UK plans surveillance for Earth-menacing asteroid UK boffins have come up with a plan to track the potentially planet-busting asteroid Apophis, according to a report on the BBC News website. The 300m-wide chunk of space debris is expected to make a close fly-by of Earth in 2029. Initial reports suggested it might actually collide with us, but more refined calculations allayed …
Has anyone checked these people for signs of Mad Scientist Disease?
"So, Egor, we shall land our craft on the asteroid, be the only people in the world with detailed knowledge of its trajectory and so be the only ones able to alter its course. We shall attach to the rock, fire the thrusters nd alter its course by athe teeniest amount and thereby ensure it will hit the Earth! Every one will die and I will RULE THE WORLD!!!
BWAA HA HA HA HA!"
Oh shit.
You actually expect 2038 to be a date problem?
We have 31 years, to develop software that either totally avoids this problem or move up to 64-bit integers for time_t.
Oh noes crisis! Lets all run around like a headless chicken because The Friday The 13th bug will do what the media promised would happen with Y2K in 30 years time!!!
We should fly a Goa’uld cargo ship to the asteroid and land on it. Instead of trying to move it we could set off a nuclear device and destroy it. If it turns out the core of the asteroid is made of naquadah and a nuclear device would be unsuitable, that’s no problem. Simply wait till the last available minute, open a hyperspace window large enough to envelop the asteroid and jump through the earth with the asteroid in tow. That should put Apophis in his place. Of course we may need the help of another race; perhaps the Tok’ra might be able to assist us.
Well I for one have feared this kind of devastation for years, so much so that I have been working on such a remote controlled spacecraft, which is cheap to manufacture and easy to deploy.
I will consist of 4 large metal bars, creating a triangular A shape, with one mount point for a Laser cannon, and three points for Ion thrusters for manoevurability
these will be so cheap to build, you could send three up at once to tackle the problem, then of course you could charge a small fee for each asteroid destroyed, and once you reach say ooooh 10000 or so you could get an extra craft.
:)
I still think the biggest irony will be when while testing what we can do to track or shift earth-dooming asteroids and comets, we end up shifting one straight at us.
Luckily my lifestyle, diet, toxic input from various legal and non-legal sources, drinking, lack of exercise and an extremely annoying wife mean it's certain I won't be around when we do it.
On the other hand if we're going to do all this testing and potential planet destroying, it would be nice if they could hurry up so I get to say "I told you so".
So far, nobody knows whether Apophis is a large chunk of rock, or a big ball of gravel.
In the first case, in 2029 it (mostly) harmlessly slingshots off Earth into a new orbit, maybe taking out a high orbit satellite or two.
Then passes by in ten more years to scare us again. (Very, very small chance that it'll hit on second pass, it's just that we're not sure of the odds yet.)
If it's a big ball of gravel, the gravitational shear forces of its flyby might just be enough to pull it apart, in which case we get a lot of (mostly) harmless meteor showers down here, but lose a lot of satellites, with a repeat ten years later when the remainder of it swings by again. (Might be time to start seeing if those old telegraph cables are in good shape!)
"You actually expect 2038 to be a date problem?
We have 31 years, to develop software that either totally avoids this problem or move up to 64-bit integers for time_t.
Oh noes crisis! Lets all run around like a headless chicken because The Friday The 13th bug will do what the media promised would happen with Y2K in 30 years time!!!
"
Yep, I expect it to be a problem. A big part of the Y2K problem was programmers in the 70's, 80's and even 90's saying there was plenty of time before 2000 people said "hey, 2000 is not for another 30 years". Therefore, all kinds of kludges, replacements, and fixes had to be worked in at the last minute.
I fully expect around 2037 or so, there will be all these 32-bit embedded systems still in place, and all these PHBs (pointy-headed bosses) will be like "oh snap! 2038 bug!" just like the 2000 bug.
As for what that has to do with an asteroid... *shrug* well whatever.
As if? With global warming, nuclear Iran, peek oil, resurging communisim in Russia w/new nuke missels, China on a binge military buildup, Pakistan with Islamic nukes, and everything else I forgot to mention. Why worry?
Oh yeah, the thousands of years long Israeli VS. the World crisis and now the dividing of Jerusalem. That is sure to piss off God. Maybe a good rock in the head is just what we need. Or do we have to many rocks in our heads already?
Lets just go to the desert, drop some mega doses of acid or peyote and have a good view of it all.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
