What's all the hoopla about comet attacks.
How about this.
While most solutions involve missiles attacking asteroids anyway, and there is no immediate threat for decades, why not find a mountain sized asteroid that is just mozying along in the cosmos, (so that it can be stopped/controlled) not at extremes speeds but just a lone rock trapped in a netural gravity between planets/galaxies that has no power to travel. Then have space guys attach rocket engines on it ready to fire. These can be cemented in bore holes with expandable fasteners. Some rockets are retro. These are then positioned at a safe distance from earth, say between mars and earth, and not in any trajectory of any significance. Positioned for control, these rocks will need to be kept manageable and so rockets will need to be fired once in a while to get them to stay put.
Just to be safe have several rocks of different masses preferably of predominately iron.
When a comet is headed for us and it is some distance away, we can fire up the rockets, not to attack but to be positioned to serve has celestial cement walls. Now it will take some time for these to attain a moderate speed for positioning so the timing and accuracy would need to be right on. Worst case is that we get a meteor shower with small fragments entering orbit.
It will call for a whole new industry of spatial work crews whose job it is to keep the machines rolling as it were, but think of the experience gained for training mars crews.;-)
This way we let the rocks fight the rocks.
Andy ccasion5:
How about this.
While most solutions involve missiles attacking asteroids anyway, and there is no immediate threat for decades, why not find a mountain sized asteroid that is just mozying along in the cosmos, (so that it can be stopped/controlled) not at extremes speeds but just a lone rock trapped in a netural gravity between planets/galaxies that has no power to travel. Then have space guys attach rocket engines on it ready to fire. These can be cemented in bore holes with expandable fasteners. Some rockets are retro. These are then positioned at a safe distance from earth, say between mars and earth, and not in any trajectory of any significance. Positioned for control, these rocks will need to be kept manageable and so rockets will need to be fired once in a while to get them to stay put.
Just to be safe have several rocks of different masses preferably of predominately iron.
When a comet is headed for us and it is some distance away, we can fire up the rockets, not to attack but to be positioned to serve has celestial cement walls. Now it will take some time for these to attain a moderate speed for positioning so the timing and accuracy would need to be right on. Worst case is that we get a meteor shower with small fragments entering orbit.
It will call for a whole new industry of spatial work crews whose job it is to keep the machines rolling as it were, but think of the experience gained for training mars crews.;-)
This way we let the rocks fight the rocks.
Andy ccasion5: