Topic: astrophysicist says "doh!"
started by: CatKnight
Posted by CatKnight on Mar. 19 2002,17:30
< http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/03/19/asteroid.blindside/index.html >
Posted by Wiley on Mar. 19 2002,17:43
| Quote |
| "Asteroid 2002 EM7 took us by surprise. It is yet another reminder of the general impact hazard we face," said Benny Peiser, a European scientist who monitors the threat of Earth-asteroid collisions... |
Shouldn't that dude loose his job? Considering all he has to do is look for stuff that's going to hit us and he obviously can't do that? If not, how would you get fired from that job? If one of the rocks does hit us then we are all dead ...if you don't see it coming and it just misses us then you can say "Whoops, I didn't see that rock because I was home sleeping and living off government research money" and everything is cool? Screw that!! If an air-traffic controller doesn't see one plane and it hits something should he be able to say "sorry 'bout that ...didn't see te 747 in the sun and all". Somebody must pay for our near death.
Posted by CatKnight on Mar. 19 2002,17:48
heh you have a good point about government job fuckups (air port security, a-hem, or lack there of). that's why big government is bad. but anyway it wasn't really that guy's fault, there is no way to detect objects incoming directly from the sun. if they had more resources they could track more asteroids while they were going the other way.
Posted by CatKnight on Mar. 19 2002,17:50
oh yeah besides there is nothing you can do to prevent the asteroid from hitting anyway, unless you knew it was going to hit many years in advance. another besides--it was only 70 meters across. it would do about as much damage as a nuke, it wouldn't destroy the planet or anything.
Posted by Necromancer on Mar. 19 2002,18:02
erm i really have to just give you a quick friendly bitch slap there wiley 
the average comet at say 1.5 times the distance to the moon has about the same luminosity of a lump of coal. Asteroid/Comet hunting is one of the hardest things to do as by the time you see them if they're on a collision with earth you will have an average of about 2 hours before it hits as it needs to get that close for you to see it. With the limited funding these projects get things like this should be used to raise awareness not to point the finger. As far as i'm aware the closest near miss was one that just deflected off our atmosphere (but do take into account our atmosphere extends WAAAAY out into space) you could see it glowing from the friction in an amateur film footage.It was about 1 3rd distance between here and the moon i think though no exact figures on that one. When it comes to blindspots the whole of space is one big fricking blind spot.
just a little sketch i quickly did the red block is an average skyscraper. not a lot you can do really with things like them.
Aint it cool to think we could be snuffed out in a wink of an eye just like that
almost makes me horny 
Posted by kuru on Mar. 19 2002,18:11
If an asteroid that size hit Siberia in 1908, and we are all still here, it's reasonable to state that an asteroid the 70 meters in diameter hits earth again, it will not obliterate human life.If it were to be headed for a major population center, these guys should be able to figure this out ahead of time and evacuate that city and the surrounding area. Even a few days warning would be enough if it was taken seriously.
Posted by CatKnight on Mar. 19 2002,19:41
the asteroid that hit siberia 100 years ago was about the same size as the one that just missed us. eros (i think thats what that big one is) is one of the bigger asteroids in the asteroid belt. if it hit the earth, therewoulbe mass extinction and billions dead.
Posted by Spydir on Mar. 19 2002,20:03
| Quote (CatKnight @ 19 Mar. 2002,07:41) |
| therewoulbe mass extinction and billions dead. |
I think the "billions dead" makes a little bit of sense after "mass extinction". That's like "I'll kill you! Kill you dead!"
Posted by TheTaxMan on Mar. 19 2002,22:56
Well, mass extinction general applies to all living things, while we would never say "billions dead" and refer to chipmunks, so...
Posted by chmod on Mar. 19 2002,23:44
"Graveyards are where dead people go to be dead for the rest of their lives."< http://www.blumpy.org >
Posted by Necromancer on Mar. 19 2002,23:56
yeah sorry kuru bit of confusion that pics of eros. the siberian impact was suspected to be a comet a few metres across that exploded mid air.
Posted by damien_s_lucifer on Mar. 20 2002,02:23
re: the tracking problem... couldn't we use radar on a satellite, like a weather satellite pointed away from the Earth instead of towards it?And for that matter, when the hell are we going to the Moon again?
Posted by editor on Mar. 20 2002,04:32
I'm told that NORAD tracks everything bigger than a nut in Earth orbit.Your homework for tomorrow is to find out how far NORAD can track; can it track the Moon?
Speaking of which, the Moon will probably end up owned by some meta-national company. The governments are too stupid to see that every time explorers find a new land, someone gets rich off it. No oil, but something's got to be out there.
Posted by Spydir on Mar. 20 2002,05:10
they only use sattilites pointed directly at the earth, and they only track US air space. They *could* track the world, but it's a lot easier on them to just do the US, and more importantly: that's all they're supposed to track.I'd actually like to buy the moon, or some other small planet such as mars. I'd start my own little planet. Spydirtopia. the government will be loosely based on the US (original) government, with additions... such as...
1: DMV and postal workers will be paid in commissions.
