It doesn't take much for the pieces to completely miss. The required deflection is tiny if you have a few years. But in case of this particular asteroid, you could literally just fly an exact copy of DART and have a decent chance to get enough deflection. No need for drastic measures like nukes.

@travishou713 @AlexBolewski @FutureJurvetson Yes, you need some sort of terminal guidance to hit such a small asteroid. Basically a repeat of the DART mission, possibly scaled up. You might want to keep the stage attached to get some extra energy though...

@wojtekdomus @MichaelAArouet China is. There is a huge nuclear renaissance in the US. But since this is physical hardware it takes many years for the power stations to get planned and built.

@_donalphonso @ekztisok Als nächstes bitte den neuen Model Y probefahren. Das einzige E-Auto was alle grünen hassen. Müsste Ihnen doch gefallen...

@Jonnyfourshirts @Stuffhappenwhen @DJSnM @Andercot True, but the asteroid in question is not a 20km dinosaur killer but something that can be dealt with using just a kinetic energy impactor.

@robert_zubrin @DJSnM @Andercot 5000 kg/m3 is a bit on the high side. Also, why a LH2 upper stage? If it turns out that more mass is needed, use a falcon heavy.

@PachoForeroD @robert_zubrin @DJSnM @Andercot Yes. Dart had significant amplification (3.6 or something) despite not even being designed for maximum amplification.

@sligernation @DJSnM @astroEdLu It is not a good candidate for capture, since it is in a very elliptical orbit. The required delta-v would be huge.

@RudyDrischel @MichaelAArouet It was also made possible by a level of economic freedom that is unthinkable today, enabled by Ludwig Erhard. He was just as radical as Milei is today. There is no German mainstream politician like that today. The supposedly liberal party FDP is a sad joke.

@Arishna12 Wieso muss? Man sollte aufhören alles was von der EU kommt als gottgegeben anzusehen. Wenn das so ist kann man sich die Wahlen auch gleich sparen. Wenn Deutschland als derzeit noch größter Nettozahler die Verordnung einfach nicht umsetzen würde, was würde denn passieren?

@Robotbeat @DJSnM @robert_zubrin @Andercot No. I was hoping some rough numbers about amplification would be in the slides.

Yeah, just. Compared to some things that routinely happen every day, intercepting a large fragment that you can observe for days and that has a completely deterministic trajectory seems easy. This is happening in space, but space is not a magical environment that makes everything 100x harder.

@Robotbeat @DJSnM @robert_zubrin @Andercot You would think that this can be avoided by intentionally fragmenting the impactor briefly before impact. Humanity has a lot of experience with designing impactors. We do need some target practice though.

@Robotbeat @DJSnM @robert_zubrin @Andercot You can just have a swarm of interceptors to clean up after the big interceptor. But, if all fragments have at least escape velocity of the asteroid, and they expand spherically, only a tiny fraction will remain on an intercept course.

I watched the presentation, but it does not go into much detail. How does this work? Does the asteroid just soak up the momentum, or is there significant amplification? I don't quite get the concerns about disruption btw. If you blow up the asteroid years before impact only a tiny fraction of the fragments will still be on intercept course. Surely that is much better than the whole asteroid impacting. And if they are too big, Wait a day for the dust to clear and then deal with them separately.

RT @RubenMoor: @ulricheder @nicolen8wak @realDonaldTrump Bitcoin without civil disobedience is a CBDC

@obelisktoucher1 @Schwarzbauer_ @FutureJurvetson No, in this case moving it would actually be relatively simple. Kinetic energy impactor like DART, launched with falcon 9.

@AlexBolewski @FutureJurvetson This asteroid is small enough that a kinetic energy impactor like DART is sufficient. A single spacecraft, launched from a single falcon 9 or falcon heavy.

@CJHandmer @pranavkrn Bring water to mars? Seriously?