

Russia's meteor  (Source:
NASA needs funding for small meteor defense












Source: CBS News

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RE: Stupid question alert
By Amiga500 on 3/20/2013 2:53:45 PM , Rating: 2
What shockwaves? There is nothing for the explosion to pressure pulse with!

The best bet would be to try and use "bunker busting" nukes to burrow in, detonate and hopefully fragment (through seismic shockwaves, very different from gaseous shockwaves) the asteroid to a level where the larger bits mostly burn off on atmospheric entry.

RE: Stupid question alert
By FaaR on 3/20/2013 5:25:20 PM , Rating: 3
Nuking asteroids is problematic because not all asteroids are particularly solid, and if we have little in the way of advance warning there's no telling what that thing moving towards us really is. Is it one massive lump of stone or nickel-iron, or is it mostly just rubble fused with ice, or held together under its own weak gravity? Nuking something like the latter could mean instead of one impact site we'd shotgun-blast an entire continent or even hemisphere; peppering it with large rocks, causing even more widespread devastation.

RE: Stupid question alert
By MozeeToby on 3/21/2013 9:25:09 AM , Rating: 2
You can't break up an asteroid, but you can deflect it. Setting off the nuke 50 meters above the asteroid's surface will vaporize a layer of rock on the surface. The force of that vaporized rock leaving the asteroid will impart a force just like a rocket; not as much as if the vapor was confined by a rocket bell, but enough to make a difference. And it would only take a few launches to put dozens of warheads on course. There are better options, but given our current technology level nukes are still the most likely to succeed.

