Good summary Chuck, I agree 100%. --- Chuck Hards <chuckhards@yahoo.com> wrote:
Brent is right in that 800 megatons is on the small side re: global devastation eccologically; I pointed out that the socio-ecconomic & political impact might be larger than has been admitted by the list engineers. It's certainly nowhere near the scale of an all-out nuke exchange between two highly armed industrialized nations. But it also appears that for the ion-engine deflection scheme to work, or dusting an asteroid white for a solar-sail effect (I posted "paint", for want of a better term) means confirming a strike so far in advance that computational uncertainties make accurate prediction impossible at the present time. In other words, there's nothing we can really do in the near future- we had better hope that Michael is right inferring that the likelihood of a significant impact in the near future (within a few generations) is extremely remote, because there is nothing we can do about it anyway, here and now. Barring a major technological breakthrough, NASA (or the Pentagon) can't deflect asteroid MN2004 in a timeframe of any personal significance to utah-astronomy list members.
--- Patrick Wiggins <paw@trilobyte.net> wrote:
I'm reminded of a quote attributed to then Soviet premier Nikita Kruschev. It went something like "In the event of an all out nuclear exchange the living will envy the dead."
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