British Scientists all a bunch of Doomers

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(fair use for educational purposes only or so they tell me)

Report Calls for More Asteroid Protection

LONDON (Reuters) - It may only happen once every 100,000 years, but British scientists want something to be done now to protect the earth from being hit by a major asteroid.

The Task Force on Near Earth Objects, appointed by science minister Lord Sainsbury, has produced a report which says the threat of an asteroid hit is real and the government should take action to prevent it.

The report, being published on Monday, wants an international effort to develop an asteroid early warning system involving British telescopes.

Professor Mark Bailey, of Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland, said the effects of the earth being hit by an asteroid bigger than one kilometer (0.6 miles) in size would be devastating.

``This would cause a global catastrophe wherever it hit the earth, via a climate change, and this would lead to a rapid cut-off of the food supply and ultimately within a few months to a loss of probably greater than a quarter of the world's population,'' he told BBC radio.

Lembit Opik, a member of parliament for the minority Liberal Democrat party who campaigned for the task force to be set up, called for 70 million pounds ($98 million) to be spent over 10 years on technology to track approaching asteroids.

This could give five, 10 or even 100 years notice and provide the chance to divert asteroids by ``giving them a nudge with a rocket or a nuclear device.'' A slight diversion could push asteroids up to 5,000 miles out of the earth's orbit.

Experts believe that up to 10,000 football-sized asteroids land every year but most go unnoticed.

Sainsbury said the U.S. space agency NASA (news - web sites) already had a substantial program and had been set a goal by the U.S. Congress to detect at least 90 percent of all near-earth objects with a diameter greater than one km within 10 years.

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), September 18, 2000

Answers

``giving them a nudge with a rocket or a nuclear device.'' A slight diversion could push asteroids up to 5,000 miles out of the earth's orbit.

Can Asteroids really truly be diverted with a nuclear blast? I thought that was just a Hollywood thing? (btw - the Hollywood depictions of Asteroids impacting the Earth are really cool, aren't they?)

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), September 18, 2000.


Yeah, those asteroids smashing up everything are sure neat. But nothing beats watching a good train wreck . . . or a war. But train wrecks are safer to watch, as long as you're not too close.

gene

-- gene (ekbaker@essex1.com), September 19, 2000.


Then you're talking about seeing a train wreck for real. I'll pass on that one, but a tornado might be cool!

Hollywood's version of War in the 40s and 50s was "Gee, war sure is bad but ain't these guys I'm out here with swell?" Love old war movies. Makes ya wanna run right out and enlist, doesn't it? America's propaganda at it's finest.

The war movies we've seen lately aren't nearly as swell. Hell is more like it. Who would want to voluntarily go to war after seeing Platoon or Saving Private Ryan?

I'm sure we'll start seeing more of those "ain't this swell" kind of movies if we ever have to fight another real war and we need swell guys at the front.

And what DOES this have to do with Asteroids anyways? Well, if one hits, we could have wars break out, right? No? Eh, forget it.

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), September 19, 2000.


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