|
Lots More Information
10 Best Ideas for Interplanetary Communication
10 Best Ideas for Interplanetary Communication
In the future, as we send space probes and manned missions to explore the solar system and possibly colonize other worlds, there's a major problem that we'll have to overcome -- keeping in touch with them. Read more »

Author's Note: 10 Ways to Stop a Killer Asteroid

A few years back, I saw a TV program about the increased contact occurring between humans and sharks. There was one amazing shot that stuck with me: It showed an aerial view of swimmers just off the coast of Nags Head, and, unbeknownst to them, hundreds of sharks swam nearby. You could see their shadows among the bathers, dark and sinister. Had the people in the water known what was lurking nearby, they would have been on the beach in seconds. I feel the same way about NASA's NEO detection program. Are we better off knowing all those rocks are out there, circling us like sharks? Sometimes it seems better to be the oblivious bodysurfer who swims in ignorant bliss.

Sources

  • Bailey, Ronald. "Don't Be Terrorized." Reason.com. Aug. 11, 2006. (March 11, 2012) http://reason.com/archives/2006/08/11/dont-be-terrorized
  • BBC News. "British plan to tackle asteroids." Science and Environment. Aug. 31, 2009. (March 11, 2012) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8230138.stm
  • Boston.com "How to stop a killer asteroid." Boston Globe infographic. Jan. 10, 2010. (March 11, 2012) http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/01/10/Asteroid/
  • Chapman, Clark R. "How a Near-Earth Object Impact Might Affect Society." Commissioned by the Global Science Forum, OECD, for "Workshop on Near Earth Objects: Risks, Policies, and Actions." January 2003.
  • European Space Agency. "Don Quijote concept." NEO Space Mission Studies. Aug. 18, 2011. (March 11, 2012) http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/NEO/SEMZRZNVGJE_2.html
  • Forward, Robert L. and Robert P. Hoyt. "Space Tethers." Scientific American. February 1999.
  • Jessa, Tega. "Eros Asteroid." Universe Today. June 7, 2011. (March 11, 2012) http://www.universetoday.com/87301/eros-asteroid/
  • Minard, Ann. "How to Keep Asteroids Away: Tie Them Up." Universe Today. Apr. 17, 2009. (March 11, 2012) http://www.universetoday.com/29317/how-to-keep-asteroids-away-tie-them-up/
  • NASA. "Deep Impact's Impactor." Deep Impact: Mission to a Comet. (March 11, 2012) http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/spacecraft/impactor.html
  • NASA. "How many near-Earth objects have been discovered so far?" Near Earth Object Program FAQs. March 18, 2012. (March 18, 2012) http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/
  • Plait, Phil. "Death by meteorite." Bad Astronomy, Discover Magazine. Oct. 13, 2008. (March 11, 2012) http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/10/13/death-by-meteorite/
  • Schweickart, Russell, Edward T. Lu, Piet Hut and Clark R. Chapman. "The Asteroid Tugboat." Scientific American. November 2003.
  • Space Studies Board. "Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies." The National Academies Press. 2010.
  •
    Start the Countdown
  • 10: Drop the Big One on the Big One
  • 9: Speak Softly and Carry a Big Thwack
  • 8: Throw a Few Photons at the Problem
  • 7: Turn the Rock Into a Puffball
  • 6: Invite the Asteroid to a Tractor Pull
  • 5: Get Pushy With the Planetoid
  • 4: Throw a Few Fastballs
  • 3: Play Tetherball With the Asteroid
  • 2: Increase Your Reaction Time
  • 1: Prepare for the Worst
  • Up Next
    • |