quote: The point is "If we had more search resources, we'd have a much better chance of spotting these things before it's too late, so raise the budget!"
The USA has a tracking system for all of the stuff we have shot into space. The same system can identify new objects very quickly, and got involved in finding near earth objects as a side line, because it could do it easily. Four or five of this type of scope, dedicated to finding NEO's could take care of much. I think the instillations cost about 65 million per.
-------------------- Sparky:: Think! Question Authority, Authoritatively. “Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see.” EMSparks
Shalamar: To save face, keep lower half shut.
Registered: Jun 1999
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Just a question, say we could detect objects headed for Earth, could we actually do anything? Or would this be just another way to depress us? (Shitty day at work, got dumped, my favorite TV show got cancelled.....hey Earth is going to be blown up in a year....)
And if someone says we should send up a bunch of oil rig flunkies, they get the smackdown
Registered: Mar 1999
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How much time are we talking? Days, years, centuries?
Ha ha time! An automated system using powerful telescopes to discover and track potential Neos sounds like a good thing, but surely it would make for a dull film? And leather overcoats may be fine for gunplay and the occasional kung fu grudge match, but they aren't really observatory wear.
Registered: Mar 1999
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I think you need to know of an imminent collision at least 2 years in advance to be able to realistically do anything to prevent it. If you hit the asteroid early enough at 90 degrees to its trajectory it should be possible to deflect it sufficiently. New Scientist, February.
-------------------- "Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing. To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!"
The Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
Registered: Mar 2000
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Can't you read? We hit it with...FANCY TEXAS OIL MINERS IN A FANCY SPACE SHUTTLE!! AND BEN AFFLECK!! HE ADDS A LEVEL OF SEXY IN SPACE THAT NOT SINCE THAT DUMBASS DOG HAS BEEN SEEN!
Registered: Oct 1999
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With a mass-driver package or a nuke mounted on a probe engine..
Of course, that means we'd better get to developing one.
Emperor First the First will see to it that this is done. Just another good reason.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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