back to article Euro space boffins hatch comms satellite hijack plan to save Earth from extinction

Space calamity boffins at Airbus and the European Space Agency (ESA) have come up with a new take on that old "massive, rogue impactor striking the Earth and wiping out all life on the planet" chestnut. Rather than sending teams of astronauts, cosmonauts, and unlikely groups of oil workers to destroy the incoming rock with …

  1. hedge

    Forget telecom sats

    Launch laser-sharks with rayguns

    1. Arthur the cat Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Forget telecom sats

      Launch laser-sharks with rayguns

      I think the gene editing program to adapt sharks to breathing vacuum might take longer than a few months.

      [Icon nearest approximation to wearing laser googles.]

    2. Eclectic Man Silver badge
      Alert

      Re: Forget telecom sats

      hedge: "Launch laser-sharks with rayguns"

      Surely they would only glory in the demise of their ape-descendent overlords by asteroid strike and seek to rule in our place?

    3. A.P. Veening Silver badge

      Re: Forget telecom sats

      Trying for Sharknado VI ?

    4. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: Forget telecom sats

      What if – hear me out here – instead of sharks, we equip billionaires with head-mounted lasers and launch them at the asteroid?

      If there are budget constraints, omit the lasers.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Alien

        Re: Forget telecom sats

        I definitely like the idea of using billionaries as kinetic energy weapons. There may not be enough: I think we could perhaps add a large number of the richer sort of politicians too. Some of them have quite high mass.

        1. tip pc Silver badge

          Re: Forget telecom sats

          Why is would you want to send the leaders of the world religions ( they command billions of people in addition to billions of units of currency) at these space rocks?

          Who would pray for us once they’ve gone?

  2. Chris G

    Just to see what happens

    I hope the Didymos bashing boffins have at least a little idea of what might happen post bash, like not heading directly to Earth.

    It may not be as big as some of the rocks out there but it sounds as though there would be a bit more than bashing out the dent and a lick of paint for the planet.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pint

      Re: Just to see what happens

      The Didymos bashing boffins have a good idea as to what will happen in general and the experiment is intended to give them more accurate measurements to plug into their equations.

      The impacter will hit the moon, not the asteroid, and how much the orbit changes will be measured.

      1. Spherical Cow Silver badge

        Re: Just to see what happens

        However... when the impactor changes the moon's orbit it must change the direction/speed of the asteroid-moon system as a whole. At least a little bit.

  3. Pen-y-gors

    Launchers?

    "[But] we think we could expect about 10 to 15 launches available within one month around the entire globe."

    What's the turnround time on a Falcon Heavy?

    1. Spherical Cow Silver badge

      Re: Launchers?

      If the situation is desperate I bet they could do it in a couple of days.

    2. Gordon 10

      Re: Launchers?

      I think the more interesting question is given a 3 month lead time whether the number of available Falcon stacks of either type would exceed the number of available launch sites (including turnaround time).

      Edit : Interestingly enough SpaceX "only" appears to have ~23 Falcon Block5 boosters due to their high refurbishment rates. One booster has had 10 launches! Still I guess even in the low teens they have more active boosters than anyone outside of US and Russian military ICBM's.

  4. Wellyboot Silver badge
    Holmes

    Am I missing something...

    Why can't we just build and put a large number of these deflectors (with a big booster) into orbit well above GEO before we actually need them?

    One a month, every month, no panic, no stress, failed launch? meh.

    That way we could, you know, possibly get some practise shots in and actually be in a position to launch several dozen immediately when really needed.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Am I missing something...

      The cost of doing that before they're needed. We'd still be haggling with the beancounters when the damn thing hits. Also, with the current Hubble situation in mind, would something that's been in orbit for a long time be in a workable condition when it's needed?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Facepalm

        Re: Am I missing something...

        Yeah, really. We don't exactly have a good track record of doing things before they're needed.

        A Coronavirus vaccine was in development after the original SARS outbreak of 2003. It was ready for human trials in 2016. Nobody was interested in funding it.

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          Re: Am I missing something...

          A Coronavirus vaccine was in development after the original SARS outbreak of 2003. It was ready for human trials in 2016. Nobody was interested in funding it.

          This is actually unfair. The human race did pretty well, what with a couple of separate Covid programs being parked and ready to go - when Covied decided it was ready to come for us.