2: Unless put on "vibrate", all cell phones are banned from use in public places
3: barfing up your food to "get thin" is punishable by being force feed bigmacs
4: hippies = gone
5: weed = legal (bet you could figure out a wicked way to grow it in that thin martian atmosphere...)
and others...
Posted by CatKnight on Mar. 20 2002,05:42
Posted by editor on Mar. 20 2002,05:43
Hippies = gonePot = here?
I thought pot turned you into a hippie
What do you consider a hippie?
Posted by Necromancer (Uni PC's) on Mar. 20 2002,13:42
It takes some 45 mins for a signal to reach mars plus you have to take into account that the radar wave will be so spread out by that time that chances are if it bounces back to earth it will be weaker than the radiation background noise. You could use a focused beam but then you have to shorten your search field to a ridiculously focused size to get a clear signal. The most likely sign of an earth impact from the sun's direction would be like in armageddon where small meterites hit the earth. this would be from where the object would've been torn apart by the sun and the smaller objects accelerated away from the larger ones. It'd still only give you a few hours warning though. I think there is a couple of observatries being setup in places like la palma for the study of extra terrestrial impact possibilities but it really is a virtually impossible task.
Posted by Spydir on Mar. 20 2002,19:57
nice to know, Necro, but I already knew that.hy hippies I mean the tree hugging "nuclear power is bad!" and "don't eat meat!" people. I don't care if you don't like meat, that's fine. Don't eat it. But don't take away my bacon cheeseburger, I'll fucking kill you. By the hippie law, I mean basicly "change the fucking channel". All the people that bitch about "bad tv" and stuff that need to change just not watch that channel. they're gone. That's the most basic meaning to that law.
I'd also make sure the population isn't to big, that way there can be a true democracy, no representive crap. Everyone votes. Oh, and republicans... they'd have to wise up.
Posted by Wiley on Mar. 20 2002,20:56
| Quote (damien_s_lucifer @ 19 Mar. 2002,18:23) |
| re: the tracking problem... couldn't we use radar on a satellite, like a weather satellite pointed away from the Earth instead of towards it? And for that matter, when the hell are we going to the Moon again? |
We never went to the moon. All the video footage was shot on a sound stage in Hollywood and covered up by NASA. We couldn't risk a failure and let Russia win the space race ...especialy with Vietnam and all going on at the time. We can't actually land a human on the moon because of the radiation levels and such. I know all this because a friend of mine knows this guy who read about the filming in some credible magazine that we don't have the name of anymore. The government is hiding stuff from us. All the moon rocks they "brought back" are stamped "Made in Taiwan" on the bottom ....hmmmmmm
Posted by editor on Mar. 20 2002,21:03
Yah, and it took quite a bit of coordination to fake the double sonic boom LA gets when the shuttle lands; it takes old USAF Phantoms to create the double boom. I hear it took weeks to work out the spacing of the two jets...
Posted by CatKnight on Mar. 20 2002,21:11
oh yeah, and the whole shuttle minature thing. they had to make a scaled down model of the shuttle to fly at 30,000 feet so that it would look like the real shuttle flying at 300 miles.
Posted by editor on Mar. 20 2002,21:13
And we used up several year's worth of Titan IVs to get the hydrogen bombs to Jupiter to fake the comet strike....Now if that hit Earth, detnet could go down for a while...
Posted by damien_s_lucifer on Mar. 23 2002,00:36
Martian-grown weed... mmm...Why the hell hasn't there been a manned expedition there yet? Experiments there have failed to turn up any indication of life there, but with some good technology the planet is certainly capable of it.
Atmosphere : 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, 1.6% argon. You can't breathe it directly, but processing would provide most of the essential gasses we'd need. There may be water deep underneath the surface; if not, there's plenty in the polar ice caps. The composition of Martian soil is remarkably similar to Earth's. We should be able to extract all the materials we need from it. It lacks the microbes necessary to sustain plant life, but we can always bring those with us, culture them there, and mix 'em in with the Martian soil in a pressurized greenhouse.
First order of business would be to get twos ship there. One would carry everything needed for a small base camp, including the materials necessary for a nuclear reactor. The other ship is a giant fuel tanker. These ship shouldn't be manned in order to keep the cost down.
The next ship, which will take off after we've confirmed that the first two arrived successfully, should carry a crew capable of assembling the good sent over in the first ship.
Unlike the cargo ship, the human transport should focus on getting there quickly and safely. Materials don't care if they take five years to get there, but with humans we'll want to minimize the time they have to spend in space. There's a lot of talk about cryogenic sleep etc., but our best bet is probably to just let them live more or less "normally" on the ship, and expend a hell of a lot of fuel so they can get there in a couple of months. Once there, they can dock with the tanker ship, dock that with the cargo carrier, and begin assembling our first base... probably near the polar ice caps, so they can get water both to drink and to begin manufacturing more fuel.
