Nuclear bombs don't get triggered by fire, explosions, etc. Air force bombers carrying nuclear weapons have crashed, no mushroom. Plutonium contamination, maybe.

Meh, it's been a good run.

But certainly not a great run...

The problem with trying to do this with a nuclear weapon, it is not a precision device. We would be better off putting a VASMIR engine on the rock and making a course adjustment.

Problem 1 - Not much thrust, so it takes a while to make even small path changes
Problem 2 - They need power

Ever notice that they keep showing the movie DEEP IMPACT all the time on TV? Probably one of the best depictions of what an asteroid could do to our planet and cause the Extinction Level Event (ELE) for humanity. Mankind cannot stop a rock the size of Manhattan from striking the planet. Superman or the Federation of Planets and the USS Enterprise have yet to show up to save our pathetic skins!!

Anyways, why would anyone let us know that one is on the way to hit us? Imagine the panic.
No well funded disaster preper would ever survive. Nature will destroy us one way or the other.

A "solar wind sail" for them, a big azz cork/drill for Yellowstone, a BIGLY tsunami wall all up and down the Atlantic, a bunch of sand for Las Vegas beach, a....oh crap...

We're domed I tell ya :(...enjoy today, I'm gonna :)!

Yes, Florida might glow in the dark for quite a while.

And there is that; what goes up must come down thing.

I think the Russians irradiated some of the Canadian wilderness a few years back with a little cold war project they forgot about. Re-entry was thought to vaporize it completely, apparently not.

More likely to work than a nuclear weapon and no energy cost. It might even be able to be deployed remotely. The problem, you need to identify the problem well in advance.

Unfortunately we must identify asteroids visually. Most asteroids are low albedo, they don't reflect light well. Radar is not effective. We can use very narrow beam radar once we know it is there. But to do a wide region, you need a very powerful source. With the sun, we have a great light source!

Why Don't We Have An Asteroid Interceptor?
Because the fake science in Hollywood breaks more laws of science than there is room to list.
To that I always point out that the best way to stop a zombie invasion is to remember that zombies don't exist.
Move along. Nothing to see here.

I'm not advocating a nuclear weapon... only that if we put you brainy guys to it you would figure something out.

Heck, we got to the moon with computers that were less powerful that the average cell phone. If we put our minds to it I'm sure we would figure something out.


Um, but it is a fact that the earth has been hit by asteroids in the past... and going without sunshine for a year or two would put a kink in our plans.

i think if i earth shattering meteor is gonna smack...no SMITE us down.

i would file it under "it is what it is" and go and steal a ferrari.

So, if there was a hole in said rock and we but a reactor down there and let it go critical and then the hole would work as a thrust nozzle for all the vaporized material the rock would both lose weight and generate thrust from said reaction.

To do this we would have get get someone there, try to fashion a rudimentary lathe...wait, wrong movie.

No argument. The problem is that NOTHING we have in todays technology can do what Hollywood sells you. The big screen fixes are all fantasy at this time. So what can we do if impact is eminent? Get to a safe place underground, squat down as low as possible, put your head between your knees, look up, and kiss your azz goodbye.
Remember that no matter what we do, the mortality rate world wide is 100%. Everyone dies. Just some sooner, some later, some know approximately when, some are totally surprised. Either way, you are still moved to eternity.

I have a gererator, so I'm cool.

So... are you telling me that can't do facial recognition off a reflection in a hubcap from a traffic cam 100 yards away?

^ It depends on whether you have your tin foil hat on at the time.

Is this a new secret technology that protects you from asteroid blasts or are you saying you will use this "gererator" to change the path of the asteroid? Is it anything like the Turbo Encabulator?

We do have an asteroid interceptor. It has a gravitational field to attract them, then BOOM!
It's called earth.

Of course Hollywood makes it look easy. The technology to leave earth orbit is something only a few countries have ever done and they are just little satellites. To get a crew of humans to accelerate out and slow back down and land on a asteroid is many decades away right now. Even if they were willing to go on a one only way trip. To get a satellite to orbit and land on a comet that we knew was coming many years before it arrived took years of flight time.

