How would we stop an asteroid from causing a mass extinction?

Question

I wonder if we left billions of tons of marble sized rocks above our atmosphere, it would stay in perfect orbit and completely destroy any meteor as if being fired on by millions of bullets. Although it would hinder any space travel from ever happening it would be a lot better then the alternative idea. Does anyone else have any better ideas?

Answer 1

Not with today's tech. The marbles will kill all satelite communications and internet and whatever else satelites do. No cable tv no gps, no cell phones. Of course, no people if the meteor came and hit.

hmmmm....

Answer 2

There are, possibly, trillions of asteroids and comets of the size that could cause a global extinction. Of those, billions are capable of coming into contact with earth and, of those, millions regularly come near our planet. We would only see the asteroid or comet if it was near enough to us and if it caught some of the sun's illumination. Of course, even if it did, we'd still have to catch it when it was six months away for us to be able to do much anything at all. And, well, six months away? Hardly good odds. Seeing anything at all means that someone would have to be looking at that exact spot at that exact time. There aren't many people willing, and even less with regards to equipment capable.

A monumental feat.

One that's unlikely, because those few very devoted hobbyists and hired astronomers constantly view 'near-miss' asteroids after they've already passed us by.

Even if we did have six months to prepare, we could hardly hit it with a nuclear warhead. Our missiles were never made for use in space, and then we would only end up with thousands of smaller chunks of now IRRADIATED rock which would rain down on us like pieces of comet which hit Jupiter in the 1990s. (Though I suppose you could hardly argue that the extra radiation would do much more damage, when you put an event like that in perspective.)

Simply put, we would be profoundly screwed.

Answer 3

A very smart white girl, with an IQ over 300, just out of high school (already with several bachelor of science degrees) who founded a space launch company at age 16, will fly a spaceship of her own design with a combination chemical/deuterium fusion propulsion system, to the asteroid and deflect it using the rest of her fuel. Her name? Brenda Lynn Jones. As the story ends, the people on Earth think she's gone forever. But wait... maybe not. Read the sequel to see what happens next.

Answer 4

that can't happen because of speed, the marble sized object would be moving so much slower then the meteor that it would be more like..... a cannon-ball in a sand storm, the cannon-ball will still hit it's target.

my idea is to just blow up a nuclear bomb near the asteroid to push it from it's trajectory and i see that as the most "practical" way as it does not involve landing of any sort and we already possess all the technology necessary for this

Answer 5

How about we scamble to build two improved space shuttles, slingshot them around the moon as the asteroid approaches the Earth, land two teams that are experts at deep core drilling, then have them drill down to several hundred meters below the surface of the asteroid, then send a nuke down the hole to blow it up from the inside.

Hmmm...maybe that was a movie already?

Answer 6

energy is .5mv^2 the marble sized rocks will just bounce off the damn thing. Fire a pellet gun at a freight train and you'll know what i mean. For the most part we would probably just be screwed....If it was small enough there might be a slim chance we could alter the trajectory with nuclear exposions.

Answer 7

We could take a bunch of wasteland like say, the Kalahari, the Sahara or, WEST VIRGINIA and, implant giant rocket engines and, when We see them coming, We just hit the ol accelerator and, take off.

Answer 8

Deflection. Space programs around the world have at least put some thought into it.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Solutions-for-the-Asteroid-Threat-17466.shtml

Answer 9

Rocks in space...um, yea, ok, well...that, or transport everyone to one side of the Earth and then on the count of 3 everyone, PUSH!

Answer 10

Well we'd probably send one of our rockets filled with explosions and blow it up like we did that one time only it was over 2 million miles away
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