This area will cover relevant news of the threat to the planet from Near Earth Objects (NEOs) including concepts and designs for mitigation. All opinions are those of the author.

12 April 2008

Google Tech Talk from 2007: "The Use of Nuclear Explosives To Disrupt or Divert Asteroids"



Google Tech Talks
March 23, 2007
"The Use of Nuclear Explosives To Disrupt or Divert Asteroids"

Link: YouTube Video

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for posting this. It seems to return some credibility to the idea that deflection strategies resulting in fragmentation are still preferable to no action.


    I think that the development of alternative countermeasures such as Laser Ablation or Modular Mass Drivers (i.e. the Spaceworks Engineering ‘Madmen’ proposal) should still be seriously explored, but realistically, nuclear projectiles are an already proven technology.


    Furthermore, while these anti-nuclear hysterics makes for good copy; the various media theatrics have historically been effective in stifling our progress in space exploration. I sincerely hope that the meager amount of resources allocated to planetary defense initiatives are not squandered by this type of uniformed populist sentiment in the future.

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