Nuclear detonations in outer space

We will need vast explosives both in near Earth and local
interplanetary space to benefit mankind in more ways than one.
To meaningfully deflect asteroid risks like this:

http://www.planetary.org/programs/pr...s_competition/

or to secure orbital platforms like this:

http://www.astroscience.org/abdul-ahad/earth-ring.htm

So I'm wondering what the outlook is for nuclear treaties and lifting
bans in accord with the peaceful use of outer space treaties and such
like. Is it likely to happen soon?

Any thoughts from my learned friends here?

AA
http://www.myspace.com/aa_spaceagent

Dear abdul.ahad:

wrote in message
oups.com...
We will need vast explosives both in near Earth
and local interplanetary space to benefit mankind
in more ways than one.
....
So I'm wondering what the outlook is for nuclear
treaties and lifting bans in accord with the
peaceful use of outer space treaties and such
like. Is it likely to happen soon?

You will have those worried about nuclear fallout, raining down
on everyone's head.

You will have those worried about having a nuclear arsenal manned
by _?_ hovering over everyone's head.

I doubt it will happen even if a planet killer is identified that
will strike Earth with a 99% probability within the next year,
much less the next 30 years.

Nuclear detonation should only be used when less drastic methods
fail. Because it will spray bits and pieces in *every*
direction, including the original path.

David A. Smith

In sci.space.policy "N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" wrote:
Dear abdul.ahad:

wrote in message
oups.com...
We will need vast explosives both in near Earth
and local interplanetary space to benefit mankind
in more ways than one.
...
So I'm wondering what the outlook is for nuclear
treaties and lifting bans in accord with the
peaceful use of outer space treaties and such
like. Is it likely to happen soon?

You will have those worried about nuclear fallout, raining down
on everyone's head.

You will have those worried about having a nuclear arsenal manned
by _?_ hovering over everyone's head.

I doubt it will happen even if a planet killer is identified that
will strike Earth with a 99% probability within the next year,
much less the next 30 years.

Nuclear detonation should only be used when less drastic methods
fail. Because it will spray bits and pieces in *every*
direction, including the original path.

It's the only real practical way to move very large asteroids.

You don't explode it and try to blow up the thing.
You set it off when the asteroid fills a decent fraction of the sky as
seen by the bomb.

This then flash heats the top few centimeters or millimeters, and causes
it to rapidly boil off and blow away in the direction of the bomb,
causing a thrust away from the bomb.

This will cause a net thrust on the asteroid, even if it's a pile of
gravel.
You then wait till it coalesces back together mostly, and repeat until
it misses earth.

In article ,
Ian Stirling wrote:

It's the only real practical way to move very large asteroids.

You don't explode it and try to blow up the thing.
You set it off when the asteroid fills a decent fraction of the sky as
seen by the bomb.

This then flash heats the top few centimeters or millimeters, and causes
it to rapidly boil off and blow away in the direction of the bomb,
causing a thrust away from the bomb.

Find the mass of an average asteroid

Find the velocity of an average asteroid

Calculate just how many bombs you will not to just cause a deadly rain
of debris.

--

Saucerhead lingo #2102 "However, since PTP is in reality NOT a budding
astrophysicist..." ... "Perhaps if we try distraction as a tactic people
will forget we cannot answer simple conflicting issues with our nonsense
theory"

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

In article .com,
wrote:
So I'm wondering what the outlook is for nuclear treaties and lifting
bans in accord with the peaceful use of outer space treaties and such
like. Is it likely to happen soon?

It probably won't happen soon without an urgent reason. Nobody is going
to go through the process of negotiating a treaty amendment without a
strong incentive. That's especially true for nuclear-weapons treaties,
which are politically touchy (to put it mildly).

If there *is* an urgent reason, it shouldn't be difficult. The main issue
is the Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits nuclear explosions of all kinds in
(among other places) outer space. Amending it basically requires the
consent of the US, Britain, and Russia. (Formally, it needs the consent
of a majority of all countries ratifying the treaty, including all of
those three -- the treaty's original countries. However, I think those
three are still the only ones to have ratified it, so it's just them.)
Given that, an amendment can take effect immediately. (Withdrawal is a
much more drastic move, and also requires three months' notice.)
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

Phineas T Puddleduck wrote:
In article ,
Ian Stirling wrote:

It's the only real practical way to move very large asteroids.

You don't explode it and try to blow up the thing.
You set it off when the asteroid fills a decent fraction of the sky as
seen by the bomb.

This then flash heats the top few centimeters or millimeters, and causes
it to rapidly boil off and blow away in the direction of the bomb,
causing a thrust away from the bomb.

Find the mass of an average asteroid

Find the velocity of an average asteroid

Find out why I'm such a "sissy-fag".

Heck, that will take years and cost thousands of lives!

Art Deco

"Phineas T Puddleduck" wrote in message
news
In article ,
Ian Stirling wrote:

It's the only real practical way to move very large asteroids.

You don't explode it and try to blow up the thing.
You set it off when the asteroid fills a decent fraction of the sky as
seen by the bomb.

This then flash heats the top few centimeters or millimeters, and causes
it to rapidly boil off and blow away in the direction of the bomb,
causing a thrust away from the bomb.

Find the mass of an average asteroid

Find the velocity of an average asteroid

Calculate just how many bombs you will not to just cause a deadly rain
of debris.

If a decent sized asteroid was on track to hit Earth in 2 months, nukes
wouldn't be powerful enough to make it miss, unless its track is to deliver
a glancing blow. If we had 5 or 10 years lead time, it would be easier to
change its course, because the deflection needed is less. Ideally, you
wouldn't detonate these nukes near Earth.

