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Old 04-12-2010, 10:32 AM
 
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The earth is pelted by small rocks every day. Plenty of them. Most burn up in the atmosphere. A 70ft rock would probably break up. Bigger ones might make it through. The way I see it, when is the last time we've seen a new crater? Long long time. Are we due? In my opinion, if an event such as asteroid hit continues to NOT happen, it will continue to NOT happen. Major impacts might only happen every 50 million years. When we are talking about a long time scale like that, chances are, Man will not live to see another.
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Old 04-18-2010, 12:34 PM
 
Location: Sarasota, Florida
15,395 posts, read 22,451,912 times
Reputation: 11134
Sorry dude, but I never said the Earth is not pelted daily by harmless space debris...it actually adds up to hundreds of tons or more per year. As previously mentioned with evidence from 1908; I disagree and the event in 1908 (TUNGUSKA) was of similar size....70 feet; yet laid waste to over 1,000 square miles of forest by an upper atmospheric explosion. Time has already proven me correct from past events and will prove me correct in the future....we'll see who is right in the next few centuries, unfortunately....IMHO...IT WILL BE ME ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

Last edited by PITTSTON2SARASOTA; 04-18-2010 at 12:48 PM..
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Old 04-19-2010, 12:11 PM
 
Location: Sarasota, Florida
15,395 posts, read 22,451,912 times
Reputation: 11134
Obama's Asteroid Goal>>>
Obama's asteroid goal: tougher, riskier than moon | Science Headlines | Comcast.net (http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-science/20100416/US.SCI.NASA.Asteroid/ - broken link)

Asteroid Threats: A Call For A Global Response>>>
http://www.space-explorers.org/commi...ocs/ATACGR.pdf
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Old 04-19-2010, 01:00 PM
 
Location: Somewhere out there
9,616 posts, read 12,877,713 times
Reputation: 3767
Quote:
Originally Posted by PITTSTON2SARASOTA View Post
Sorry dude, but I never said the Earth is not pelted daily by harmless space debris...it actually adds up to hundreds of tons or more per year. As previously mentioned with evidence from 1908; I disagree and the event in 1908 (TUNGUSKA) was of similar size....70 feet; yet laid waste to over 1,000 square miles of forest by an upper atmospheric explosion. Time has already proven me correct from past events and will prove me correct in the future....we'll see who is right in the next few centuries, unfortunately....IMHO...IT WILL BE ME ;-)
There's several major problems with trying to predict or assess potential impact threats from deep space, or even our own asteroid belt:

1) can you imagine the mass panic, the out-of-control End Timers in the streets, the looting and crime sprees, if the government announced that "In three days a massive asteroid, 2 miles across, will be hitting smack-dab in the middle of the north American continent. Have a good night!"

or 2)

We see it, analysis says it will arrive here in, say, 10 months, and we try to do something. For all we know, such a scenario is already in progress. How would we know after all?

In fact, we have no viable technology to stop such an event. Certainly can't just blow it into thousands of smaller but still cohesive entities which will then "Shotgun" the impact area.

The most effective idea so far would be to place a mirror near it in synchronous flight path, and aim the sun's focused energy to selectively heat only one side so as to deflect it's line of flight by even a small degree. But we have no way to do that as of now. (and what if it's spinning? Oh-oh...) We would have to have a permanent space station positioned out past Jupiter's orbit to detect and deal with such things.

So.... Maybe in next year's budget, huh?

Meantime, we should probably prepare, right here on Earth, to save some aspects of our culture. DNA samples, digitized knowledge bases, an unbiased summary of all the world's religions, not just the Christian one, and a deep underground self-contained structure that would allow a chosen intelligent and healthy few (NOT the military, and not the Church either, that's for sure...) to survive,.

