An extreme solution? Perhaps, but considering the political obstacles we face in deploying any sort of nuclear technology, maybe it’s best to keep even unlikely options open. We’re talking about a tether between 1,000 and 100,000 kilometers in length, the latter being long enough to wrap around the earth two and a half times. “You change the object’s center of mass,” says French, “effectively changing the object’s orbit and allowing it to pass by the Earth, rather than impacting it.” It involves attaching a long tether and ballast to the incoming object. French has come up with a technique for deflecting an Earth-crosser that is, in its scale, a reminder of the magnitude of the danger. The use of nuclear weapons in the movie does raise a legitimate question - do we know enough about what might hit us to predict what would happen if we did try to destroy it this way? That’s one reason we need early missions to study Earth-crossing asteroids, and it’s also a reminder that keeping our deflection options open means looking at entirely new solutions.Įnter David French, an aerospace engineering doctoral student at North Carolina State University. Get past the Hollywood cliffhanger elements and Deep Impact had its moments (in any case, I’ll sign off on any movie with Robert Duvall in it). The planet suffers one disastrous collision, but it turns out to be survivable due to quick thinking and the willingness of a spacecraft crew to sacrifice themselves by blowing up the remaining impactor. Nukes are used to break up an incoming object, in this case a comet, but the resultant deadly chunks are still headed toward Earth. ![]() ![]() Diverting incoming asteroids is a high priority item, and so is a mission to a nearby asteroid for a close-up study of its composition and a shakeout of operating technologies.
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