What is Digg?41 Comments
- mark076h, on 05/27/2008, -0/+12just call Bruce willis
- t2t2, on 05/27/2008, -0/+8Just use a gigantic ball of garbage, gets rid of 2 problems at once.
- Lasereth, on 05/27/2008, -0/+8Park a space ship next to it for 20 years. Everytime the asteroid's gravity pulls the ship closer, make the ship thrust outward a little, effectively using gravity to tow the asteroid out of the way. All it takes is a split degree off and it will totally miss Earth. Way more realistic than blowing up the asteroid anyway.
- inactive, on 05/27/2008, -0/+6we simulated it on a supercomputer but the ball is just too damn gooey
- lucidguru, on 05/27/2008, -2/+8One of the most important research centers we have an sadly they are underfunded.
- paulvq, on 05/27/2008, -0/+5Yeah, but there won't be a badass explosion to watch.
- skinturtle, on 05/27/2008, -0/+5I say we contruct a giant rubber band...and "boing" back out into space!
- peticsu, on 05/27/2008, -0/+5technoviking deflects asteroids
- punchinelli, on 05/27/2008, -0/+3DON'T WANNA CLOSE MY EEEEEEEEEEEYES
I DON'T WANNA FALL ASLEEP CAUSE I'LL MISS YOU BABY
AND I DON'T WANNA MISS A THAAAAAAAAAAANG - robeph, on 05/27/2008, -0/+3In before some stupid comment about 2012 being the end of the world.....crap never mind, I just made one.
- soupr, on 05/27/2008, -0/+3I'm so happy people still make technoviking references
- liuite, on 05/27/2008, -0/+2wouldn't it be easier to develop tractor beam?
- robeph, on 05/27/2008, -0/+2That movie would've been so much better if it'd been Bruce Willis as John McClane.. Die Hard: Armageddon... of course hollywood would never have come up with such a great idea, they ought hire me..
- OC73, on 05/27/2008, -0/+1This is the real threat to humanity, that can actually bring instant, cataclysmic destruction to the planet. It has happened before.
Can you imagine we spent trillions of dollars on all this feel-good "green" crap and all of a sudden a massive rock from outer space careened to earth and wiped out a large portion of its population? If I'm one of the survivors, I'm tracking down every living proponent of the global warming hoax so I can kill them myself. - weizilla, on 05/27/2008, -0/+1seems like you'd still be completely screwed since a meteoroid capable of doing that much damage would probably also make the earth inhabitable for quite some time.
- JQP123, on 05/27/2008, -0/+1"Sounds pretty brilliant"
At least until you read the article and realize that there are about a thousand known PHO's (again, see the article) and predicting their exact location in relation to the earth 20 years in advance is simply not possible due to the large number of possible interactions with multiple gravity sources and with each other. - blast_flame, on 05/27/2008, -0/+1That's good if you see it coming for a century or so in advance but we need to work out what to do if we find that we don't have that time luxury.
- inactive, on 05/27/2008, -0/+1Sounds pretty brilliant
- inactive, on 05/27/2008, -0/+1Chuck Norris. Problem solved. Where's my check?
- JQP123, on 05/27/2008, -0/+1If we could see that far in advance, we wouldn't need the research effort. We would know exactly what would hit us and when. But sadly, this is not the case.
- mOdQuArK, on 05/27/2008, -0/+1But what kind of wild-assed science would they come up with to show how terrorists were able to divert an asteroid onto a collision course with Earth? (And how would John McClane make sure that a small piece of the asteroid crashed directly on top of the terrorists, but destroyed only the terrorists?)
- Lasereth, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1Install giant boosters on an asteroid? You do realize this is real life, right?
- craiginct, on 05/27/2008, -0/+1And if a meteorite fell in Iowa - what would it hit?
Dr. Evil says that "LASERS" are the best defense.
Darth Vadar says that the energy shield did not protect Death Star II
Captain Kirk says KAAAAAAAAHHHN!!! - breezytrees, on 05/27/2008, -0/+1Or you could just install giant boosters on the asteroid instead of the miniscule "thrust" you'd get out of the gravitational pull of the large asteroid and the small space ship.
- darkamster07, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1yeah, but he's right, we do definitely need to be doing a good amount for finding ways to survive, on earth or not, after a severe global catstrophe. we've been very lucky so far.
- KaJuN4, on 05/27/2008, -0/+1It's none of our concern.
- starmanjones, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1i think its great to pay attention to things that could make us extinct. i don't think we can make contingencies for every possible hunk of something headed our way. we need people living in space with the necessary equipment to deal with it.
just thinking about it isn't enough. we need to get the odds of stopping extinction as close to zero as it can be got. where i live we depend on a volunteer fire department. this seems like a reasonable way to assure the problem is addressed... oops... we didn't think of that is not good enough. - breezytrees, on 06/08/2008, -0/+1or small ones. either way, it will 100% guaranteed be more thrust than the extremely small gravitational attraction of a giant asteroid and a small ship. If we were in the situation you describe, we'd have 20 years to succeed...
- JustinTense, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1Do a barrel roll...
- designerutah, on 05/27/2008, -0/+0We should probably put these large satellites into space, and arm them with nuclear warheads, and brilliant targeting computers. Also powerful lasers. We call them something cool, like Star Wars...
- jinsundo, on 05/27/2008, -1/+1This article says:
"Despite the lack of an immediate threat from an asteroid strike"
Who sez??? How do they know that there is a "lack of an immediate threat"?
Maybe that's what this so called scientific establishment wants us to believe?
The article also says:
"scientific evidence suggests the importance of researching preventive measures. Sixty-five million years ago, a six-mile-wide asteroid struck near the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and created the 106-mile-diameter Chicxulub Crater"
The above comment want us to think in terms of geologic time. What about historical time?
Golly gee, that's never mentioned.
My advice is to research "New Light On The Black Death" by Mike Ballie - hawk0168, on 05/27/2008, -1/+1Iowa State is a great engineering school actually. Very much unlike the other Iowa school. CORN CORN CORN
- sevvo, on 05/27/2008, -0/+0The Mythbusters have our back on this one! "Hey Jamie, got that det-cord wired yet?"
- fuzzylogic23, on 05/28/2008, -0/+0its about time we start thinking towards the sky
- marcusbrutus, on 05/27/2008, -1/+1Don't worry about asteroids, The Doctor will just do some wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey stuff to it, problem solved.
- loubeck, on 05/27/2008, -0/+0Didn't Dethklok figure this out already?
- pizzafreak, on 05/27/2008, -0/+0I think we need a backup plan of how to save as much of humanity and nature as possible in case such a plan fails. Such a plan would have just one chance to work. We shouldnt put the fate of the earth in the hands of an untested system. Plus a plant killing meteor could show up in the skies practically overnight.
The first thing to do right now is to catalog and test ways to preserve the most important plant and animal species in the ecological realm. Obviously every bug cant be saved. But the most important ones could. Next places need to be identified or built ahead of time. One idea of mine is to build massive ocean going barges, modern day versions of Noah's Ark. These barges could be designed to hold quite a number of humans, animals, and technology. But only if models are designed, built, and tested ahead of time. Have a tested - scale model ready to go would speed up the process.
According to legend it took over 1,000 years to rebuild after the great flood. We could do better this time. - Revolutionista, on 05/27/2008, -0/+0I think an actual impact is less than the annoyance and toxicity [potential] of celebrities getting wind of all this asteroid talk and holding ridiculous "Scarred Earth" benefit concerts.
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