> one of those jobs is spotting near Earth asteroids with a collision potential
What actually happens if they spot an asteroid with collision potential? Is there anything we can do about it?
What actually happens if they spot an asteroid with collision potential? Is there anything we can do about it?
If it's years or decades away, we could try.
(I know, it's not exactly that simple. But still.... ;) )
... but in terms of whether stopping is possible, I believe that depends on the amount of kinetic energy you can apply to it. I'd have to sit down and do some real math to determine the practical stopping power of a kill fleet, but to give a thumbnail comparison: each Starlink sat is about 500 lbs, which is about the weight of one B57 nuclear bomb, with a yield of 5-20kt. There are about 660 Starlinks in orbit now... A constellation of kill vehicles of the same size could have the ability to deliver an upper-bound of 13.2 megatons of explosive energy. According to one source (https://www.space.com/39971-asteroid-destruction-nuclear-bom...), 3 megatons should be sufficient (though the parameters for individual delivery of smaller payloads vs. one big nuke would of course be different).
This is, of course, all a terrible idea; nobody's gonna be comfortable with a mega-constellation of nukes in orbit.
> The scientists found that a 500-joule-per-gram laser blast was required to break apart a model space rock 0.3 inches to 0.4 inches in diameter (8 to 10 millimeters), if that blast were directed at a premade cavity in the "asteroid." Without the cavity, the necessary energy was about 650 joules per gram.
I would assume the "working out the international politics" part includes "a multinational effort among nuclear-armed countries that spot-checks the kill vehicles can actually do the thing claimed to do."