Russia may send spacecraft to asteroid to avoid millions of death on earth:

Russia may send spacecraft to asteroid to avoid millions of death on earth:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091230/...roid_encounter

On Dec 30, 3:30*pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Russia may send spacecraft to asteroid to avoid millions
of death on earth:
snip link made dead by Google.Groups, they are going to shift
Apophis

We need to practice on something. It might as well be that one.

So should they drop it into the Moon, or Venus?

David A. Smith

On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:16:52 -0800 (PST), dlzc wrote:

On Dec 30, 3:30*pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Russia may send spacecraft to asteroid to avoid millions
of death on earth:
snip link made dead by Google.Groups, they are going to shift
Apophis

We need to practice on something. It might as well be that one.

So should they drop it into the Moon, or Venus?

David A. Smith

But, what if they make a slight error and end up diverting this
asteroid to a dead-on collision with Earth in a few years? Gordon

On Dec 30, 2:30*pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Russia may send spacecraft to asteroid to avoid millions of death on earth:
*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091230/...ia_asteroid_en....

Thank God that Russia saved all of our butts in WW2 (doing it the hard
way), and perhaps this time they'll save countless millions of our
butts once again.

~ BG

On Dec 30, 3:16*pm, dlzc wrote:
On Dec 30, 3:30*pm, Jan Panteltje wrote: Russia may send spacecraft to asteroid to avoid millions
of death on earth:

snip link made dead by Google.Groups, they are going to shift
Apophis

We need to practice on something. *It might as well be that one.

So should they drop it into the Moon, or Venus?

David A. Smith

I vote for nailing it into our moon, as perhaps on the farside so that
we get the least if any secondary debris.

Venus may have intelligent life, that could get more than a little
****ed if we stuffed that sucker into their toasty planet.

~ BG

On Dec 31, 7:37*am, Antares 531 wrote:
On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:16:52 -0800 (PST), dlzc wrote:
On Dec 30, 3:30*pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Russia may send spacecraft to asteroid to avoid millions
of death on earth:
snip link made dead by Google.Groups, they are going to shift
Apophis

We need to practice on something. *It might as well be that one.

So should they drop it into the Moon, or Venus?

David A. Smith

But, what if they make a slight error and end up diverting this
asteroid to a dead-on collision with Earth in a few years? *Gordon

At least we'll know ahead of time as to which part of Earth is going
to get vaporized.

~ BG

Dear BradGuth:

On Dec 31, 12:51*pm, BradGuth wrote:
On Dec 30, wrote:
On Dec 30, 3:30*pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Russia may send spacecraft to asteroid to avoid
millions of death on earth:

snip link made dead by Google.Groups, they are
going to shift Apophis

We need to practice on something. *It might as
well be that one.

So should they drop it into the Moon, or Venus?

I vote for nailing it into our moon, as perhaps on the
farside so that we get the least if any secondary debris.

How about trying for a gravitational capture, eventually to use it for
an anchor for a space elevator, or at least a hardened base with lots
of availble shielding? Seems like its a lot of mass we would not have
to lift.

If it is to be the Moon, I'd vote for an "edge" or the nearside, so
that we can obtain data at depth as to the constituents... might
uncover green cheese! The debris would be orders of magnitude less
massive than the asteroid itself, and would represent no risk to
Earth, IMO. ISS and such, maybe...

Venus may have intelligent life, that could get
more than a little ****ed if we stuffed that sucker
into their toasty planet.

If they can see through that atmosphere, as to who "bumped" it, we
should be very afraid...

David A. Smith

On Dec 31, 12:34*pm, dlzc wrote:
Dear BradGuth:

On Dec 31, 12:51*pm, BradGuth wrote:

On Dec 30, wrote:
On Dec 30, 3:30*pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Russia may send spacecraft to asteroid to avoid
millions *of death on earth:

snip link made dead by Google.Groups, they are
going to shift Apophis

We need to practice on something. *It might as
well be that one.

So should they drop it into the Moon, or Venus?

