[meteorite-list] A Plan To Place An Asteroid In Earth Orbit

From: MexicoDoug <mexicodoug_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 15:35:08 -0400
Message-ID: <8CE35630FC30730-1F38-89EB_at_webmail-d003.sysops.aol.com>

"Steve wrote:
"A 10 meter astroid would be similar ... our best defence against a
larger extinction event astroid."

Steve, before taking the controls of Asteroid videogames, you need to
dig up an old Spirograph toy. They are really fun. There you can
learn all you want about deflecting *astroids* with Spirograph and make
all kinds of orbits and deflect them more or less with a pen. For
real, you can draw the most awesome astroids with a spirograph set.

Or if you are technical, and too old for toys, this ought to clear it
up:
http://online.redwoods.cc.ca.us/instruct/dhicketh/math50c/projectfall99/specialplanecurve/astroid.htm

Over a few years on the list you've always written *astroid*. Your
calculations for unablated, unfragemented meteoroid sizes more if you
decide to fix that. Yeah, its just a typo, and some people in this
world can't even spell their own name. Just a shameless plug for
Spirograph:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/150653856668

Kindest wishes
Doug


-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Dunklee <steve.dunklee at yahoo.com>
To: Bernd V. Pauli <bernd.pauli at paulinet.de>;
meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com; Sterling K. Webb
<sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Tue, Aug 30, 2011 2:54 pm
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] A Plan To Place An Asteroid In Earth Orbit


Greetings all:
     A 10 meter astroid would be similar in size to the original size of
the Ash
Creek meteorite, or about the size but not mass of the International
Space
Station. Its most valuable use would be as a projectile to to deflect
an 100
meter or larger NEO. If capture failed and it hit the earth it would
most likely
cause no more damage than the headlines preaching doom!
     Being able to capture it and use it to deflect a larger NEO would
be our
best defence against a larger extinction event astroid.
Cheers
Steve Dunklee


--- On Mon, 8/29/11, Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
wrote:

> From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] A Plan To Place An Asteroid In Earth
Orbit
> To: "Bernd V. Pauli" <bernd.pauli at paulinet.de>,
meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Date: Monday, August 29, 2011, 11:01 PM
> Hi, Bernd, List,
>
> A mere 10-meter spherical asteroid? (To a physicist,
> everything is spherical at the first approximation...)
> That's 523.6 cu. meters. At a rock density of 2 to 3
> metric tons per cu. meter, that's somewhere between
> 1047.2 and 1570.8 metric tons.
>
> As a disaster, it's on a par with dropping a grand piano
> on a cartoon coyote. It would be a slow approach and
> MIGHT drop 10 kilos of meteorites, but probably not
> unless it grazed the atmosphere at the correct angle.
> However, a 10-meter asteroid is a tiny playground.
>
> What if it were a 100-meter asteroid, ten times bigger,
> and lots of surface (and about 1,000,000 tons). If you
> accidentally dropped that object on the Earth, you'd
> have a 250-meter crater and 0.2 MegaTon blast.
>
> Too big to play with.
>
> A 33-meter asteroid? Airbursts at 14 kilometers and
> splatters a lot of fast fragments, but no craters. From
> this I conclude that the 10-meter asteroid grab is a
> Modest Proposal.
>
> Unless, of course, it's an iron...
>
>
> Sterling K. Webb
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

---
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bernd V. Pauli" <bernd.pauli at paulinet.de>
> To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Monday, August 29, 2011 4:51 PM
> Subject: [meteorite-list] A Plan To Place An Asteroid In
> Earth Orbit
>
>
> > "Interesting idea. What could possibly go wrong?"
> >
> > What if the nudge is a little bit too strong?
> > What if the Moon interferes?
> >
> > What if this NEO is thus sent hurtling toward planet
> Earth?
> >
> > - utter devestation
> > - millions of people killed
> > - wildfires
> > - tsunamis
> > - earthquakes
> > - tons and tons of material ejected into the
> atmosphere
> > - etc., etc.
> >
> > Bernd
> >
> >
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>
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Received on Tue 30 Aug 2011 03:35:08 PM PDT