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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Russia wants to nuke an asteroid as it passes by the Earth. |
| 2016-02-12 |
What could go wrong? Russian scientists have developed a project of upgrading intercontinental ballistic missiles to destroy near-Earth meteorites 20-50 meters in size, leading researcher of the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau Sabit Saitgarayev told TASS on Thursday. The scientists would like to test the improved missiles' capabilities against the asteroid Apophis expected to come dangerously close to the Earth in 2036, the scientist said. |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #9 All I got to say is... That Would Be Sooo Cool! |
| Posted by: BrerRabbit 2016-02-12 15:30 |
| #8 The Spartan missile (ABM)was designed to destroy the incoming RV with a blast of X-rays. There is a fireball when exo but I remember that the destructive radius was much less then when in the atmosphere. I recall that Orion needed a filler surrounding the nuclear bomb to provide plasma to push the rocket when in space. I never studied the blast patterns when exo in detail though. Hmmm. |
| Posted by: Sven the pelter 2016-02-12 12:44 |
| #7 Nuke the moon while you are at it. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2016-02-12 12:35 |
| #6 There still will be an energy shockwave Sven. Depending on where the nuke goes off, the type of asteroid (loose rock vs rocky metal), how fast it is going, etc. will determine what happens. A blast close to the back quarter of the asteroid will generate a nice push away from the nuke. A very close blast towards the front will cause the shockwaves to work against the velocity of the mass and will cause it to break up. How bad the breakup is again depends on what the asteroid is made up of. It actually isn't a bad idea to test this on an object that poses no threat. It is much like testing our anti-missile system out first instead of the first time we fire it the system is going after a NORK nuke heading for detonation over the continental US. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2016-02-12 12:17 |
| #5 Someone draft an RFP and ring up DARPA, DoE, or HLS immediately. There's got to be modeling and simulations grant money available somewhere. Come on people ! |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2016-02-12 11:23 |
| #4 Let us say that the Russians succeed in changing the Asteroid's path. The new path could guarantee a collision. There is no air in space (duh) therefore no pressure wave. Heat is what you got. Is the plan to partially melt it? How will that help? |
| Posted by: Sven the pelter 2016-02-12 11:16 |
| #3 Theory and movie thought experiments are not science without real performance analytics. They should enroll Nkors. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2016-02-12 10:29 |
| #2 What I suspect is reporter not understanding what the goal really is. Small enough rock, yeah could prolly shatter it to tiny bits that burn up. Bigger rocks, the idea is more the nuke(s) pushes the rock to a new course, hopefully away from Earth. In some ways, it's a good idea for the world to real practical knowledge of doing this so that the first time we try it, isn't when the planet is on the line. |
| Posted by: Silentbrick 2016-02-12 07:51 |
| #1 ...At least somebody's been watching the movies. Mike
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| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2016-02-12 05:27 |