          The Oxford vaccine was originally designed for MERS - the Middle Eastern variant that liked to hide in camels before popping up to kill people. But there was limited transmission of that between people. Which is just as well - it killed half the people that got it. Because there was no outbreak ongoing, there was no way to test the vaccine. Or at least there was, but it was to vaccinate volunteers and then to deliberately infect them - which are called challenge trials. The ethics of deliberately infecting people with a virus that has a 50% death rate are unacceptable.

      2. Wellyboot Silver badge

        Re: Am I missing something...

        >>>workable condition<<< We put stuff up there with 10 year operational life for attitude control now so I suppose if the things are designed correctly then automated servicing could work to double this.

        You're probably right though with the beancounters getting us all vapourized.

    2. JanMeijer

      Re: Am I missing something...

      Putting a large number of directable projectiles in orbit, what could possibly go wrong all the time there is not an extinction level event helping us sort out our political differences?

      All jokes aside: iirc there's a treaty regarding not militarising space. Having a large number of projectiles up there might be considered a bad idea by those not holding the controls over them.

      Aside from the other arguments regarding cost, and our unwillingness to consider anything other than our next summer holiday to be of paramount importance. The latter could perhaps be countered on a political level by introducing 20 year election terms, but that solution would come with its own set of well-demonstrated challenges.

      1. Wellyboot Silver badge

        Re: Am I missing something...

        Without an active warhead and if designed to ‘not’ survive re-entry* they’re probably safe enough for everyone to comfortable with them being up there.

        From any sensible viewpoint this is a very simple set of problems to overcome, however, you mentioned politicians so yes they'll stuff it up everytime.

        * only a large dollop of momentum is required to nudge the rock, the mass doesn’t need to be one big solid lump, 100,000 really little lumps will do the same job.

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: Am I missing something...

          If the thing is deflected when it is far enough away, then the tiniest change in angle will be a huge change in trajectory by the time it reaches Earth.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Boffin

          Re: Am I missing something...

          I think you may have underestimated the effectiveness of kinetic energy weapons in space: one big one is bad enough, a large number of smaller ones as you suggest is absolutely terrifying. The only thing that stops kinetic energy weapons being terrifying on Earth is that it's hard to propel something at orbital velocity: if the thing is in orbit then it's at orbital velocity already. You Do Not Want to be hit by something travelling at orbital velocity.

          Putting a large number of objects which are, in fact, explicitly designed to be kinetic energy weapons in orbit is going make you unpopular.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Am I missing something...

          Yes. You're missing the God Rods.

          "Here at Ortillery Command, we don't really think we are God. We just borrowed his 'Smite' command for our launch control."

          Or, to quote Douglas Addams, "It's not a question of whose habitat it is, it's how hard you hit it!"

    3. ThatOne Silver badge
      Stop

      Re: Am I missing something...

      > into orbit well above GEO before we actually need them

      Sorry but it isn't said anywhere they have to be in orbit. The contrary is the case, it makes sense that they need to be specifically launched to travel at maximum velocity towards their (hopefully very) distant target. Their own puny engines, no matter how much you beef them up, would take weeks to accelerate them enough, better use them to give the projectile the final speed kick.

      So no, as far as I understand this there is no orbit required, just the communication satellite construction and launch infrastructures worldwide.

  5. Duncan Macdonald
    Mushroom

    Use nuke warheads

    A 1 megaton nuke weighs less than these comms satellites - fitted with proximity radar to explode 1 km from the target asteroid (or comet) would cause sufficient path change if only one reached the target 1 month or more before impact. (A 20kph velocity change would suffice at 1 month before impact - a 1MT bomb detonated 1km away should provide more than enough of a shove.)

    Appropriate icon ===========>

    1. Paul Kinsler

      Re: Use nuke warheads

      Umm. No blast wave in space, so is the idea that the radiation vaporizes the asteroid surface, and that is what kicks the asteroid? But at 1km distance from an (eg) 1km-sized object, you are wasting a lot of energy, since a lot more than half of it will miss. It's not obvious to me that you'll have much effect on the asteroid's momentum. Anyone got a link to some calculations?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        1. Paul Kinsler

          Re: Use nuke warheads

          FWIW, the popmech report links to a published article which is open access; see:

          "Impact of neutron energy on asteroid deflection performance"

          S.Horan et al

          https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2021.02.028

    2. TDog

      Re: Use nuke warheads

      Why use proximity fuze? We could use smart control systems along with a penetrator to bury the warhead in the asteroid. We could do that with Pershing II as a land based ballistic missile system 40 years ago. We could also arrange immediate detonation if it was an impenetrable target. That way at least half of the energy would be deviation causing.

