In Case of Asteroid Threat, Deploy Tug-Sats and Heavy Rockets, Apollo Astronaut Says

If we have a few decades, all that is needed to change an asteroid's trajectory is to change its albedo. The heat an asteroid absorbs from the sun, combined with its rotation, affects the trajectory of an asteroid. Not much, but enough over time.
A coat of paint would do this. Actually, I'd suggest a micron thick layer of either aluminium - to make it more reflective, or carbon to make it darker. Whichever was needed to make the asteroid collide with Iran... oops I mean miss the earth.

lnwolf41

Instead of knocking it out of a collision, why not slow it down and put it in orbit to be used as building material for stations,ships,and fuel. This would reduce the need to send stuff up into orbit.

i think its time we stop hitting asteroids, what if they decide to hit back?

NOM, forget about Iran for god sake, let's crush it into the Moon! We gonna catch lots of peaces from both the asteroid and the moon and the view should be spectacular.

Whatever happened to blowing the thing to hell with nukes?

I was thinking something along the lines of NOMs idea. But with Japan's recent success with solar sails I'd think we could with tether one to it or land one on it and un fold it. Even if it only was making a difference once every rotation I would think it would at least make some kind of course change.

I can visualize landing a sail onto a rock, I have problems seeing how we could effectively coat a several mile wide rock in paint/aluminum at some -200C.

Asteroids are one thing...at least we can study them, work technologies and experiment and tweak them till we get it right, since time may be on our side(note that I deliberately use the word "maybe") but the real villains are those that might appear "out of the blue" due to asteroidal collisions as witnessed by Hubble, those that make sudden and drastic changes in trajectory caused by a variety of reasons as well as those extrasolar visitors that pack much more energy and come in hyperbolic trajectories with bullseye precision, leaving us absolutely no time to take action.

Can we continue to hide under statistics that predict rare occurrence of such events or is it wise to prepare with whatever our combined arsenal offers at the present time ? (You know, humanity has never had rocket weapons in any other era or civilization, as we know.)

What might the world of nations do when confronted with such a threat if we do not have the skills and reliable end to end system capabilities, even though we might have the assets for the first time in human history ?

Is it high time to organize and conduct full dress rehearsals on test targets ?

In th worst case scenario, can we protect large populations in shelters deep underground, utilizing technologies we now possess ?

These are the questions that need dialog and debate, perhaps even black and white solutions.

Rusty had commented on this article below I wrote for Space News a while ago. Here it is again, for those who like to ponder...

http://www.spacenews.com/commentaries/1004712-putting-surplus-nukes-good-use.html

Asteroids are one thing...at least we can study them, work technologies and experiment and tweak them till we get it right, since time may be on our side(note that I deliberately use the word "maybe") but the real villains are those that might appear "out of the blue" due to asteroidal collisions as witnessed by Hubble, those that make sudden and drastic changes in trajectory caused by a variety of reasons as well as those extrasolar visitors that pack much more energy and come in hyperbolic trajectories with bullseye precision, leaving us absolutely no time to take action.

Can we continue to hide under statistics that predict rare occurrence of such events or is it wise to prepare with whatever our combined arsenal offers at the present time ? (You know, humanity has never had rocket weapons in any other era or civilization, as we know.)

What might the world of nations do when confronted with such a threat if we do not have the skills and reliable end to end system capabilities, even though we might have the assets for the first time in human history ?

Is it high time to organize and conduct full dress rehearsals on test targets ?

In th worst case scenario, can we protect large populations in shelters deep underground, utilizing technologies we now possess ?

These are the questions that need dialog and debate, perhaps even black and white solutions.

Rusty had commented on this article below I wrote for Space News a while ago. Here it is again, for those who like to ponder...

http://www.spacenews.com/commentaries/1004712-putting-surplus-nukes-good-use.html

So, why was the recent near miss (a week or so ago) only observed a day or so earlier? Did I misunderstand that? Or, does it have to do with the size of the asteroid, regarding being able to 'see' it decades in advance of arrival?

What about planting a solar powered rover equipped with a rotating electro-magnet...or even maybe an electric drill and a caterpault...that could seriously altar both the heat and trajectory in a manor way