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http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish … y...rather ambitious
"European Space Agency is considering an ambitious new mission that will attempt to move an asteroid. Named Don Quijote, the mission would include two spacecraft: Sancho and Hidalgo, and launch as early as 2010-2015. The Sancho portion would rendezvous with an asteroid, study in in great detail for seven months, and then watch as Hidalgo smashes into it at tremendous speed. The impact would slightly shift the orbit of the asteroid, and give scientists an understanding of how much force would be required to move future space rocks. Five other missions were considered, including three observation, and two rendezvous missions."
*Ties with NEO and hopes to prevent future collisions with us.
"The Don Quijote mission concept will do this by using two spacecraft, Sancho and Hidalgo. Both are launched at the same time but Sancho takes a faster route. When it arrives at the target asteroid it will begin a seven-month campaign of observation and physical characterisation during which it will land penetrators and seismometers on the asteroid’s surface to understand its internal structure.
Sancho will then watch as Hidalgo arrives and smashes into the asteroid at very high speed. This will provide information about the behaviour of the internal structure of the asteroid during an impact event as well as excavating some of the interior for Sancho to observe. After the impact, Sancho and telescopes from Earth will monitor the asteroid to see how its orbit and rotation have been affected."
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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Well thats silly, an awfully expensive way to weigh an asteroids' mass... if we know roughly how much it weighs by its size and such, then our good buddy Sir Isaac Newton can tell you how much push you would get. Sounds like the ESA is trying to hype their little mission.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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But they might be giants, and that makes all the difference! :laugh:
Seriously, the sheer extent to which spanish literature is maimed and rewritten to find an excuse for the name is an argument against this mission. Surely they know that Don Quixote's faithful squire should come riding up _after_ the damage is done...
"We go big, or we don't go." - GCNRevenger
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good idea, there's a lot of talk about this mission
it's an interesting mission, and something thats needed to be done. There are tonnes of asteroids and comets out there. Back in 94 when Jupiter was hit twenty times by fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 it left some massive holes in the pictures you could images of impacts bigger than the planet Earth! I think that was our wake up call that these things are a amazing but can also be real threat to global security some of these things fly by all the time, now we have many groups looking into the PHAs ( potentially hazardous Asteroid ) and the NEOs...don't let mankind get turned into a fossil like the dinosaurs. It's a very interesting subject as changing an asteroid's course in is going to take lots of energy which can be a minute amount applied over long time periods, or a more massive amount applied over a much shorter period like atomic weapons, then the monitoring of what happens to the asteroid after the collision. Could it all be revealed to be a pile of rubble loosely held together by mutual gravity? NASA has been fantastic in the past with its great designs but with the recent tragedy, pressure to implement the 'Bush Space plan' and world economics putting pressure on finance it is pretty much helpless now, unable to launch much into space and still doing an investagation of its problems, so I'm glad someone is able to look into this
Will Bruce and his armageddon crew be shipping out to the ESA ?
this area of science is important, we should study these items more
I think it sounds like a good idea
'first steps are not for cheap, think about it...
did China build a great Wall in a day ?' ( Y L R newmars forum member )
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Which is exactly what the ESA isn't doing. They know very well that a tiny little missile launched from Earth and merely ramming an asteroid isn't going to have much of an effect on its motion.
Its a gimick mission to set the ESA's asteroid orbiter apart from the NASA NEAR asteroid orbiter, and to score prestiege points against the "unilateral" Americans.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Gimmick, Smimmick. Read the article: it's supposed to be a 'preliminary' impact for a future scenario: look what a small penetrator does, so you can calculate how hard the 'big boys' will have to hit, depending on the constituents of a (as yet) imaginary) rogue asteroid. You won't get months and months of preliminary testings, a quick-and dirty impact is the way to go to get some hard data fast.
(ok, *current* mission is not fast, but it's the idea that counts, in some far future they could have a battery in Lagrange or wherever, ready to react etc.)
Such a high-energy impact can yield a lot of data, it's not only to move the asteroid, that probe they tried to crash at the lunar pole after its primary mission was over was no gimmick either, it was the same experiment (they missed, or there's no ice, anyway it was a wild amble to begin with, so nothing's lost.)
I think the idea of Don Quixote is a good one, it's either that or Bruce Willis.
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You are too quick to praise the Europeans and overlook their hyping of the mission, the so-called impactor was intended to probe the interior of the asteroids' composition, the course-adjusting qualities are as trivial as the Lunar impact you speak of... and Nasa sure didn't put that in their press release before they launched the thing as a feature.