I vote for nailing it into our moon, as perhaps on the
farside so that we get the least if any secondary debris.

How about trying for a gravitational capture, eventually to use it for
an anchor for a space elevator, or at least a hardened base with lots
of availble shielding? *Seems like its a lot of mass we would not have
to lift.

At 30.7 km/s, it could be rather easily captured in perhaps L3 or L4,
or it could be parked within the earth-moon L1(Selene L1).

The best gravitational capture place might me Selene L2, and at 27
million tonnes would make a nifty start on the tethered mass required
to move our moon(Selene) out to Earth L1.


If it is to be the Moon, I'd vote for an "edge" or the nearside, so
that we can obtain data at depth as to the constituents... might
uncover green cheese! *The debris would be orders of magnitude less
massive than the asteroid itself, and would represent no risk to
Earth, IMO. *ISS and such, maybe...

I don't have that much faith in random happenstance, of such secondary
shards (15 million tonnes worth) leaving us alone. Perhaps a low
velocity rear-ender would leave 90+% of Apophis on the moon. However,
a retrograde encounter of 60+ km/s could substantially vaporize a good
portion of our moon, giving it an atmosphere that could last a few
years.


Venus may have intelligent life, that could get
more than a little ****ed if we stuffed that sucker
into their toasty planet.

If they can see through that atmosphere, as to who "bumped" it, we
should be very afraid...

David A. Smith

I see Venusian parabolic items. (could be radar, or just their version
of a WMD). They might also have rigid composite airships that could
get on top of those acidic clouds.

http://guthvenus.tripod.com/180-A.htm

The original GIF image file (36 radar scans/pixel):
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgcat/hi...c115s095_1.gif

~ BG

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 11:47:40 -0800 (PST), BradGuth
wrote:

On Dec 30, 2:30*pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Russia may send spacecraft to asteroid to avoid millions of death on earth:
*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091230/...ia_asteroid_en...

Thank God that Russia saved all of our butts in WW2 (doing it the hard
way), and perhaps this time they'll save countless millions of our
butts once again.

~ BG

Perhaps while everyone concentrates on Apophis they will fail to
notice another even larger asteroid that is headed right for Earth.

Maybe another such asteroid will interact with Apophis' orbit and
divert it into a collision with Earth. Maybe this will end up being a
double barrel shotgun kind of thing with two asteroid
impacts...booommm...booommm! One in the ocean somewhere followed by
the second on one of the continents.

Could passing through the Galactic plane produce some orbital
perturbations that haven't been included in the Apophis calculations?

Gordon

On Dec 31 2009, 5:43*pm, Antares 531
wrote:
On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 11:47:40 -0800 (PST), BradGuth

wrote:
On Dec 30, 2:30 pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Russia may send spacecraft to asteroid to avoid millions of death on earth:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091230/...ia_asteroid_en....

Thank God that Russia saved all of our butts in WW2 (doing it the hard
way), and perhaps this time they'll save countless millions of our
butts once again.

~ BG

Perhaps while everyone concentrates on Apophis they will fail to
notice another even larger asteroid that is headed right for Earth.

A sooty layer of ultra-black carbon nanotubes and otherwise carbonado
covered asteroid could easily be ten fold larger than Apophis, and as
such we might not detect this fuzzy dark item of 1e9 tonnes until it's
nearly as close as Mars and closing fast (possibly retrograde at 70+
km/sec).


Maybe another such asteroid will interact with Apophis' orbit and
divert it into a collision with Earth. Maybe this will end up being a
double barrel shotgun kind of thing with two asteroid

That's why a push at the right time when it's still far from impacting
us is a good plan. I expect it'll cost us a good trillion dollars to
pull this off.


impacts...booommm...booommm! One in the ocean somewhere followed by
the second on one of the continents.

Could passing through the Galactic plane produce some orbital
perturbations that haven't been included in the Apophis calculations?

Gordon

Yes, as well as the usual alignment of all other significant planets.
Multi-body trajectory revisions require serious supercomputer orbital
simulators.

~ BG