Re: Asteroid/Comet Defense -- Has anyone thought of this

Sylvia Else wrote:

Alfred Montestruc wrote:

Ok, one of the big problems has been listed has been that a really big
asteroid or comet can be hell to deflect because of its huge mass. My
though is to use leverage as in many, many smaller asteroids exist in
orbit with much smaller mass that can be given much much larger
changes in velocity much cheaper.

Hit the big asteroid or comet with a much smaller one that has the
most optimum combination of mass, and orbital vector, and proximity to
either earth or prepositioned spacecraft capable of deflection. This
impact (most of the velocity difference will be natural, we just steer
it a bit) will create a huge impulse on the dangerous large comet or
asteroid to deflect it away from earth.


Or just knock some bits off. One significant problem is that many such objects may be nothing more than rubble piles. The same is true of the smaller masses you're talking about using as missiles.

Sylvia.

We know very little about the NEOs. It's possible a large proportion are rubble piles. But this is not an established fact (so far as I know).

But lack of data doesn't stop speculation. I'd venture to guess there are enough cohesive NEOs that Montestruc's method might be used. I think the idea is a good one.

Given a Chicxulub class NEO with our name on it, we'd have little chance of sufficiently altering its orbit using conventional methods.

I would guess most NEOs have frequent near collisions. There'd probably be smaller cohesive asteroids that nearly collide with our hypothetical Chixculub. The momentum change needed to make a nearly colliding into a colliding asteroid could be tiny compared to the smaller asteroid's momentum vector. A small asteroid's momentum may well be enough to deflect a larger NEO.


Hop
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