Nasa to slam spacecraft into asteroid in mission to avoid future Armaggedon
Test drive of planetary defence system aims to provide data on how to deflect asteroids away from Earth
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/nov/22/nasa-slam-spacecraft-into-asteroid-to-avoid-armaggedon
Occasionally the coneheads (physicists) at the two US DOE weapons labs ponder planetary defense. Some have proposed using components from (very) powerful ABM-oriented warheads from the last century to "nudge" an asteroid out of the way. Evidently just the x-ray photons and the ensuing ablation would have enough impulse to shift things without actually breaking the thing up.
I thought we always used some ragtag group of retired astronauts for this? Have I been lied to all of these years?