There's no international protocol on what to do if an asteroid strikes Earth UK lawmakers have learned there is no international protocol for making decisions over how to respond to a prospective life-threatening asteroid strike on Earth. Members of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee heard how UK academics had been part of the joint NASA and FEMA table top game exercise which found …
.... and will also 'start' projects to prepare suitable ass-teroid safety bunkers .... that they will then cancel once suitable progress has been made .... only to be sold to the same partners for pennies on the pound .... to be finished off and then rented to those with enough money.
Leaving us poor plebs with the cheap, Chinese, tin foil ass-teroids hats, that don't even fit, to protect us from a large kinetic energy impact event. Or hot fudge Sundae .... that falls on a Tuesdae!
You can trust our lying, cheating, ass-hole, scumbag politicians ..... to be complete twunts. But then I repeat myself!
----------> Mine's the one with the anti-ass-teroid lining!
The hats will have tightly defined regulations governing manufacture and bids will be accepted via the government gateway encouraged from SME although large corporates will win. They must not contain conductive metals lest these short circuit the 5G control signals and upset the aerosolised nanobots. I.e., no tin foil hats permitted.
It is! Astronauts aren't a part of most space launches. For the first few launches they did little more than sit there. Chuck Yeagar called them 'Spam in a Can', and they pushed hard for a larger window so they wouldn't get bored. They were part of the process simply so the Americans and Russians could claim to have had their citizens in orbit.
There have been over 3x as many unmanned moon landings than manned. Not a single astronaut was involved in the 9110 Starlink launches so far, GPS, nor in asteroid sample collection. There have been almost 400 manned space flights ever, and over 2000 uncrewed launches every year.
I know there's a great romantic image of Steve Zodiac jetting about in Fireball XL5, but astronauts aren't needed for 99.5% of space flights. And when they are, it's as a pilot to carry more useful people (who have been trained as astronauts).
Meanwhile, Offshore oil-drilling got its first attempt at commercial-scale remote-operation in 2019, after decades of people trying to develop it. And even then it needs a human crew to supervise. Drilling involves way more actuation and adaptation, assembly of equipment
We can't even get our shit together to solve the self-inflicted existential threats (when we _know_ what we need to do), so why should anyone expect that we can collaborate to solve an external threat like this (where there is realistically nothing we _can_ do).
Cue "remedial physics lessons" in 3, 2, 1, . . . ;)
With enough notice, we do have the technology to prevent an impact.
Space is big. Like really big.
The Earth is comparatively really small.
A very tiny nudge in the right direction a decade before impact is more than enough, so a launch 12-15 years before is likely to be enough.
If we wait until it's going to hit during this political term then it's far too late and the only thing that can be done is to use the politicians as a meat shield.
In the 90's we knew about 50,000 asteroids. This grew over time so we currently know about a million. Another 2000 new asteroids were found within hours of the Vera Rubin Telescope recently starting operation. Scott Manly is predicting it will discover 5 million more over the course of the next 10 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TUQRJLfNzs
Space is big.
Ah yes, Asteroids!
A friend and I had mastered the game of Asteroids back in high school and could play all day on just one quarter.
The trick was not to shoot as much asteroids as possible but to shoot all the rocks but leave one small rock still on screen and then fly as fast as possible across the screen diagonally and wait for the tiny enemy space craft to appear that was worth 1000 points.
We could easily rack of tens of thousands of points using this technique and would collect so many extra ships (lives) that they would go beyond the field of view at the top of the screen that would allow you to take a break from gaming to go outside and get some air and still have plenty of ships left to where you wouldn’t end the game.
The danger in that was that if you had too many extra ships it would cause memory corruption in the console and you wouldn’t see some of the small lines that made up the asteroids start to disconnect and waggle in the air.
The local 7-11 convenience store in my neighborhood sponsored a competition for Asteroids and my friend and I were shoe-ins to win but we never followed through with it and registered but we heard an older guy in his twenties had won the competition and received a brand new Asteroids deluxe machine.
I can’t remember if the memory corruption could be easily fixed by unplugging thr game or letting the ships dwindle down but if memory serves (no pun intended) they had to replace a couple of the consoles during the competition due to memory issues.