We know how much intertia it takes to move an asteroid using Newtonian mechanics, what do we need this silly flea vs whale impactor for?
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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There is a lot on this issue on the net radio and stuff
Hey man I don't often think much of those euro ways and their european this-and-that mentality and :rant: don't get me started on French fries , but I think this European plan is still a very good idea.
The world is changing, there has been a new world order, a change in world economics, many Economic in Asia have grown and in Europe there is a formation of new borders.
the Russian and Soviets once had strong influence, but now their power is gone but many of the Russian degins and space craft and ideas will always be good and will always be there in the beackground for a while
China had a wicked communist system, some terrible human rights abuses happened and the country was seen as a bad guy. However now in the last ten years China has changed hugely. To compare the system in China today to one 12 years ago , or to a time when China was ruled by the wicked Mao would be to almost compare Germany or Japan of the 40s to that of the system in the 60s. China is changing fast and it's economy is growing rapidly.
The global economy is facing big change and Bush isn't doing much with the American economy, all those jobs lost. The USA space program has also taken a hit since the unfortunate colombia incident, and the finance doesn't look so good however with some effort they should be able to reshape the program and get NASA back on the straight track. World economics have also become an important factor, China has looked to nations like Korea or Japan and seen the wealth these places can get by selling their designs and computer manufacturing abroad, it is very possible that China desires to have a more open and more powerful economy. Lately other nations in Asia have seen their economic problems increase, and Japan looks like it might back some huge cut backs on its space program and close of it's space plans. An unstaedy economy in Asia, or a dying pension system in Japan is what worries other countries, the Japanese look to stay out of the 10 year recession that dragged their economy down and it looks like space will no longer be an investment. China knows that it has the chance now to prove it could become the strongest and leading force in Asia for the next century.
Nations have also been realligned and we see the effects of a world market, the IMF and Globalisation. A key example of this type of idea of change could be the Euro and the EU, the EU is becoming like the US a formation of states bonded together under a common policy, a single set of rules and a currency. The European area has also begun to expand and has jumped from 15 nations up to 25, the euro has become a good strong alternative to the dollar while Europe still has many plans in aerospace designs, manufacturing and space goals with the ESA. The ESA is small now and has made mistakes but it also has made great projects and could also become much stronger in the future like NASA built itslef up, Europe has also created the idea of a European defence force a type of all area army much like NATO. Is this what the future could bring? A number of key superpowers having influence on the world, three different Superpowers like the EU, China, and the US. Is this what it means for China to be fast on track?
Right now the US is in trouble, bogged down with unsteady political issues, the costs of re-building and security in Iraq plus there are those financial scandals like world com . Many NASA projects are been looked at hard and much is now 'grounded' how the heck we're going to Mars while all this is going on...is Bush just doing an election stunt. I think it's good to have a back up plan and smart ..
..Shoemaker-Levy 9 and some of our recent near misses have been a wake up call. There's no point in saying 'if one of these space rocks comes we'll just take out our all ICBMs, give the Chinese, British and Russians a howler so they can lend a hand and
just Nuke it with everything we got
You can almost picture the different scenarios - either we are ready for it, once it is detected we launch, interact with the asteroid and gently push it out the way - or we pretend it will never happen, get taken by surprise and in a last minute desperate act to save humanity we launch the world's entire nuclear arsenals
...cross our fingers
This is why I think the ESA idea is wise
no point in asking what the Bush plan was, he might say smoke 'em out of their holes !
either that or we'll be calling Bruce willis and the armageddon crew
I like the ESA idea, you could see possible spin off missions and projects
such as Bringing an Asteroid or Comet to an Earth-Moon L4 orbit and use it as a source of Oxygen, Silicon, Aluminum, and Iron. These materials could be used getting vital materials in a Martian base or Lunar colony, or various rare Ores and steels could be extracted from an orbiting station like the ISS. I look forward to reading more on this mission in the future
'first steps are not for cheap, think about it...
did China build a great Wall in a day ?' ( Y L R newmars forum member )
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What's wrong with hyping a project?
And again, we might have Newton, but it's still a fairly wild guess what will happen if you impact an object of wich you don't know wether it's either solid or a loose collection of rocks, held together by ice. There are undoubtedly simulations running, but the real thing is still interesting, if only to cross-check your sims.
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Asteroid deflection might be necessary if we discover a big one headed toward Earth. However, moving it isn't necessary to mine it.