      1. Duncan Macdonald

        Re: Use nuke warheads

        As the approach speed could easily be in excess of 20km/sec a penetrating warhead is unlikely to survive. As a deflection of only 20kph is needed (assuming one month before earth impact) a 1km distance should still allow enough surface vaporization to cause the required change in the asteroids course. If multiple rockets are sent then arranging them to be about 6 hours apart would allow enough time for ground based radar to see if further deflection was needed after each blast - if the asteroid was on a safe course then the remaining warheads could be remotely disarmed.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Boffin

        Re: Use nuke warheads

        It's pretty clear that deflecting the thing is a better option than disrupting it. Depending on how effectively you disrupt it and the trajectories of the fragments it's likely that some of those fragments may still hit the Earth and it's extremely hard to predict which of them will and how large they will be.

        To deflect it the best approach is, I think to detonate a device close to the object, which dumps a huge amount of energy onto the surface of the object which will cause a lot of vapourised stuff to be ejected from it, and thus, by conservation of momentum, cause the remaining mass to be deflected. The advantage of this approach is that it's rather controllable I think.

        You can try to deflect things by burying something in it and then setting it off, but given that you probably don't know much about the composition and strength of the object this is hard (and it also ejects a bunch of fragments which is potentially undesirable again).

        Both approaches (with descriptions of simulations of them) are described in this paper (this in turn is a reference from from this paper mentioned by Paul Kinsler.

    3. Gordon 10
      Joke

      Re: Use nuke warheads

      You dont get research grants by recycling Hollywood film plots.

      You do however get them for winding up the Telecoms industry.

  6. druck Silver badge

    Implausible

    Repurposing in orbit satellite's small station keeping thrusters to try to intercept an asteroid is Implausible to say the least.

    A far more reasonable idea would be to attach a large mass to the orbital transfer vehicles which put satellites in to the correct orbit, and have that crash in to the asteroid.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Implausible

      That's not what's being proposed although it was how I read the headline.

      What is being proposed is something akin to what you suggest, except that the large mass is stuffed into it into the satellite chassis instead of the usual electronics. Presumably the idea of doing it this way is that the satellite itself has all the necessary bits to connect to the launch vehicle although a lot of expensive stuff that wouldn't be needed. Why not build a fleet of deflectors containing no more than is required to do the job designed to fit each generation of launch vehicles? It would cut out a lot of arguing and lead time if all that had to be done was commandeer the actual launches.

  7. yogidude

    Blue Galactic

    Why are we sending perfectly good satellites? Surely Bezos and Branson can cram a few hundred tons of ultra wealthy into an earth saving mission and make a profit.

  8. Dvon of Edzore
    Trollface

    The Stainless Steel Elephant

    Of course this ignores the biggest player in the launch game, with a Real Soon Now ability to launch multiple 100+ ton payloads to anywhere per day, but then Belgium wouldn't get their piece of the action. Maybe the EU could donate some old monuments for impact mass, like the Atomium or that rusty tower in Paris?

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: The Stainless Steel Elephant

      The Atomium is awesome and should be left to its shiny glory! It's very shiny, since being refurbished. You used to be able to hire it for parties, back when I lived in Brussels. And that was the venue for my fantasy birthday bash.

      However fitting rockets to the corners of the Eiffel tower and launching it to poke the asteroid out of the way does have its attractions.

  9. gandalfcn Silver badge

    Interesting this came out after the work published in the journal Icarus about the kinetic impactor approach to deflect an asteroid by the PRC.

    "The proposed system is called the Assembled Kinetic Impactor (AKI) because instead of having the impactor separating from the rocket when it gets to leave Earth’s orbit, the rocket comes along for the ride, adding mass to the impact."

