posted
Countertext: We didn't do it. Doesn't mean they won't.
-------------------- "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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quote:Put a targeting camera and a boost engine on a VW-sized chuck of rock, and You've got something with the impact power of an atomic bomb, but with no radiation and a much smaller window of opportunity to intercept.
I must contemplate this tactical application, over an exquisite glass of Brivari.
Registered: Aug 1999
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quote:Originally posted by First of Two: Put a targeting camera and a boost engine on a VW-sized chuck of rock, and You've got something with the impact power of an atomic bomb, but with no radiation and a much smaller window of opportunity to intercept.
Ick! I suppose it'd be all the more reason to hurry that asteroid tug. I expect it'd be a lot easier to make an asteroid avoid a target than it would be to have it his a specific mark. "Uh, it seems there has been a slight miscalculation. Remember that embarrasing little problem with the SARS epidemic? Well the upside is that we're probably never going to have to worry about that area ever again."
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Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by First of Two: 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?
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.
I think the only real difference would be between not arming the warhead and just having it plummet to the surface, or having the nuke explode a mile up in the air and spread a lot more devastation (and radiation).
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.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
I thought they were fairly sure Tunguska was an airburst.
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
Registered: Sep 2000
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I read a theory that it could have been a black hole passing through....
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Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
Now if you could only make the meteor's mass go critical just prior to impact....hmmmm...possibilities.
The Tunguska destruction was caused by UFO's, ghosts, a mummy's curse, crop circles, voo-doo and the Yeti. I saw it throughly "investigated" on sci-fi channel, so it must be true. Lee Majors said so.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
If China were asked to help with the ISS would they be able to help with the short comings that have developed???
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
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posted
China has tried to become a part of that program, and has been rebuffed over fears that assisting the Chinese space program would directly or indirectly help improve their ballistic missiles.
Recent events make the prospect of keeping the Chinese out of orbit by not letting them pay for our space station increasingly old fashioned and laughable, so we might see this policy changed once the next NASA budget comes up. On the other hand, the media coverage of their spaceflight shows just how passe and boring putting people into near-earth orbit is. But imagine if the Chinese put up a big, cheap, working space station while the abandoned ISS burns down through the atmosphere. That might attract more attention. But then, despite its failure at building a useful space station, there are all sorts of benefits from being a part of the ISS program, learning how to avoid its flaws perhaps chief among them.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Balaam Xumucane: I thought they were fairly sure Tunguska was an airburst.
Forgive my ignorance, but what's the difference between an airburst and a meteor that explodes in the lower atmosphere before impact? Because that's what I thought the Tunguska disaster was, an exploding meteor...
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
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posted
i thought it was a ferengi shuttle that had a warp core breach after a temporal anomaly formed in its drive system
Registered: Sep 2001
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
got drunk, posted twice, see all the details on tomorrows eyewitness newz, yo
Registered: Sep 2001
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