million miles the angle only has to be deflected minutely. The question is how long would it take to ready the rocket?

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[quote]The only option would be to move as many people away as possible from the predicted impact zone if on land, or away from coastal areas in the event of an ocean hit, and the expected tsunamis.

Who is going to move these people and take care of them until they can go back home? If it is a big enough rock there will be no place to hide anyway. Can I at least try a deflection before you take in a billion people and feed them for a hundred years?

It is all well and good that a couple of posters on the Interweb have all the answers but what plans, if any, are being made by those who can do something?

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There are some concept designs of asteroid-impacting spacecraft by ESA, like Don Quijote and AIDA (the latter with NASA cooperation), but they didn't get manufactured nor launched.

OK Mr Batter up. You are the President of the USA and you get told tomorrow of an asteroid impact in 10-12 months that will wipe out the North American Continent. What will you do?

Well with the cost of Obamacare and a "sequestered" budget all I could afford to do is organize a march.

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Well with the cost of Obamacare and a "sequestered" budget all I could afford to do is organize a march.

A political comment wasn't really what was being looked for here.

The first question would obviously be "Can we stop it?" and if the answer was no, or we're pretty sure that we can't, then it'd be damage limitation time. Looking at the demographics of the USA (& Canada) a high proportion of the population live on the western & eastern Seaboards. It might be possible given a years warning, to evacuate some of those by sea as well as by air. But where would they go? Which countries could take them that don't already have problems feeding their own people? USA population is 300 million remember.

The whole of Europe already has 700 million, and is pretty tightly packed. Russia has 143 million mainly crammed in their western part, the rest being mostly uninhabited Steppe. China has 1.35 billion people already, 50% mainly living in the east of the country, the rest in rural areas. I shouldn't imagine that Europe could take a large number, and would Russia or China want to help? Would the UN be of any use?

Then of course where's the money going to come from to feed clothe and house all these millions of refugees? Apart from a relatively few fortunate individuals it's just not going to happen is it? You simply couldn't evacuate the USA any more than you could Europe, if it was headed there. It's only in the last decade as our detection ability has got better that we've realised just how many near misses we have had and are having. Therefore I am suggesting that the only practicable solution is to ramp up our NEO detection capability, both short and long range, and get cracking on an asteroid busting capability right now, and hope we have time to make it work before it is needed.

Any other suggestions?

Makes absolute sense to me Chris. Even for those who survived an impact (by virtue of where they happened to be on the earth at the time) they would by no means be guaranteed to survive in the long term.

Figure the cost of all of that and building a space based deflection or destruction system is cheap by comparison, not to mention the lives saved.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

I shouldn't imagine that Europe could take a large number, and would Russia or China want to help? Would the UN be of any use?
Any other suggestions?

The logistics are impossible and in a disaster might makes right. Our "civilized" society is only a thin veneer easily removed. After Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans there was a complete breakdown of civility as people had to fight for their lives on their own and it got ugly quickly. There is no chance for cooperation in a city let alone the entire planet. Off course an extinction rock only hits every million years or so so no country is going to spend much to do anything about it.

Then it depends on the size of the rock but of course the bigger the rock the farther out it will be seen. It would be an interesting experiment to say the least.

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I shouldn't imagine that Europe could take a large number, and would Russia or China want to help? Would the UN be of any use?
Any other suggestions?

The logistics are impossible and in a disaster might makes right. Our "civilized" society is only a thin veneer easily removed. After Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans there was a complete breakdown of civility as people had to fight for their lives on their own and it got ugly quickly. There is no chance for cooperation in a city let alone the entire planet. Off course an extinction rock only hits every million years or so so no country is going to spend much to do anything about it.

Then it depends on the size of the rock but of course the bigger the rock the farther out it will be seen. It would be an interesting experiment to say the least.

What would? Just watching it hit or trying to deflect it? :)