I still point out that on Earth we don't start a mining operation by towing the entire mountain to the suburbs of a major city, we mine it in place. We take out one truck load at a time. Aluminium mines process bauxite ore on-site into alumina; alumina is shipped to a smelter. Gold mines smelt ore on-site and truck 99% pure gold bars to a refinery for further purification. The smelter produces 99% pure gold, but the refinery converts that into 99.999% pure gold. So why would we expect moving an asteroid into Earth orbit is necessary? Mine it in place, smelt it on-site, then ship the product one load at a time.
For those interested in deflection: NASA has stated that nuking an asteroid would convert a bullet into a shotgun blast. An explosion would just break the asteroid into pieces without changing their trajectory, the pieces would still hit Earth. A cluster of many smaller projectiles could do more damage than a single large one; the hole wouldn't be as deep but more of Earth's surface would be destroyed. NASA has stated asteroid defense requires putting some sort of rocket engine on it.
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Is it just my imagination, or is GCNRevenger consistently critical of almost everything?! :;):
Hey, GCNR! Is there anything you do approve of? :laugh:
Incidentally, I'm with Rik. You can sit in an armchair and theorise all you like but, unless you do the experiments, you'll never really know for sure how things are going to behave in the real world. You have to get a little dirt on your hands.
The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down. - Rita Rudner
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It's actually good to have GCNRevenger as a critical eye. Keeps us with both feet on the ground. (Hopefully not literally!)
But i'll readily admit i fired off my reply because i didn't like the 'it's silly' comment one bit. You can't seriously maintain *all* ESA planners are silly, they don't have enough money for that, IMO...
And really, Shaun: isn't it about time *we* disagree about something? People might start thinking we're one and the same person!
(I should be easy: me as an European, so with lefty background, er... nevermind... I suddenly realise my sig. is a quote from someone familiar)
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I still point out that on Earth we don't start a mining operation by towing the entire mountain to the suburbs of a major city, we mine it in place.
When we do start mining, we tend to build a small town (or the equivolent) on top of or very near to the mine shaft. Over the lifetime of that mineshaft we do tend to move small mountains of ore to other locations to refine it. It's also usually the case that much of the material in conventional mining is not needed or wanted. Moving the ore this way usually only costs a few $$$ per mile.
Moving an asteroid to GEO or L1 is just doing all in one go and using the only current practical way. It may in the future be practical to move von-neumman mines to the belt and send the results back with solar sails, but neither technology is proven yet. We can also use the vast majority of the asteroid's mass. Hence why not do it this way?
As to the shell/shotgun impact, it depends. If the pieces are less than 10-100m across they'll burn up in the atmosphere. If the 'rock shot' has enough time to expand, most of it will miss earth. 'Air burst nukes' may end up the easiest way to make subtle alterations to an asteroid.
In any case, this is what the mission seems to be for. Turning theory into practice. Though I would be curious how the monitor will cope with the explosion. Close enough for a good view and you risk being hit by debris.
ANTIcarrot.
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Rik:-
And really, Shaun: isn't it about time *we* disagree about something?
You're right, I agree.
[Mighty nice of you to consider something I wrote worth making into your sig. ... I'm very flattered! Thank you. ]
The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down. - Rita Rudner
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I think it' a great idea for a mission, I look forward to reading more
'first steps are not for cheap, think about it...
did China build a great Wall in a day ?' ( Y L R newmars forum member )
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Why certainly there are things involving space travel that I aprove of concerning all the major space players, but plenty of things to be critical of too. I believe that there is on this board, if not under this thread, a prevelent "Nasa is stupid, not-Nasa is smart" attitude.
And that it goes both ways, making sure to be critical of Nasa no matter what they do (PlanBush, JIMO, ISS) AND undeserved praise of other space agencies (resurecting Energia, Klipper [which still has the Soyuz orbital module], the awsome and magnificent Smart-1 ion engine [NASA's DS1, been there]).
The ESA asteroid impactor as a method of altering the course of an asteroid just seems silly to me. It is simply outside the realm of reason to expect any scale up derivitve of the system - an impactor - to move a body on the scale which would threaten the Earth. They are simply too small and too light.
Therefore, it strikes me as intellectually dishonest and simple grandstanding - trying to "show up the mighty unilateral Americans" or otherwise - to tout this mission as a means of developing a technology to prevent asteroid impacts... If we are going to use nukes to "nudge" them, then why isn't the impactor being fitted with explosives?
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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O.K. GCNR!