Those of us that have witnessed it know what I’m talking about.
Much simpler times back then.
I’d offer you a pint for the memories but I’m A/C.
There is no international protocol for making decisions over how to respond to a zombie apocalypse either.
They may have to throw some money to friendly experts on a committee, to hear representations from industry requesting money to deal with this, with Oracle or Fujitsu doing the software.
That will just leave the question of who supplies the AI.
£50m should do it, funded by benefit cuts.
Bah! Rats! Foiled! Damn it all! Beaten to the punch! I was going to suggest that the Zombie film apocalypse had been a preparation for a Trump Presi-Dent-sy - Dent as in the late Arthur Dent - but A: the US voting public elected the Zombie, and B: you connected the dots before I did! Bah! Rats! Foiled again! Now what have I done with my whiskers, in order to twirl them effectively? Josephine? Josephine! Josephine!?! What have you done with my whiskers!?!?
The zombie apocalypse is here. It was started at the Rio climate summit in the 90's. Have you not noticed the zombies walking around saying' "I'm saving the planet by deforesting to make way for CO2 sequestration plants, solar farms and windmills made from devastating land with open caste mining and child labour? We're building complex EV cars that require replacement with 5 years so we can make twice as many using (so called) fossil fuels.
The news we’ve all been waiting for: if an asteroid is on its way to obliterate civilisation, rest assured - there is no international plan. Zero. Nada. We’ve got committees “working through policy questions,” which is bureaucratic speak for “writing PowerPoints until the sky turns orange.”
So what’s the response for a giant interstellar rock with a kinetic energy equivalent to all our petty worries vapourised in a flash?
No COBRA briefings. No chin-stroking pundits. No last-minute think tank report titled “Reimagining Impact Events for Inclusive Growth”. Just one beautiful, unconsulted end to the circus.
Maybe that’s the plan: die with dignity before another global summit on “planetary resilience” chaired by someone who still thinks gravity is a hoax.
And let’s be honest - even with 14 years’ notice, we’d:
Waste year 1 commissioning big four to draft an action plan no one reads.
Spend years 2-8 negotiating who gets to name the rocket.
Year 9: procurement scandal.
Year 10: new government, project scrapped.
Year 11: reinvent the same plan, with diversity, Net Zero targets and a TikTok campaign.
Year 12: public inquiry.
Year 13: think pieces on “how the asteroid might inspire innovation.”
Year 14: impact.
And when it hits? No sirens. Just the faint sound of a civil servant whispering, “we followed the process.”
Bring it on. At least the asteroid doesn’t pretend to care.
This was a reference to the naming of a British research vessel, when the naming was open to the Great British Public, the name "Boaty McBoatface" won, but it got named 'Sir David Attenborough' instead. One of the submarines did get the popular name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boaty_McBoatface
Your cynicism is appreciated. Nice situation summary. You did however omit the vast transfer of wealth to the already rich building failed projects and the total impoverishment of the masses through enormous taxation and inflation to keep them safe. Oh ... it's already being done, must be advanced planning, we're so lucky to have a government with foresight.
No, what will happen is that that DJ Trump will promise to fix the situation, with Musk as his wingman.
Then, at the last second, Trump will depart the spaceship with strict directions to Musk to do the job.
In one of the other seats will be Toxic Barbie, who will stand on the moon telling the universe that the mission failed because Biden didn't finish his Coco Pops that morning.
Not true, as space does contain matter, no matter how sparse, there is a speed of sound. Maybe a physicist can tell us if it will be fast or slow because it will be so faint impossible to measure. How far does a molecule travel in interstellar space before hitting another, or perhaps a better question is how long. I would assume the speed of sound will be approaching zero, but not zero, because it reduces along with density. Less to bump into.
Ok let's call it zero.......
"Remind me: what's the speed of sound in space?"
Duckducking† "What is the acoustic velocity of interplanetary space?"
(I find it helps if your query is sounds adult~ish and sounds Iike you know what you're talking about‡... Presumably turns off the search engine's AI assisted bullshit generator.)
The result of that query included this seemingly serious discussion:
StackExchange Physics "What is the speed of sound in space?"
