Apophis - Could Stirke Earth in 2036

Discussion in 'Science and Technology' started by MacLeod, Jan 9, 2013.

  1. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2001
    Location:
    Great Britain
  2. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 10, 2005
    Location:
    Confederation of Earth
    Jaffa Kree?
     
  3. Haggis and tatties

    Haggis and tatties Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2002
    Location:
    Glasgow
    Not to worry, Hercules and Peter the great will deal with it, that's what they were designed to do, Point outwardshs, not in!!!. lol



     
  4. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2001
    Location:
    Great Britain
    Yes but have they been re-orinated to face outwards yet?
     
  5. lurok

    lurok Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2011
    Location:
    Lost in the EU expanse with a nice cup of tea
  6. Haggis and tatties

    Haggis and tatties Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2002
    Location:
    Glasgow
    Unfortunatly Landau is beeing quite prissy about it all, seems he was storing a lot of his Space 1999 costumes in the satellite re-orientation room and now we might have to move them elsewhere and he is not happy. lol

    On a more postive note Connery has done a smashing job keeping all the floors clean in the place. lol
     
  7. Silvercrest

    Silvercrest Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 4, 2003
    At least you guys are envisioning something good. I keep flashing back to Connie Sellecca and William Devane.
     
  8. publiusr

    publiusr Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 22, 2010
    Location:
    publiusr
  9. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jan 30, 2001
    Location:
    America, Fuck Yeah!!!
    The Tea Party will bitch and moan about the cost to deflect and decide its better for humanity to perish than ask the rich to pay any more in taxes. :lol:
     
  10. Random_Spock

    Random_Spock Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 4, 2009
    Location:
    Random_Spock
    Nice one! :lol:

    Wow. O_O Hopefully this won't happen. It wouldn't be good if it did.
     
  11. Lonemagpie

    Lonemagpie Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2007
    Location:
    Yorkshire
  12. Deckerd

    Deckerd Fleet Arse Premium Member

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2005
    Location:
    the Frozen Wastes
    Still. How many times do they have to kill that guy?
     
  13. Robert Maxwell

    Robert Maxwell memelord Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2001
    Location:
    space
    The comedic replies are fine, but this isn't TNZ, so let's not have any more like this one, OK?
     
  14. JarodRussell

    JarodRussell Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 2, 2009
  15. Silvercrest

    Silvercrest Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 4, 2003
    Hey, we didn't actually see him die the last time. The bugs were crawling all over his shield and a few minutes later his ship plowed into the surface -- but there was plenty of time for him to ring out in the meantime.

    Since then, of course, he's been working on mass drivers to propel the asteroid with his name on it. That's why we haven't seen him.
     
  16. Gary7

    Gary7 Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 28, 2007
    Location:
    ★•* The Paper Men *•★
    Hopefully by the time it reaches us, we'll have an idea of its trajectory and if it'll be making a return visit at a much closer distance. If so perhaps we'll be able to do something about it. Imagine if we could get the cooperation of Russia and take a massive percentage of our combined nuclear stockpiles, and deliver them to the asteroid. Then when its at a presumably "safe" distance away we can transmit a signal to detonate and turn it into billions of small rock fragments.
     
  17. JarodRussell

    JarodRussell Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 2, 2009
    Dude, that won't be neccessary.

    Besides that, turning it into smaller rocks blasting in every direction would make it more dangerous. Good job.
     
  18. Crazy Eddie

    Crazy Eddie Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 12, 2006
    Location:
    Your Mom
    No it wouldn't. The shower of smaller fragments would have considerably greater surface area, allowing for both more complete burnup in the atmosphere (less mass reaches the ground) and lower impact velocity for those fragments that DO reach the ground. It would be slightly more dangerous to orbiting spacecraft and satellites, but considerably less so for anyone on the ground.
     
  19. JarodRussell

    JarodRussell Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 2, 2009
    You're turning an asteroid that definitely won't hit Earth into a gazillion of smaller ones that will hit Earth.
     
  20. Robert Maxwell

    Robert Maxwell memelord Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2001
    Location:
    space
    If you make them small enough, most of them will burn up and hit nothing.

    In any case, if you have an asteroid big enough to cause an extinction-level event, you are better off doing anything you can to blunt the impact, which leaves two options:

    1. Change its course so it doesn't hit Earth at all (this would be difficult to impossible, depending on the situation)
    2. Blow it up into as many small pieces as you can

    Option 2 means that, yes, some populated areas will probably be hit, and people will die, but if the choice is that or the extinction of most life on Earth, is that even a choice?