Do we have a good way to deliver nukes to an asteroid that is 10 million
kilometers away?

Ian Stirling wrote:
Nuclear detonation should only be used when less drastic methods
fail. Because it will spray bits and pieces in *every*
direction, including the original path.

It's the only real practical way to move very large asteroids.

"Very large"? I doubt you could even measure how much Ceres would be
deflected.

Most *very* large asteroids are not on an Earth-crossing path anyway.
You need to talk about NEOs of a size that we should be concerned
about.

You don't explode it and try to blow up the thing.
You set it off when the asteroid fills a decent fraction of the sky as
seen by the bomb.

This then flash heats the top few centimeters or millimeters, and causes
it to rapidly boil off and blow away in the direction of the bomb,
causing a thrust away from the bomb.

Depending on how long it boils, the net thrust might be perilously
close to zero. Most asteroids rotate. If you're lucky, the needed
delta V is roughly aligned with the axis of rotation. Or the asteroid
has a lot of volatiles on the surface (probably not, for an NEO.) You
can't count on being lucky.

And would it be enough anyway? Most of the effects of nuclear
explosions on Earth are caused by shock waves. If there are no
shockwaves (or only bomb detritus waves), you're wasting virtually all
of the energy. The designers of Orion knew this, and assumed a sheet
of reaction mass between the explosive and the pusher plate, composed
so as to absorb a lot of the radiation passing through it. We won't
have the choice of composition for whatever's on the surface of an
Earth-crossing asteroid, unless of course we apply the material
ourselves, and that's a whole different ball game.

I read once of an experiment at Eniwetok (?) where they suspended some
hollow metal spheres quite close (maybe a few hundred meters?) from an
H-bomb test. The spheres were left intact (OK, scorched a little).
Being spheres, they distributed the forces from the shock wave quite
evenly. Being metal, they reflected a fair portion of the radiation.

This will cause a net thrust on the asteroid, even if it's a pile of
gravel.
You then wait till it coalesces back together mostly, and repeat until
it misses earth.

Could work, but how many times do you repeat? How many times *can* you
repeat. Since this is proposed for asteroids expected to hit fairly
soon, coalescescence would probably take an unacceptably long time,
considering the low gravities involved. You might get only one shot,
and not enough to make much difference at all.

Last I checked, using nukes to deflect/decompose asteroids had been
shown to have so many problems that they stopped thinking about it
seriously, except at major Hollywood movie studios.

I suspect that a better use of the same lift capacity would be to send
kinetic payloads in a roughly retrograde orbit toward the asteroid,
giving you a lot more relative kinetic energy with respect to the
asteroid's inertial frame. Explosions might play a role in
distributing the payload to cover a lot of the surface, in the instant
before impact, so that you don't have a projectile just plowing through
rubble and out the other side. But the explosions would likely be very
low energy compared to a nuke -- conventional explosive would, if
anything, be preferable.

Do we have enough lift capacity? The same ICBMs used to loft CubeSats
and Bigelow's test modules (retrofitted SS-18s, of which there are a
few dozen remaining I think) can send a small payload to Mars,
according to the current (Russian) launch services vendor. It would be
interesting to calculate what could be done using *all* current ICBMs
for kinetic deflection of an NEO. You'd have to take the warheads off
and substitute something much lighter, of course.

If there was enough lead time (a few years, say), and the planets were
appropriately aligned, Earth and/or Venus might be used for momentum
exchange to increase effective kinetic energy, instead of using a
retrograde path. If you could make a case that massive launch of ICBMs
with kinetic-deflection warheads *could* make a difference against a
hazardous NEO, you might also have a case for keeping some missiles
around that are currently slated for demolition under arms control
treaties (As I believe is the case with those SS-18s, this year or the
next -- which would be kind of a waste I think. I'd rather they were
launching interesting stuff.)

-michael turner
www.transcendentalbloviation.blogspot.com

wrote:
We will need vast explosives both in near Earth and local
interplanetary space to benefit mankind in more ways than one.
To meaningfully deflect asteroid risks like this:

http://www.planetary.org/programs/pr...s_competition/

or to secure orbital platforms like this:

http://www.astroscience.org/abdul-ahad/earth-ring.htm

One possibility would be antimatter, the hardware to make it is
relatively cheap. A gross simplification would be arrays of inflatable
tubing, lightweight metals, and sensors. There should be enough power
from rotation speed and solar effects in Inter-Mercurial orbits to
generate large quantities.

Sam.
http://sthigpen.freeshell.org/eco-links.html
http://sthigpen.freeshell.org/stardrive-links.html

wrote:
wrote:
We will need vast explosives both in near Earth and local
interplanetary space to benefit mankind in more ways than one.
To meaningfully deflect asteroid risks like this:

http://www.planetary.org/programs/pr...s_competition/

or to secure orbital platforms like this:

http://www.astroscience.org/abdul-ahad/earth-ring.htm

One possibility would be antimatter, the hardware to make it is
relatively cheap.

News to me. From the Wikipedia Antimatter entry: "If we could assemble
all the antimatter we've ever made at CERN and annihilate it with
matter, we would have enough energy to light a single electric light
bulb for a few minutes." This, after strenuous efforts over the years
to increase productivity.

A gross simplification would be arrays of inflatable
tubing, lightweight metals, and sensors.

A gross simplification of what, exactly?

There should be enough power
from rotation speed and solar effects in Inter-Mercurial orbits to
generate large quantities.

And there should be enough power there to propel a solar sail to Alpha
Centauri on a beam of laser light. The question is: where do we stand
in terms of being able to actually carry this out?

-michael turner
www.transcendentalbloviation.blogspot.com