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S001910352100261X

  10. Citizen99

    As I read the first few words I thought it was going to suggest using comms satellites that are already in orbit. At any given time there must be plenty that are chunky enough, (?) The existing station-keeping systems would no doubt be slower that a custom-build, but would have a head start by comparison.

  11. G R Goslin

    Well

    Well, the destuction of all life on Earth, has not happened in the last 900 million years, so what is the chance of it happening anytime soon? But keep looking. At least it does keep some people in gainful employment.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Alien

      Re: Well

      That's true. In fact the destruction of all life on Earth has not happened for several billion years and may never have happened. But that's not, actually, the point, is it?

      You may have heard that, once upon a time, there were a vast number of extremely successful animals that lived on Earth, doing very well for getting on for two hundred million years. And then, very suddenly, almost all of them went away. And they went away because a fucking great rock hit the planet and killed almost all of them. Some did survive – grain eaters that could find pre-impact grain for long enough for photosynthesis to get going again after the impact, and some millions of years later they're doing rather well: my cat just caught one in fact.

      That event killed something like 75% of all species then existing on Earth. If it happened today we would almost certainly be one of those species.

      But that's not all of it. There are plenty of smaller impacts which could happen which wouldn't even get close to making even a species as fragile as humans extinct. After the initial catastrophe had killed some billions, the crud lofted into the atmosphere by the event would then completely stop agriculture working for a few years. Some people would certainly survive that: after all they could eat each other for a while, if nothing else. Perhaps millions, even tens of millions of humans would survive, living in some shitty version of the stone age. I think, on the whole, I'd like to be one of the ones who dies in the initial catastrophe.

      So, congratulations on today's really stupid comment award: the prize is a bowl of mud.

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: Well

        If it happens again, then so be it. The Earth can be inherited by new custodians and they would likely treat it a lot better.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Well

          "If it happens again, then so be it. The Earth can be inherited by new custodians and they would likely treat it a lot better."

          There wouldn't really be much of a choice. Much of the easily accessible fuel and mineral resources are already used up so kick-starting a new industrial civilization might be difficult. Maybe those undeveloped parts of the planet currently uninhabited or uninhabitable might be the birthplaces of new civilisations if there are surface or near surface fuel and mineral sources there.

        2. gandalfcn Silver badge

          Re: Well

          It would be difficult to treat it worse.

      2. ThatOne Silver badge

        Re: Well

        > If it happened today we would almost certainly be one of those species.

        Actually even if only a single species goes extinct - it would be us.

        Except some rapidly vanishing "savage" tribes here and there, we're a terminally fragile species, totally dependent on our large and very fragile framework of support, production and transport.

        Put us out in the wild without any clothes, tools, medicine and supplies, and we won't last a week. We don't know how to hunt and gather without tools and weapons, we don't know how to shelter and protect ourselves, heck, who here is capable of making fire without any tools in a natural outdoors environment (everything wet or at least humid)? Not a week. Half the population will already wither and die as soon as their smartphones run dry.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Alien

          Re: Well

          I think that's probably not right.

          Put us out in the wild without any clothes, tools, medicine and supplies, and we won't last a week.

          Put (say) a few hundred million survivors of the initial event out in the wild without anything (except of course there will be lots of remains of stuff: I'm willing to bet canned food can survive anywhere people can survive), then perhaps 99 out of 100 of them, or 999 out of 1,000 will not make it. That leaves between a few hundred thousand and a few million who will have what it takes to survive in the short term at least. That's not particularly near an extinction event for humans.

          Now of course I'm assuming that the environment remains basically habitable (or becomes habitable enough soon enough). That may not be true. but I don't think humans are that much worse off than equivalent 'wild' humans: perhaps worse off by a factor of ten or a hundred or something.

          1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

            Re: Well

            I have to agree. I probably know enough to survive for well over a week in the wild, in many environments, with no tools to start, and this really isn't my thing. But I know how to fire-treat and pressure-knap flint – and I know how to pressure-knap glass, and we humans have left a lot of glass around. I know how to make a friction fire-starter. Simple survival shelter is easy to construct in many environments. Moisture traps aren't hard. Identifying edible plants is tougher for someone who hasn't paid much attention to it, and I haven't, but I'm pretty sure I can do it well-enough to survive.

