Asteroid Defense

NASA to formulate Planetary Protection Plan.

from Space.com:
www.space.com/news/060628_neo_workshop.html

I don't think I'll hold my breath waiting to see what will come out of this. However it may generate some funding for the likes of Dave McDonald and other serious asteroid hunters. What do you think Dave - doing asteroid telemetry and getting paid for it - sound good??

The human race is being mown down by the tens of millions (as we speak) by a multitude of attackers,mostly microscopic bugs.

The "Killer Tomatoes" will get us before killer asteroids.
or......the "Killer Humans"will get us.

Only one human has ever been known to die as a result of natural debris falling from space.

As with "Let's Define Planet", this is more meaningless Californian pot-smoking nonsense.

The money this nonsense would cost could be better spent,to put it mildly.

Only one human has ever been known to die as a result of natural debris falling from space.

Depends. In modern accurate historical record terms of the last say 300 years, no one has been reported killed. Legends exist in Chinese annals of some people being killed, but due to the trouble of translation into other languages, it is unknown if the stones that hit them were of a celestial source or not.

Also, 2 monks, at different times, were also reported killed during Rennaisance times.

As far as we know, only a dog has been accurately reported as being killed, and a woman in England injured when a meteorite crashed through her house.

Still, when you hear about these near misses etc, one begins to wonder... especially since, by probability and a game of chance, you have a far greater chance of being hit with a celestial rock than of winning the lottery!

Seanie.

It's all a matter of risk assessment I guess. Odds are low, consequences are seriously high. Personally, I think it's worth spending the money on research in this field.

Hey John - I'm game! Now, let's think... four two-meter RC scopes... maybe not...

Actually, Pan-Starrs made first light in recent weeks - they reckon they'll capture asteroids down to mag 24.5 and will survey their entire (local) sky once every four days. I think they were talking of generating 1 terabyte of data per 24 hrs :shock: I dunno what it cost but to get the rest of the rocks would need an even bigger/better system (Pan Starrs is 4 x 1.8m OTA's plus specially made CCD's). That's big money...

As for one human being injured, fair enough. But then no-one was near enough to Meteor Crater when that hit, or Tunguska (sp) or any of the big impacts. There's no doubt that anything above say 50m diameter hitting us at 17000 KPH or more will cause some difficulty and certainly more than one injury. If it hits water, well... I think we'd soon surpass the millions of deaths/injuries and move into the billions. All in a few hours. I don;t think even bird flu could do that.

As with "Let's Define Planet", this is more meaningless Californian pot-smoking nonsense.

The money this nonsense would cost could be better spent, to put it mildly.

Um, well, that's your view. I don't think its nonsense myself, the threat is real - sure, we could argue probablilty 'til the cows come home but even if the probability was miniscule, the consequences are catastrophic and so personally, I think its money well spent.

What do you think the money should be spent on instead?

Cheers

Dave

As with "Let's Define Planet", this is more meaningless Californian pot-smoking nonsense.
The money this nonsense would cost could be better spent,to put it mildly.

I dont want to go the way of the dinosaurs to be honest,
Am I ....
Pot smoking?,.... nope.
Californian?, ......I wish, think of all that great weather. :lol:


I dont see any doped up californian hippies here, yet some here think its a worth while task. Another asteroid WILL hit between now and the "end of time" , its only a matter of when..