According to this tabloid NASA is to try and shoot a killer asteroid coming to hit us in 2036,

I can not find this reported on anyother media. Does anyone else have anything on this

NOTE the link has a short shelf life with this tabloid on line. The whole story is only two sentances but forum rules prohibit me from copying them here.

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They must be talking about 2004 MN4 now known as 99942 Apophis.
From Wikipedia:

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Both April 13? Is this one Friday 13th?

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The next close approach 2029, is April 13th, a Friday.

How about 4 more close approaches, all April 13 (99942 Apophis Earth-Impact Risk Summary):

2036-04-13.37 Sunday
2037-04-13.64 Monday
2054-04-13.41 Monday
2056-04-13.19 Thursday

(Perpetual Calendar)

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I was under the impression 99942 Apophis wasn't likely to hit Earth at all, according to current measurements?

What I consider an interesting project would be to see if the thing could be captured into LEO and used as a source for materials for space programmes. I've suggested this before and people have shot down the idea because of the huge delta-v involved in doing such a thing, but it has recently occured to me that aerobraking might provide a way to bring the asteroid in without having to apply huge amounts of force to it.

Not likely, but possible. 99942 Apophis Impact Risk current impact probability for 2036: 1 chance in 5,560.

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But even if it did hit, this asteroid does not pose a species-threatening impact.

According to

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/a99942.html, this object has a diameter of around 320m.

Does anyone know what the projected damage an asteroid that size would do?

I'm guessing, depending where it hit, it could do considerable damage, certainly threatening civilisation as we know it, but, ignoring for a minute the economic impacts and the huge follow-on effects, are we talking hundreds of millions of deaths, 1 billion deaths? or perhaps more?

As morbid as it is to talk in these terms, are there studies out there that deal with these impacts depending on the size of the impacting object, it's composition, and where it hits?

Sounds like a plan,lets hear it:-)

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I still await the compelling Exhibit A.

Basically, you land multiple spacecraft on apophis, that have 'upward' pointing engines and can manufacture reaction mass from the asteriod itself. Such devices would not be able to produce much delta-v on something that big, but their small impact on the asteroids velocity would make a large difference over time. Thus the asteroid can be steered to an extent. All that needs to be done is to have the thing clip the top of Earths atmosphere to slow it into an Earth orbit.

Even if it doesn't work it will look AWESOME

On a serious note though: You would have to be careful, and have some sort of abort mechanism (i.e. nuclear bomb) on the asteroid.

In fact, I think I've found the perfect link for the question I posed on a different thread.


http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

Apparently an asteroid of that shape wouldn't perhaps be as deadly as I'd speculated. Perhaps a crater in the range of 5km would be the result, and if it landed in Siberia, really not that much damage to civilisation as we know it, thank god.

The other thread is here.

Near Light Speed Asteroids

Near Light Speed Asteroids

ESA is planning an asteroid deflection test too
http://www.esa.int/gsp/NEO/quijote/quijote.htm
http://www.space.com/astronotes/astronotes.html Sept 26:

"After a comprehensive review, the space agency selected the near-Earth objects 2002 AT4 and 1989 ML as primary targets for its upcoming Don Quijote mission. The mission will send two spacecraft, dubbed Hidalgo and Sancho, to an asteroid in hopes of slightly deflecting the space rock’s path.

The Don Quijote mission will visit only one of the two asteroid targets – a final decision will be made in 2007 – and calls for the Hidalgo craft to slam into the space rock at a high speed while Sancho records the event, ESA officials said. The Sancho probe is slated to arrive at the asteroid earlier than Hidalgo to observe the object before and after the impact, they added. "

About asteroid capturing, can that same technology, using upward pointing engines, be used to deflect them? Not that I don't want to see an awesome capture, but in case it can't be captured.

It sure can. It would just take a bit longer, or a bit bigger push.

Oh, and I love the name of that ESA mission. Tilting at asteroids, eh?

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I'm sure the 1.5 million residents of Novosibirsk (wilipedia) would tend to disagree with you.

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Undoubtedly, if I think about it I can probably think of a few other places where an asteroid would not be so under-appreciated. In terms of a 320m asteroid though, was it not the case that the Tunguska event was caused by an object approaching around 80-100m in diameter?

Possibly. If you make something accelerate at only 1 m/s^2, and it travels for a year, its velocity in that direction will be 31,000 km/s (about 10% the speed of light). If you have a lot of time to make a course correction, and a practically unlimited fuel supply (as is the case on the surface of this asteroid) you don't need huge accelerations. You would still need pretty powerful engines though. Thats the big technical problem.

As for the situation if it can't be captured? You have a nuke landed on the thing before you start as an emergency measure. If the situation arises where it isn't likely to work you blast the thing off in the opposite directon.

Nukes would be no good for the act of capturing itself though, because their yields are unpredictable.

There is a very simple reason for it. In order for Earth and asteroid to have a close encounter, their orbits must cross. Planets move along their orbits, but orbits themsleves remain still.* Intersection of Earth's and Apopis' orbits remains in place. Hence every time Earth passes through that intersection, it is in the same part of its orbit, i.e. same calendar date!

*Not entirely true, but close enough on the timescale of a few decades.

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"All" he says. I like the idea of mining asteroids, but I want to keep them away from the planet. You don't know if the asteroid will even hold together, and unless you are going to put it deep in the atmosphere (even more dangerous) you aren't going to get much velocity change.

I really wouldn't want to be anywhere near its flightpath. I think it would be a good time to build a fallout ... er ... asteroid shelter.

"Careful" he says. And he is hitting the planet with an asteroid and nukes.

By the way, the nuke would be useless under these circumstances. You might get the asteroid to break up, which doesn't change the mass a bit, but would spread out the damage. Also, there is no time for significant trajectory change.

You definitely think big, but stay away from doomsday machine plans, 'kay? Ain't healthy.

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Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

There would have to be some preliminary missions to ensure the asteroid was sufficiently dense enough (i.e. not a rubble pile) for the purpose. Also, you don't need to get into into LEO in one go - you just need to slow it down to the point where it falls into any Earth orbit, then you've all the time in the world to get it into the orbit you want and scary aerobraking manuevers are no longer needed.

The nuke would have to be used far from Earth, if it looked as if the mission would fail. There would be a point of no return when the failsafe nuke would do as much harm as good. That would be a good time to be hiding in your cellar.

Besides you could 'aim' it to do its aerobrake over an unpopulated area to be on the safe side.

Meh, one of these days one of my hairbrained schemes could make me a billionaire. Just have to spot which one.

Remember that any impacter has a ~70% chance of landing in the ocean. That's a big tsunami waiting to happen!

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