How small an asteroid strike to bother with warning?

Say you were in the US government and knew with certainty by secure and
non-public means that an incoming asteroid or cometary nucleus was less than a
week out from hitting the earth. No other country knows, just for the sake of
argument, all the astronomers have died in a horrible gardening accident...
This is a big one, a dino-killer size rock. At this point, you know it will hit
earth, but not exactly where. At the size we're suggesting, it really doesn't
matter: an ocean hit will send tsunamis about two states deep into both the
American coastlines, if it doesn't hit dry land. That's just for starters. You
can't stop it.

Do you bother even warning your people, since, assuming you still will somehow
be around yourselves to rule them, all you do is assure more survivors to drain
the remaining resources you have left after the strike? Because it's not like
you have anything you can really DO for them...

What if it's not a dino killer, just "real bad", still catastrophic, but in
some bizarre macabre sense "survivable". Do you warn then? At what size/ level
do you decide it's worth the extra mouths to feed after, balanced against the
number you need to have a working nation?

No, I don't know anything...... but I wouldn't sweat that crabgrass problem if
I were you;-)

MSu1049321 wrote:
Say you were in the US government and knew with certainty by secure and
non-public means that an incoming asteroid or cometary nucleus was less than a
week out from hitting the earth. No other country knows, just for the sake of
argument, all the astronomers have died in a horrible gardening accident...
This is a big one, a dino-killer size rock. At this point, you know it will hit
earth, but not exactly where. At the size we're suggesting, it really doesn't
matter: an ocean hit will send tsunamis about two states deep into both the
American coastlines, if it doesn't hit dry land. That's just for starters. You
can't stop it.

Do you bother even warning your people, since, assuming you still will somehow
be around yourselves to rule them, all you do is assure more survivors to drain
the remaining resources you have left after the strike? Because it's not like
you have anything you can really DO for them...

What if it's not a dino killer, just "real bad", still catastrophic, but in
some bizarre macabre sense "survivable". Do you warn then? At what size/ level
do you decide it's worth the extra mouths to feed after, balanced against the
number you need to have a working nation?

No, I don't know anything...... but I wouldn't sweat that crabgrass problem if
I were you;-)

Even a Dino Killer is survivable. Build a self-contained
habitat with enough consumables in a deep mine shaft and
you should be alright. With a couple months notice you
might be able to pull it off, but it wouldn't be easy.
Of course, this is for a remnant of the current population
of earth, but it ought to be enough to keep the human race
alive through the mass extinction.

Anyway, the setup is implausible. A Dino Killer asteroid
or Comet will be known publically before or nearly
simultaneously when it's known by any elite. Almost
certainly. You just can't hide something that size when
it's so close, and there are lots and lots of people
(amateurs) who look for that stuff routinely.

MSu1049321 wrote:
Say you were in the US government and knew with certainty by secure and
non-public means that an incoming asteroid or cometary nucleus was less than a
week out from hitting the earth. No other country knows, just for the sake of
argument, all the astronomers have died in a horrible gardening accident...
This is a big one, a dino-killer size rock. At this point, you know it will hit
earth, but not exactly where. At the size we're suggesting, it really doesn't
matter: an ocean hit will send tsunamis about two states deep into both the
American coastlines, if it doesn't hit dry land. That's just for starters. You
can't stop it.

Toutatis (which is a _big_ mama) will pass within 4 moon distances of
earth this September/October. I will wear a Toutatis costume this
Halloween since it is a scarey monster.


Do you bother even warning your people, since, assuming you still will somehow
be around yourselves to rule them, all you do is assure more survivors to drain
the remaining resources you have left after the strike? Because it's not like
you have anything you can really DO for them...

There was a good Larry Niven post impact book. I forget the title at the
moment. One of the main characters took great pains to preserve parts of
his library. This was a great help to the survivors in rebuilding
civilization (and kicking roving barbarian butts). David MacCauley's
book "The Way Things Work" was a very helpful book in that library.


What if it's not a dino killer, just "real bad", still catastrophic, but in
some bizarre macabre sense "survivable". Do you warn then? At what size/ level
do you decide it's worth the extra mouths to feed after, balanced against the
number you need to have a working nation?


Tunguska sized impacts will be far more common than Chicxulubs because
there are far more football field sized asteroids than 1 km+ asteroids.

For an impact that will destroy a large part of a continent, I don't see
much help a week's warning would do.

But a week's warning of a Tunguska sized impact might allow evacuation
of the impact area.


No, I don't know anything...... but I wouldn't sweat that crabgrass problem if
I were you;-)


--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

the Niven book was "Lucifer's Hammer". Good book, entertaining read.

In article ,
says...

snip

There was a good Larry Niven post impact book. I forget the title at the
moment.

"Lucifer's Hammer," co-authored by Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

Doug

Hop David wrote in message ...

There was a good Larry Niven post impact book. I forget the title at the
moment.

_Lucifer's_Hammer_, co-authored by Jerry Pournelle. IMHO it was
merely an O.K. book, falling in the middle of the pack of the sci-fi
I've read.

--
Rainforest laid low.
"Wake up and smell the ozone,"
Says man with chainsaw.
John J. Ladasky Jr., Ph.D.

The U.S.A. government (along with other 'official' governments around
the world) is only a tool, so if I was in the U.S.A. government and
even if I was the president of the U.S.A., I can't do anything unless
I got the orders from my superiors, I assure you, it ain't the
citizens of the U.S.A.

And if the superiors said on not to react to the situation, the tools
will not react.

After all, fighter pilots will stay on the ground if they aren't
ordered, even if there's an 'emergency' situation that's going to
happen.

Fortunately, a drastic decrease of humans population isn't part of
'their' agenda, so it will unlikely to happened, even if the whole
human governments are told to come to a standstill. On the other hand,
a local impact with local ffeects probably would be allowed, only it
would be publicized in a global scale and potrayed as if it it had a
major global impact.



Now... As for the originial question, I will assume that you will use
some sort of a fictional world, much like the one in "Deep Impact",
only that unlike in "Deep Impact", astronomers around the world
suddenly just croaked, even the backyard variety and the regular
stargazer variety (amateur astronomers).

I will do the following:

- Calculate the damage that will be causes the impact itself and the
effects caused by the impact.

- Prepare on the damage control needed.

- Save as many resources (including people) as possible.

- Tell the public on the situation, progressively, as calm and subtle
as possible. Information will be given in a 'need to know' basis.

- Pray to God.