Posts: 4437 From: Sierra Vista, Arizona Registered: Nov 1999
posted 03-08-2018 11:40 AM
Government scientists have a plan for blowing up asteroids with a nuke, reports BuzzFeed News.
The Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response (HAMMER) spacecraft — a collaboration between the National Nuclear Security Administration, NASA, and two Energy Department weapons labs — would either steer its 8.8-ton bulk (called an "impactor") into a small asteroid, or carry a nuclear device to deflect a big one.
"If the asteroid is small enough, and we detect it early enough, we can do it with the impactor," physicist David Dearborn of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory told BuzzFeed News. "The impactor is not as flexible as the nuclear option when we really want to change the speed of the body in a hurry."
Just because these plans now exist does not mean the spacecraft will ever get built...
Blackarrow Member
Posts: 3120 From: Belfast, United Kingdom Registered: Feb 2002
posted 03-08-2018 03:02 PM
I hope no-one is ever quoted in the press saying: "It would have saved us. If only it had been funded..."