I think I understand your position a little better now.
As far as the asteroid thing goes, I think our understanding of the structure and consistency of comets/asteroids is lacking. If we're ever to influence the path of one of these critters, we'll need to know them far better than we do now.
Any attempt at carrying out experiments to gather actual data about their physical characteristics and how they behave when 'provoked', must surely be worthy of support(?).
Personally, I don't care who does it, as long as it gets done.
And I am filled with admiration for the spectacular skill and intelligence of the NASA workforce. I've been in awe of the American space program since I was a child and any gripes I have about NASA are really only born of impatience because they're not moving fast enough for my liking! But then, if they had 20 NASA scientists on Mars today, I'd probably want to know why there weren't 40!! :laugh:
Having expressed my admiration for NASA and America's space achievements, though, I'm still keen on Europe getting into the act. I think the Europeans have a lot to offer and they've made good progress lately, even though they still lag well behind the U.S.
The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down. - Rita Rudner
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But that is NOT what the ESA are claiming that the mission is for or what it can do, they are claiming that the mission is capable and intended to develop a means to move a signifigantly hazardous asteroid: that this mission is to test a specific technology in order to accomplish this. This technology, the use of a "missile" to impact the asteroid and use its inertia to effect a course change, is plainly quite silly in terms of a giant Earth-busting rock and the tiny mass of the impactors which could be reasonably sortied.
So the conclusion is inescapable... that since the ESA scientists aren't a bunch of fools who don't know Newtonian mechanics, that they are hyping the mission... trumpeting it as a worthwhile, new, and superior thing worthy of international admiration, when in fact it is useless for the task they claim it is intended for.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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The Euros have had some fair ideas and some bad ideas when it comes to space plans
but I think this latest idea to move an asteroid is a great idea and very useful for the task they claim it to be intended for. Of course there will be some who will claim this is all euro-babble because of course those french-fries are in EU land and must be doing something wrong, and as always you'll get the die hard Bush space-plan supporters, they will distract topics and take from the jist of posts by trying argue issues like red commie China trying to bomb taiwan and make claims on those hidden invisible WMDs, they will give their support to plan-Bush even if it means for good old George getting out his old antique trebuchet catapult and sending good people off to mars in his great martian vision...goodness knows where all this cost cutting is going to end up :;):
The fact is the Euros aren't just going to send up two expensive craft slam one into an Asteroid and hopefully the otherone sees what happens and finally proves Newton was right..apples do fall on the ground
One area of this project is to check on a mission response time, if you think about the chain of events between detecting a hazardous object and doing something about it, there is one area that we can see how fast we will be able to react and do somethings about it. Rather than waiting for the sapce rock to come within range and in a last minute desperate act to save humanity we launch the world's entire nuclear arsenal and cross our fingers.
But the Euros aren't too keen on just hitting one asteroid with a O'Neil style slam-dunk and claim the won something else like the superbowl. The Euros won't be game set and match by wrecking the probes in one big slam, when the mission arrives at the target asteroid it will begin a seven-month campaign of observation and physical characterisation of the near earth Asteroid and also during which it will land penetrators and seismometers on the asteroid’s surface to understand its internal structure and the workings within the asteroid's body. We are now at a stage where we must push discovery and if an object is found we must also increase reaction time as it is very important, sometimes in a scene like this it will be the only possible way to carry out these tasks. So it is very important to investigate whether missions dedicated to these objectives can be envisaged in the near future, or how can we deal with something like this, maybe either as a “hitch-hiker” instrument on a already planned mission or as a dedicated spacecraft. As for the end of the mission and the grand finale, ending as many of the NASA ranger probes smashing into the surface of another object the good old Hidalgo will produce some interesting results "Whether the probe hits the asteroid, or the asteroid hits the probe, it's going to be hard on the probe" this is a humours way of looking at it but also a neat idea, in the final stage of the mission using a probe impact is a pretty good approximation of a bomb, while we want to know what some of these space rocks are really like on the inside and how hard or brittle the might be, I know a number of people who worked in studies like petrology and straitgraphy and had an interest in astromy and always wondered about the true nature of these space-rocks, the internal structure of the asteroid during an impact will be observed at the event as well as excavating some of the interior for Sancho to record.
I might not have said nice things about some ESA missions before, but I think this plan is a great idea.
