🚀 go-pugleaf

"Blerp" <mickeymows@*pleasedontspamme*hotmail.com> wrote in
news:1qU%8.46809$f05.2388122@news1.calgary.shaw.ca: 

> it's not as though this is even a 'true' reality. here's why:

So we should happily ignore it then?

> 1) the last time anything got 'close' they were still measuring it in
> hundreds of thousands of kilometers

The moon is about 384,400km away. I would say anything that gets
closer than that is worth keeping an eye on.

> 2) something that is 2km out there will not be 2k when it hits the
> surface 

Yes, it might perhaps get whittled down to as little as 1.9km.
Don't forget, the Earth's atmosphere is only about 10 miles
thick. Above that it's not dense enough to make much difference.

> 3) who's to say that it is structurally sound enough to to fragment
> into billions of pieces when it enters the atmoshpere, anyways?  it
> might be nothing more than a good international fireworks show

Whether it fragments or not, it will still deliver the same
dangerous amount of energy. The question is, do we want to
deal with 

> 4) even if it were on a DIRECT course for earth right now, the
> slightest gravitational push/pull that knocks that thing 1 millionth
> of a degree off course would send it hundreds of thousands of
> kilometers either side of us 

Yes. That's why we can't predict its danger level sufficiently
far in advance.

> 5) if the US can say "we'll be on the moon in 8 years" and do it, back
> in the 60's, they damn well better anti up and correct the course of
> this thing if it actually DOES come our way.

They no longer have the technology to go to the moon, though I'm sure
it would take slightly less time to gear up for a second go.

I think the easiest way to divert the asteroid would be to send out
a robot ship to attach small rocket motors to the rock. The engineering
problems of such a job are fearsome indeed though, and it requires
action far ahead of time.