In the distant future, we should try to enable our eventual escape from this doomed planet. To carry much of our planet's DNA (humans, polar bears, apes, lizards. Perhaps no mosquitoes though...) and the ability for on-board robotics to produce viable offspring from it. As well, it should carry a summary of the world's art and cultures, and images of the pre-catastrophe world, out of this solar system. A sort of modern-day Voyager, so to speak, that can then investigate the billions of alternate planets out there and just possibly ensure our species survival.
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Old 04-19-2010, 03:31 PM
 
Location: Bel Air, California
23,769 posts, read 28,881,934 times
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Thankfully the US Government is on top of this and have developed a secret plan to deal with the global termination event that you are freaking out about. While I know very little about the plan itself, I was privy to some of the declassified information when my wife worked for the Feds as a travel planner. The most I can divulge at this point is the code name of the plan: "Exit Stage Left" and that during the execution of the plan, instructions will be radioed back to Earth about where those that remain can find where the buried loot was being kept. Won't be much consolation to those that haven't been notified by now, but it's a little something anways.
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Old 04-19-2010, 03:37 PM
 
23,541 posts, read 69,986,238 times
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I think the Republicans have their own plan - "Exit Stage Right" - complete with the Snagglepuss hand gestures to match.
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Old 04-19-2010, 04:04 PM
 
Location: Bel Air, California
23,769 posts, read 28,881,934 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea View Post
I think the Republicans have their own plan - "Exit Stage Right" - complete with the Snagglepuss hand gestures to match.
And Democracy lives on!
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Old 04-20-2010, 02:26 PM
 
Location: Sarasota, Florida
15,395 posts, read 22,451,912 times
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I think the old COLD WAR response is more appropriate:
(1) Place hands on back of head.
(2) Crouch down while bending over.
(3) Prepare to kiss your A$$ goodbye. ;-)
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Old 04-20-2010, 02:32 PM
 
Location: Sarasota, Florida
15,395 posts, read 22,451,912 times
Reputation: 11134
Quote:
Originally Posted by rifleman View Post
There's several major problems with trying to predict or assess potential impact threats from deep space, or even our own asteroid belt:

1) can you imagine the mass panic, the out-of-control End Timers in the streets, the looting and crime sprees, if the government announced that "In three days a massive asteroid, 2 miles across, will be hitting smack-dab in the middle of the north American continent. Have a good night!"

or 2)

We see it, analysis says it will arrive here in, say, 10 months, and we try to do something. For all we know, such a scenario is already in progress. How would we know after all?

In fact, we have no viable technology to stop such an event. Certainly can't just blow it into thousands of smaller but still cohesive entities which will then "Shotgun" the impact area.

The most effective idea so far would be to place a mirror near it in synchronous flight path, and aim the sun's focused energy to selectively heat only one side so as to deflect it's line of flight by even a small degree. But we have no way to do that as of now. (and what if it's spinning? Oh-oh...) We would have to have a permanent space station positioned out past Jupiter's orbit to detect and deal with such things.

So.... Maybe in next year's budget, huh?

Meantime, we should probably prepare, right here on Earth, to save some aspects of our culture. DNA samples, digitized knowledge bases, an unbiased summary of all the world's religions, not just the Christian one, and a deep underground self-contained structure that would allow a chosen intelligent and healthy few (NOT the military, and not the Church either, that's for sure...) to survive,.

In the distant future, we should try to enable our eventual escape from this doomed planet. To carry much of our planet's DNA (humans, polar bears, apes, lizards. Perhaps no mosquitoes though...) and the ability for on-board robotics to produce viable offspring from it. As well, it should carry a summary of the world's art and cultures, and images of the pre-catastrophe world, out of this solar system. A sort of modern-day Voyager, so to speak, that can then investigate the billions of alternate planets out there and just possibly ensure our species survival.
That is part of the point I'm trying to make. Given enough time and distance we have a slight chance of deflecting the asteroids trajectory by a small amount; which will make a huge difference by the time the impactor reaches Earth orbit. I agree we have really no other way of stopping it, unless it were relatively small and could theoritically be vaporized with a thermonuclear weapon....and there would still be too many variables to guarantee success. However as you mentioned there are other ways to improve our survival odds; which is why IMHO it is essential that we colonize the Moon and other Planets so as to not have "all our eggs in the same basket", forgive the pun.
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