Finding NEO but then...

Saw this on NEOs:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=15720

Now I might be a bit stupid in my reading, but it sounded
a lot like "how do we cope with an impact".

Now, I don't know about you, but, while crash-worthiness *is*
nice to have in a car, the ability to *not* need it drives
some of my preference for nimble automobiles. When I've ridden
a motorcycle I want to *wear* a helmet but never *use* it.

That being said, working out how to mitigate risks and manage
after a hit sure sounds like we're going into a boxing ring
with Mike Tyson wearing all kinds of protective gear but
never once raising our hands in defense... much less offense.

I've commented before that we need a space-borne economy that
can help drive the exploitation (if not outright settlement)
of NEOs so that there's a sustainable economy and set of
populations who are motivated to avoid impacts. (I'm also
of the opinion that our economies are so finely tuned that
there's no hysterisis curve to provide the reaction time
necessary to protect ourselves *here*.)

Of course, given what passes for leadership at the bottom of
this particulary gravity well, maybe I'm wrong and those on
the high frontier will *want* to drop rocks. One could hope
that politics *can* be pulled back from the current embrace
of entropy though this may require rather more housecleaning.

Humanity's Epitaph: "Extinction was economically efficient."

--
John R. Campbell Speaker to Machines soup at tampabay dot rr dot com
"Grace is sufficient so Joy was let go." - Heather L. Campbell
"Faith manages ... even though she didn't get promoted" - me
Why OS X? Because making Unix user-friendly was easier than debugging Windows

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 17:23:58 GMT
"John R. Campbell" wrote:

I've commented before that we need a space-borne economy that
can help drive the exploitation (if not outright settlement)
of NEOs so that there's a sustainable economy and set of
populations who are motivated to avoid impacts.

Quite right.

But at this very moment there is absolutely nothing that we can do
about a known impactor, apart from preparing for the impact. Further
down the track the odds should be better.

It is also worth noting that most impacts will be smaller than the
largest natural disasters we deal with from year to year. The biggest
threat to duman life may come from Tunguska size objects threatening
urban areas. Objects of this size are too small to catalog effectively
so dealing with the after effects may be the best course of action for
the time being.
--
Michael Smith
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