Apparently 13,000 - 240,000 km/sec in the interplanetary medium [IPM.] The dependence on temperature is partially responsible for the range.
† any guesses as to what autoconfuse made of this? Although I am not sure that it wasn't right. ;) ‡ crucial if you actually don't.
because then it's too late, damage will probably be local or regional and everybody is left to pick up his/her own pieces.
Regardless of the high level of cynicism in this thread, there actually _should_ be a protocol on how to _prevent_ one of those to hit earth, which is perfectly doable with a long enough warning time.
This means space observation and a deep space strike/push capability are absolutely critical - e.g. exactly the type of work currently being largely de-funded by NASA.
@ESA, JAXA and CNSA : Care to take over? The potential benefit vs cost ratio is nearly infinite.
"There must be a Clarke and Dawe for that, surely..."
This jewel would have to be a contender: The Front Fell Off.
I imagine even left ponders might appreciate the Australian humour.
Beware the Hot Glass !!
Records show that the sizeable asteroid strike that hit Earth also vaporised the bedrock into plasma, which got pushed out as far as near space. That then fell back to Earth as very hot glass (c. 500 DegC ) which then broiled most of the animals on the surface. The oceans were less affected, it just cooled and sank. Anyone in a burrow probably survived initially, and then for a few days of roasted veg &/or cooked meat until it all went off.
So anyone with a cellar would probably be OK, as long as they weren't too close to the seaside.
At least initially ...
If there were to be a protocol, it would inevitably end up as a committee of space-capable nations, and we all know how effective committees are.
Viable courses of action would be presented to the committee by a joint working party of NASA, ESA, JAXA et al within weeks, and then the politicians would spend the remaining time bickering, feathering their own nest and scheming to become chair of the committee. Actually doing something useful would not happen - debate would still be raging even as the world killer screamed down through the atmosphere.
What we really need is an independent third party with the resources, facilities and knowledge at their disposal to do the job without - or perhaps in spite of - government intervention. Unfortunately, right now, that's probably Elon Musk. We are truly screwed.
If there was a medium sized asteroid that was going to hit in the middle of the US you would expect the US to want to divert it, even if that made it likely to hit China. China however might see it differently. Don't expert international agreement because any pre agreed action could instantly become meaningless depending on the exact circumstances. The best that could be hoped for is agreement not to try to divert anything where there was a very high probability of it missing and any such attempt would become an act of war.
When the UK is situated in the immediate impact danger zone of an asteroid or may receive tidal waves resulting from catastrophe elsewhere, the warning signs shan't arise from government announcement or from MSM.
We need an underground surveillance organisation, perhaps to be named Kakistocrat Watch, enabling early warning to ordinary citizens (aka subjects of the Crown) of potentially survivable disasters (by 'renowned' people).
Members of the Watch would report on unusual numbers of civilian and military aircraft departures from the UK, and similarly for shipping (especially super-yachts). Key individuals in the City, government, and, naturally, 'the royals', must have their movements monitored.
The mass of folk would have no prospect of retiring to safety. However, forewarned, and suitably trained, civilian squads (perhaps some disaffected military also), could arrange to intercept the most prominent would-be emigrants and meet out justice. Tempting as it might be to adorn lampposts with decorative corpses, a more satisfying result, should it be feasible, would be to place the refuse of humanity in confinement on a low-lying seacoast.
Parliamentarians not belonging to the top tier of 'Rt Hon.' members, should be made aware that their humble, yet much self-vaunted, status offers no privileges when 'push comes to shove'.
I was wondering whether a large (diameter at least several km) iron-nickel fast moving body could pass through the lower atmosphere just missing the Earth's surface without breaking up.
I was thinking a track over Florida through Oregon. I imagine the shock wave from the body's passage through the air alone would destroy most structures along that trajectory and the vaporizing iron-nickel would grill, or rather broil, whatever was left.
Kentucky Fried... I suppose it would be but we might still have Chicken Maryland.
Inspired by one of the Earths scarred by a near miss with an asteroid presumably near the Gap described in one of Pratchett and Baxter's The Long Earth books.
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