            I have a friend who would routinely go camping for a few days with just a steel knife and the clothes on his back, because that's what he liked to do. I have quite a few friends who practice other low-tech crafts and are well capable of surviving in the wilderness for quite long periods of time. And they'd all be capable of supplying enough excess to carry small populations along as those people learned the necessary skills.

            Yes, disease and accidents are very real risks that will greatly shorten life expectancy. And the sudden collapse of civilization would take out the vast majority of the current human population simply because most people in densely-populated areas wouldn't be able to get life-critical resources. (I'm betting on a lack of potable water being problem #1, but plagues and starvation would be up there, as would exposure if they didn't have access to buildings and, for many areas, fire.)

            But it's not true that no one would survive simply due to the collapse of civilization.

            A firestorm sweeping around the planet could definitely ruin most folks' day, though. And I've read that after the Chicxulub impactor hit the Earth "rang like a bell" for days, which seems like it'd be rather unpleasant to live through and would presumably cause small inconveniences such as flooding and ground liquification in many areas.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Alien

              Re: Well

              I think that's right. It's also why I'm glad I don't have these skills: I'd rather die very quickly than live in a shit version of the stone-age I think.

            2. ThatOne Silver badge
              Unhappy

              Re: Well

              > I probably know enough to survive for well over a week in the wild

              But do you know how to live there for the rest of your life? This is not a case where you have to survive till the rescue teams arrive, this is a case where civilization is suddenly dialed back a million years and we're back in the stone age without the required know-how.

              Also, the environment will be largely destroyed, you won't just walk around gathering wild berries and setting traps for small forest animals in a sunny summer afternoon. You'll most likely be injured, in a post-apocalyptic world covered in ashes and rubble, beaten by snowstorms and freezing cold weather.

              You might survive, I might too, just not very long.

          2. ThatOne Silver badge

            Re: Well

            > I'm willing to bet canned food can survive

            Sure, but for how long? You can't count on an infinite stockpile of canned food. This is not a Hollywood movie. Whatever you can salvage will eventually run out, more likely sooner than later.

            .

            > survive in the short term at least

            And that's precisely the problem: There is no short term! It's not like you'll have to survive till the rescue teams arrive, infrastructure being destroyed, you'll have to learn again how to grow crop and find livestock to raise, despite the environmental issues ("nuclear winter" type climate). Also how to make your own clothes, heal your sick without the help of modern medicine, prevent violence and pillaging, and so on.

            .

            > I don't think humans are that much worse off than equivalent 'wild' humans

            They are, because they depend heavily on things they won't have anymore: A primitive tribe in the Amazon rain forest knows their habitat, and unless they score a direct hit, they will keep living like before: The forest is their supermarket, and it's still there (more or less). Whereas we "civilized" folks would need to rely on providential treasure troves of pre-catastrophe stuff, which are bound to quickly run out.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Boffin

              Re: Well

              The canned food (or whatever else) needs to survive long enough to get you to the point where things will grow again, in the same way that grain is assumed to have lasted long enough to keep some small number of avian dinosaurs alive for long enough that things started growing again after the Chicxulub impact. If the impact is bad enough then either everyone's already dead, or the food won't last long enough. If it's not that big then some people will probably survive long enough that things will grow again.

              And yes, I do believe that some (not by any means all) humans who have lived in technological civilisations are nevertheless still capable of learning stuff like how to plant crops, especially as they will remember that planting crops is in fact possible. Perhaps not many will be able to learn, and many who do try it will fail, and die. Almost all of the people who don't die will live horrible lives. But, below some limit (no-one is surviving a Theia-scale impact for instance, pretty sure humans would not survive a Chicxulub-scale one) there will likely be some survivors and those survivors will have offspring. Extinction may still come eventually, but it may not.

              Humans, after all, are omnivores who can live indefinitely on almost anything they can digest. The species who are really fucked are things like apex predators: when you're an obligate carnivore whose prey species have all just declined hugely you're pretty screwed. Tigers are not going to make it. Perhaps no obligate carnivores will (I'm hoping for cats on the ground that cockroaches will and cats can live off insects).

              Your assumption seems to be that technological civilisation has turned us all into people who can't learn new skills any more, even when their lives depend on doing so, and despite being in every physical respect identical to people who could and did still learn such skills. I'm someone who thinks that technological civilisation is almost certainly short-to-medium-term doomed anyway, even I find that viewpoint unduly negative.

