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[QUOTE]Originally posted by First of Two: [QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: [qb] [QUOTE]Originally posted by First of Two: [qb] Ever compare the time it takes to fuel, launch, boost, cruise, and re-enter a ballistic missile to the time it takes for a "meteor" to fall?[/qb][/QUOTE]That's true, except for the fact that an asteroid is already traveling at a significantly greater speed relative to the Earth. I would suspect that it might not have quite the same amount of kinetic energy as something that orbits the sun every few years.[/qb][/QUOTE]Not if the asteroid is already in Earth orbit. see the aforementioned Asteroid Tug. Grab a small NEA, drag it into orbit, break it up (while extracting valuable minerals without despoiling native panda habitat), and bingo; an arsenal of GPS-targetable kinetic weapons orbiting the earth. [QUOTE][qb] However, I'm not sure if the kinetic impacts from missile-sized objects would really create the same kind of devastation. Scientists believe that the relatively famous asteroid that impacted in Siberia in 1908 was about 40 meters across, and had a force of about 10 megatons -- that's pretty massive, and unless it were compacted it wouldn't even fit into the space shuttle's cargo bay. [/qb][/QUOTE]The meteor which carved out Barringer Crater was 150 feet across, weighed roughly 300,000 tons, and was traveling at a speed of 40,000 miles per hour. The force generated by its impact was equal to the explosion of 20 million tons of TNT. So... [/QB][/QUOTE]
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