'first steps are not for cheap, think about it...
did China build a great Wall in a day ?' ( Y L R newmars forum member )
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Again, the ESA is selling this mission where one of its objectives from the very start before it even leaves the drawing board is to move an asteroid. It is not a perk like crashing worn-out Lunar probes into the pole since its useless, this is one of the design functions of the mission for the Hidalgo spacecraft.
Since the use of impactors to move large asteroids is silly, then the ESA is using the claim to hype the mission. Like a door-to-door salesmen selling kitchen widgets, "and look what else it does!" ...except he is being paid millions of dollars and international acclaim - at the expense to the "crippled disfunctional Americans" - for somthing it obviously doesn't practicly do.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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And say the ESA does do the mission... it suceeds in sliiightly nudging a big rock, enough to detect but nowhere near enough to avoid collision... what will be the reaction by the science-illiterate public?
"Hey wow, somthing practical from space science besides weather/comm/GPS satelites! Those wiley, clever, smart Europeans... its so simple, you just hit the rock with a big block of cast iron! Why can't NASA do stuff like that? Why didn't they think of it? Can't they do anything but take pictures? They can't even fix the Space Shuttle! ...And they have six times the budget.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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But... Nowhere in this thread there was critique on NASA?
And, a very little nudge is enough, if done far enough out of Earth orbit, why should you do more?
I know the NASA-bashing gets irritating sometimes, but I'm not really into it, even though an European. For me, anything that gets up is beautiful...
Come to think of it... It took a certain GCNRevenger to change my mind about ISS, wich i always used to defend! *You* made me change my mind (and it could be argued my viewpoints regarding ISS was because of... hyping of the thing in glossy American mags... As far as i know we Uropeejuns don't really havebig spaceflight mags, so we read the American ones. (There's the excellent BIS magazine, wich is quite positive about ISS, come to think of it.)
Also: Ariane: while we're proud of anything that reaches orbit, we also were very critical about the mayor F***-ups (for instance: the dirt-rag in left the engine, Jeebus!)
It's the 'little boy' being proud of its achievements, and if you'd do a count, I'm sure most of the NASA critique comes from Americans, not non-Americans... ESA does great stuff, sometimes... NASA does great stuff, oftentimes. But their SNAFU's get more press, simply because they're big-budget, big limelight things. Nobody outside the spaceflight affictionadoes knows what smart-1, Don Quixote, Hermes, etc. is/was, everybody knows the ISS, the Shuttle... And the rovers! Tall trees, much wind... And sometimes much praize (rovers)
BTW: I read about the latest Ariane-launch with the ANIK payload on (American) Slashdot, it was *not* on tv, here, so...
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Oh, and the Shuttle was 'sold' to the public *and* government in a rather unrealistic (understatement) way, too, so I guess that's just the way to go: no big promises, no budget for yer greedy spaceguys...
I guess Don Q will be primary engineering/scientifical, but they thought hard for a way to give the mission profile more 'oomph' to sell it to the decisionmakers:
*Knock, knock...*
-"Come in... Oh, the space-guys, what's up? You guys need more money, again?"
-"We want to test some new hardware, doing several gravity-assists, integrating new imaging techiques, communication with two probes, very exciting, sir..."
-"Yawn... Nope. Forget it."
-"Oh. Errr... And we're going to SLAM it into a big frigging asteroid, too! Look, we made a nifty video about it..."
-"Woohoo, that's more like it, go get 'em boys!"
-"... Phew, François, that was close, glad you brought that ridiculous video with you! He certainly fell for it..."
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My God, Rik!
A scholar.
A linguist.
And now you write comedy scripts, too!
Is there no end to your talents?!! :laugh:
The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down. - Rita Rudner
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Therefore, it strikes me as intellectually dishonest and simple grandstanding - trying to "show up the mighty unilateral Americans" or otherwise - to tout this mission as a means of developing a technology to prevent asteroid impacts... If we are going to use nukes to "nudge" them, then why isn't the impactor being fitted with explosives?
Actually if you read the press release it mentions explosives..................
Also, from the press release.....
Sancho will then watch as Hidalgo arrives and smashes into the asteroid at very high speed. This will provide information about the behaviour of the internal structure of the asteroid during an impact event as well as excavating some of the interior for Sancho to observe. After the impact, Sancho and telescopes from Earth will monitor the asteroid to see how its orbit and rotation have been affected.
and
“When we do actually find a hazardous asteroid, you could imagine a Don Quijote-type mission as a precursor to a mitigation mission. It will tell us how the target responds to an impact and will help us to develop a much more effective mitigation mission.”
God-darned americans, always jumping to conclusions....
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