              1. ThatOne Silver badge
                Unhappy

                Re: Well

                > long enough to get you to the point where things will grow again

                Too many caveats and provisos about that: First of all things might be able to grow again, but can you actually grow them, assuming you were initially not of an agricultural background, there are no tutorials available, and more importantly, seeds and tools are gone, destroyed (or at least not available anywhere near you).

                Also then the whole thing is based on the assumption you will happen on a vast stockpile of edible and varied enough canned food, and that you won't be killed by others who want it too. I know that's the foundation dogma of all Survivalists, but it really assumes a nice quiet Hollywood-like setting where you take occasional potshots at isolated zombies as they try to close in on your bunker. In reality I'm pretty sure that after a couple days of 24/7 trying to fight mobs wanting your food (or just thinking you have some!) you will run out of ammunition, weapons and will to live. Also 5 years (IIRC the standard duration of a "nuclear winter" type situation) is 1826 days, that's an awful lot of cans, for just one person. You'd better live near a canned food factory which is near an ammunition factory...

                .

                > lasted long enough to keep some small number of avian dinosaurs alive

                I think the key word here is "small". Rodents will most certainly survive, but humans aren't small, and most importantly they aren't generally rustic enough to adapt to a suddenly totally hostile environment when all they knew before was asking Alexa to order more Kale juice.

                .

                > Humans, after all, are omnivores who can live indefinitely on almost anything they can digest. The species who are really fucked are things like apex predators

                Humans are apex predators, and nowadays totally dependent on being spoon-fed. Only one in a hundred might know how to hunt after all weapons have been made useless, but there won't be nearly enough prey left: Only one in thousand of those one in hundred will manage to eat enough (and not be eaten by his comrades!), and even if climate goes back to normal and plants start reappearing, he will be alone, utterly alone. Maybe one in hundred of those who survived so far will manage to find a fitting partner and potentially will manage to have children (not for lack of trying, but because of infant mortality). Humanity might survive, but I wouldn't put any money on it: Too many caveats and provisos, as I said.

                .

                > Your assumption seems to be that technological civilisation has turned us all into people who can't learn new skills any more

                No, rather that we won't be given the time to learn any skills. It's boom! All civilization around you is destroyed, you are wounded, in eternal darkness and biting cold. Surrounded by mobs of other survivors who will gladly kill you for your shoes or because they thought you had something to eat. All plant life dies, which means any tasty herbivores which survived will quickly starve, leaving you with ever-diminishing food resources as cadavers both dead and still living run out. Most of your waking time will be spent trying to find shelter and food, while avoiding to be food for others. No time for intellectual pursuits.

                Over time competition and food will diminish, and the environment will improve. If you made it so far you might not be living in a waking nightmare anymore, but you will be alone, and will have to re-discover everything humans have discovered since the stone age. Not "learn", as there won't be anyone around to teach you, and the skills of an average "civilized" human will now be totally useless. Of course some less-"civilized" humans will be savvy and much less affected, but they will be continents away. In the best case a dozen centuries later your great-great-...-great-children might re-discover theirs.

                Yes, it's not a very optimistic picture, but then again when was the last time some big catastrophe surprised you pleasantly?... No, I think Murphy will have a field day.

                I personally prefer we avoid being hit in the first place, I don't live near a canned food factory.

  12. Cuddles

    Optimism

    "This sounds optimistic, but it's that or we all die so you'd hope everyone would be on board."

    Because humanity has such a good record at working together when faced with a global crisis.

    1. ThatOne Silver badge

      Re: Optimism

      That's true and I initially came here to say just that: We all know there will be discussions, endless discussions about "why me and not him", general dragging of feet, playing for time, not only hoping somebody else gets to pay but wanting to make a nice profit out of it.

      After all, everybody knows (s)he's invincible and that bad stuff only happens to others. So why should he care? Let the fraidy-cats do it if they want.

      If you don't believe me, just look at how the Covid crisis was handled during the first month: Denial, finger pointing, conspiracy theories, that's all.

  13. RockBurner

    What no love for the original?

    With His Scottishness himself at the helm?

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079550/

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