Not crying wolf, but these guys seem to have a valid point.

[spacefire]

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1024 <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[vogon13]

Directv (and the rest) satellite safe from this rock unless it coolides. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[henryhallam]

<font color="yellow"><br />Even if it doesn't hit Earth, I'm wondering which damages it can do to geostationary satellites. Is it heavy enough to change their orbit?<br /></font><br />For the 2029 pass at least, although the perigee is below geostationary altitude, the plane of the trajectory is such that it never gets very close to the geostationary "ring". All bets are pretty much off for the 2036 pass but it would be VERY unlikely to pass close enough to a geostationary satellite to perturb it, it would be more likely to hit the Earth and we'd have worse problems!<br /><br />The article is pretty interesting, I wonder how difficult it would be to mount their suggested rendezvous and landing mission in the next few years? I suspect it isn't the easiest asteroid to meet up with, purely because most of them aren't very easy (Itokawa, the target of the Japanese HAYABUSA sample-return mission was chosen very carefully) but it could probably be done. I will have to run some simulations.

 

[spacefire]

do you think NASA should commit the funds to place a radio beacon on that asteroid?<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"...place a radio beacon on that asteroid?"</font><br /><br />As a known object-of-interest, this will already be getting tracked visually by any number of astronomers. So the purpose of this radio would be... to... allow any asteroidlings that happen to be on there to phone ahead in case they decide to visit Earth?

 

[drwayne]

I think he is looking for a means of improving track accuracy.<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[spacefire]

Zack Morris...<br /><br />Read the article damnit! <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br /><font color="purple">The alternative is to spend ~ $300M now to send a scientific mission with a radio transponder to MN4. Then, in 2012-2014 we will be able to say (most likely) "the asteroid will definitely miss us" or, (highly unlikely) "it's got a 1 in 10 probability of hitting us". Either way our course of action is clear; we either plan another series of cocktail parties to watch the asteroid go by in 2036 (as we will have done in 2029) or we mount the most important space mission in human history</font>/safety_wrapper> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[henryhallam]

<font color="yellow"><br />do you think NASA should commit the funds to place a radio beacon on that asteroid?<br /></font><br />Depends how much such a mission would cost, and what other useful science could be gained by doing so.<br /><br /><font color="yellow"><br />As a known object-of-interest, this will already be getting tracked visually by any number of astronomers. So the purpose of this radio would be... to... allow any asteroidlings that happen to be on there to phone ahead in case they decide to visit Earth?<br /></font><br />As stated in the linked article, the radio beacon allows better orbit determination by a factor of at least 10. The general idea is that the relatively small uncertainty in its state vector now leads to a much greater uncertainty in its state vector after the 2029 swingby. <br /><br />Therefore even if the asteroid were currently on a path that will take it to a collision course after the 2029 swingby, with optical measurements alone we wouldn't be able to say anything more precise than "there's a 1 in 100 chance that it will collide in 2036". This would probably not be enough to justify a deflection mission. After the 2029 swingby we would know for certain that it was going to hit, but by then it's too late to mount a practical deflection mission.<br /><br />On the other hand if we mount a radio beacon in the near future, we can reduce those odds to 1 in 10, i.e. IF it is in fact definitely going to collide then we would be able to say it has a 1 in 10 chance of collision which would be great enough to justify a deflection mission, which if performed early enough would be relatively cheap.<br /><br />Did that make sense? I had to reread the article a couple of times before I understood what they were saying.

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"As stated in the linked article, the radio beacon allows better orbit determination by a factor of at least 10."</font><br /><br />Yes -- I read the article -- before it was posted in this thread actually. I fully understand the author's call for a beacon. I also fully understand that he spends the entire article maximizing the improbable events and minimizing the probable ones. However, I feel it's a ridiculous proposal which deserves a matching answer. Astronomers have another year and a half to refine the orbit before the 2006-2012 window where it will be largely out of view. JPL will be refining its numbers up until that time. These may in and of themselves give sufficient data to make the mission a wash.<br /><br />Even if they don't, and a mission were proposed and funded *right now* to plant a beacon on the asteroid, it would take what... 2-3 years to build, and how many years to make it to the asteroid and soft-land a beacon? Another 2-3? Somewhere between 2009 and 2011 we might could land that beacon there... giving us a whopping 1-3 years more to refine data before we have optical observations again. Especially as the 2012 optical observations will immediately provide *great* refinement of the orbital path when meshed with the observations from the 2004-2006 period. Where exactly is this huge time savings supposed to come from in planting a radio beacon? Even the author admits that the 2012 observations will almost assuredly put the matter to rest.

 

[spacefire]

I still think it is justified. The earliest we know the better to prepare for its arrival. By 2029 we might be in a position to actually capture the asteroid and use it for something. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[drwayne]

Careful. To "capture" something it need to be in the right place both spatially and energetically to be captured. That tends to be fairly rare.<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[toymaker]

Hmmm....Just a though, from a military point of view, such a an object would make an excellent weapon.<br />So an capture mission with good PR is possible.i

 

[JonClarke]

Fortunately executing such a procedure is at present beyond even the most Stranglovian military.<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[earth_bound_misfit]

Jon, is this who your referring to as Stranglovian military?<br /><img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <br /><br />Crikey! Sorry didn't realise the image was so huge! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p><p>----------------------------------------------------------------- </p><p>Wanna see this site looking like the old SDC uplink?</p><p>Go here to see how: <strong>SDC Eye saver </strong>  </p> </div>

 

[toymaker]

They were such concerns during the Deep Impact planning/that it serves as way to test the possibility of using asteroids as direct weapons/

 

[toymaker]

Enjoy ! <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /><br /><br />Natural Meteorids as Weapons :<br />http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1209/MR1209.appc.pdf