Sending humans to an comet or asteroid is going to take several new technologies that have not even been dreamed of yet in in a theoretical paper.

Until we can change the laws of physics it just can't be done.

That's Plan B

Plan A is the moon

Plan C is Chuck :)

I thought I posted this earlier but I can't find it so, its time to resurrect a classic
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ac7G7xOG2Ag" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

edit: I found it posted in a thread asking about a TT Straps for 3 Blade or more Rotor Head whatever that is. Oh well, its worth watching again.

The point is that the Turbo Encabulator will work in space as well as here on earth.

^^^ Not only did I watch, I read along :)

I think none of the solutions that require matching velocities with an asteroid will work.

A killer asteroid is likely to be on an trajectory such that we will not be able to send a vehicle to intercept it and then "dock" with it. We can send probes to orbit or even land on other planets because the planet is in an orbit sort of concentric with Earth's and the planet has enough gravity to capture the probe. Neither is the case with an asteroid like 2014 J025.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/...1258183694.jpg

At least you certainly can't count on being able to do so.

The asteroid interceptor needs to work without matching velocities with the asteroid. All the ideas about mounting light sails or whatever on the asteroid are just fantasies. If the asteroid is in an orbit that allows us to do that, then it isn't a killer asteroid.

in 2027 there wil be one passing much closer than that.

On August 7, 2027, "1999 AN10" will pass within 0.0026 AU (390,000 km; 240,000 mi) (~1 lunar distance) of the Earth. During the close approach, the asteroid should peak at about apparent magnitude 7.3, and will be visible in binoculars.

All the ideas of "blowing up" an asteroid with a nuclear tipped missile are fantasy.

Yea, to get a satellite to orbit a comet it took 12 fricking YEARS to get there. And it sure did not have the payload to deliver any way to divert or destroy an asteroid.

http://d1jqu7g1y74ds1.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/tumblr_mj0vvcqnZx1qdlh1io1_400.gif

I am not worried. Planet X will save us.

Didn't we land a probe on an asteroid recently?

NASA Lands Probe on Asteroid - ABC News

The answer is obvious... instead of moving the asteroid we move the earth!!!

Just put all available jet engines on hardstands as close to the equator as possible and crank them to full throttle. Increase the rotational speed of the earth and change our orbit enough to miss the asteroid! FOOLPROOF!

Eros is in a fairly stable orbit out close to Mars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/433_Eros

It is not flying at Earth at thousands of miles per second.

Eros does NOT have a stable orbit. It is a fairly large ellipse

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1492719740.jpg

It crosses Mars orbit on a regular basis and swings 2/3rds the way to Earth's orbit. It is NOT in the Asteroid belt.

Here is the Asteroid Belt.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1492719864.jpg

Eros might swing into the edge, but it is a Mars Crossing Asteroid.

But changing its course by 0.0001 degree is very feasible. And that's all you need.

We're domed! http://forums.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/wat5.gif

We are going to need BILLIONS an BILLIONS of these interceptors cause them things are not gotta intercept themselves!

A nuclear weapon "might" change the course, but we will not control it. It would be mostly random. You could as easily put it on a path directly to Earth.

Asteroid smashteroid.

I'm more scared of that caldera under Yellowstone.

I'm still against calderas.

It would already be on a path directly to Earth, so any deviation is desirable.

I'm thinkin' our ancestors should have selected s safer neighborhood....damn rock throwers ain't moving....can we relocate the earth instead?

lots of free material to make space stations and starships eventually
with no need to get the materials out of the earth's gravity well
modify the orbits and park them for later use
or use them as a space bus to get near mars or other places
we will likely need fusion power to exploit them

free stuff
once we figure out fusion power
we can intercept and park them
I just hope we do not get hit before
we can control them
as they are the key to huge space stations
and a space bus to mars and beyond
eventually slowboat star ships
short term threat but long term benefit