Posted by incubus on Mar. 23 2002,00:54
| Quote (damien_s_lucifer @ 22 Mar. 2002,16:36) |
| Martian-grown weed... mmm... Why the hell hasn't there been a manned expedition there yet? Experiments there have failed to turn up any indication of life there, but with some good technology the planet is certainly capable of it. Atmosphere : 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, 1.6% argon. You can't breathe it directly, but processing would provide most of the essential gasses we'd need. There may be water deep underneath the surface; if not, there's plenty in the polar ice caps. The composition of Martian soil is remarkably similar to Earth's. We should be able to extract all the materials we need from it. It lacks the microbes necessary to sustain plant life, but we can always bring those with us, culture them there, and mix 'em in with the Martian soil in a pressurized greenhouse. First order of business would be to get twos ship there. One would carry everything needed for a small base camp, including the materials necessary for a nuclear reactor. The other ship is a giant fuel tanker. These ship shouldn't be manned in order to keep the cost down. The next ship, which will take off after we've confirmed that the first two arrived successfully, should carry a crew capable of assembling the good sent over in the first ship. Unlike the cargo ship, the human transport should focus on getting there quickly and safely. Materials don't care if they take five years to get there, but with humans we'll want to minimize the time they have to spend in space. There's a lot of talk about cryogenic sleep etc., but our best bet is probably to just let them live more or less "normally" on the ship, and expend a hell of a lot of fuel so they can get there in a couple of months. Once there, they can dock with the tanker ship, dock that with the cargo carrier, and begin assembling our first base... probably near the polar ice caps, so they can get water both to drink and to begin manufacturing more fuel. |
Damien, that entire post just gave me a hard-on.
Posted by editor on Mar. 23 2002,02:34
We could drag n drop icesteroids from Saturn's rings onto Mars...*poof*
There's an atmosphere and water!
Posted by Bob_the_Cannibal on Mar. 23 2002,02:40
the burr under my saddle, as it were?Everything needed to get to mars and start terraforming is avalible now. a couple nukes on the polar ice caps should increase atmospheric density, when the ice evaporates... Comms? matched particle pairs, 4 of them. 2 up, 2 down. modify the spin speed, and the other end registers that spin change, and converts to electrical binary. instant data, comms, and telemetry, instantly. probably faster than light.
GM bacteria, GM plants. food.
Bone loss can be somewhat negated by those electrical ab-toners... apply electrodes to a suit, and the spine and legs are stressed enough like it was earth gravity.
etc, etc.
Posted by CatKnight on Mar. 23 2002,02:45
| Quote |
| matched particle pairs, 4 of them. 2 up, 2 down. modify the spin speed, and the other end registers that spin change, and converts to electrical binary. instant data, comms, and telemetry, instantly. probably faster than light. |
that and cold fusion and a buck would buy you a cup of coffee.
Posted by Bob_the_Cannibal on Mar. 23 2002,02:58
...You're mocking me, aren't you?
Posted by editor on Mar. 23 2002,03:57
That's a first; CK never mocked anyone before.My turn;
Planet Spydirtopia?
spy-Dirtopia?
Actually, Mr Bob, it's the people who don't know what they can't do, who end up doing it.
Luck.
Posted by CatKnight on Mar. 23 2002,05:24
whom! 
Posted by Spydir on Mar. 23 2002,18:57
the planet name's up for discussion. We could go with STFU-piter, if you like
Posted by editor on Mar. 23 2002,19:46
kinda partial to planet Detonate, myself...
Posted by DELUDED_BIPED on Mar. 26 2002,09:08
On the brightside...it wouldn't suck for long. 
Posted by veistran on Mar. 28 2002,07:08
| Quote (Spydir @ 19 Mar. 2002,23:10) |
| they only use sattilites pointed directly at the earth, and they only track US air space. They *could* track the world, but it's a lot easier on them to just do the US, and more importantly: that's all they're supposed to track. |
NORAD's job description ripped right off their page... "The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is a binational United States and Canadian organization charged with the missions of aerospace warning and aerospace control for North America. Aerospace warning includes the monitoring of man-made objects in space, and the detection, validation, and warning of attack against North America whether by aircraft, missiles, or space vehicles, utilizing mutual support arrangements with other commands. Aerospace control includes providing surveillance and control of Canadian and United States airspace."
I.E. we track everything in and around North America on top of everything anyone puts into space.
Posted by Spydir on Mar. 28 2002,18:32
... isn't that what I said? Just with fluffy words?
Posted by veistran on Mar. 29 2002,03:11
yeah, that's what you said, minus the hardest part of their job.
Posted by editor on Mar. 29 2002,03:38
it's the people whom don't know what they are doing....you sure about that?
Isn't "whom" singular?
People are plural.
/head sore
Posted by CatKnight on Mar. 29 2002,14:47
Q. When do you use whom instead of who?A. Use who when a nominative pronoun is appropriate, and whom when an objective pronoun is appropriate.
Who is a nominative pronoun (meaning it acts as a subject) and is used:
As the subject of a verb, as in "It was Paul who rescued the dog."
As the complement of a linking verb, as in "They know who you are."
Whom is an objective pronoun (meaning it serves as an object) and is used:
As the object of a verb, as in "Whom did you see?"
As the object of a preposition, as in "That is the group to whom the credit belongs."
Posted by editor on Mar. 29 2002,14:59
Too many syllables to read;I...have been dominated...