System to vaporize dangerous asteroids is in the works
Lubin and his colleagues have conceived of a system they call DE-STAR, or Directed Energy Solar Targeting of Asteroids and exploration. The concept: harness power from the sun and convert it into a massive phased array of laser beams that can deflect or evaporate asteroids hazardous to Earth.
“This system is not some far-out idea from Star Trek,” Gary B. Hughes, a researcher at California Polytechnic State University, said in a statement. “All the components of this system pretty much exist today. Maybe not quite at the scale that we’d need — scaling up would be the challenge — but the basic elements are all there and ready to go.”
The scale the team has in mind is quite astounding — ranging from one system the size of a desktop device to one measuring 6 miles (10 kilometers) in diameter — and the capabilities would improve with each expansion.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Uh huh.
Mimzey on February 16, 2013 at 9:22 PM
Why not just fire a $20 million dollar nuclear missile at it at a fraction of the cost deflecting it marginally from its path and thus missing the earth?
Oh yeah, the scary word…nuclear.
sharrukin on February 16, 2013 at 9:25 PM
There is a system, the atmosphere.
astonerii on February 16, 2013 at 9:29 PM
I don’t think it’s fair to the asteroids. They have a right to not have their existence discriminated against.
Hey! Hey!..Ho! Ho! Asteroid bigotry has got to go!
Mimzey on February 16, 2013 at 9:34 PM
I’m on board with this so long as Bruce Willis is involved.
JimLennon on February 16, 2013 at 9:43 PM
I thought the plan was for President Obama to stand on the highest point of the District of Columbia and shoot them down with his finger-guns, going ‘Pew! Pew!’
I mean, that’s got to be effective, seeing as how they throw little boys out of school for it….
Scribbler on February 16, 2013 at 9:45 PM
And Steve Buscemi isn’t.
Christien on February 16, 2013 at 9:47 PM
And in a pinch you can turn it around and zap bad guys’ cities.
I can see other countries preemptively shooting missiles at such a thing.
rdbrewer on February 16, 2013 at 10:08 PM
The idea of blowing crap up is what idiot hollywood types cook up for action flicks.
Blowing it up causes more debris.
All we have to do is boost the object into a different trajectory.
kregg on February 16, 2013 at 10:12 PM
True, but if you blow it up into small enough pieces, those pieces will burn up before hitting the ground. For as much damage as a Tunguska-type event can do, it’s generally better to have a dozen 30-meter pieces explode 20 miles up than to have a single 150-meter piece slam into the ground.
JimLennon on February 16, 2013 at 10:29 PM
Why not just blast it with a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range?
Oldnuke on February 16, 2013 at 10:32 PM
If Nanzi Pelosi could give it one of her crazed, twisted smiles that might scare it away…
viking01 on February 16, 2013 at 10:35 PM
Great big orbital mirrors, which would have the added benefit of giving you some way of controlling the weather and staving off the next ice age.
Count to 10 on February 16, 2013 at 10:44 PM
The solution is obvious: just stop global warming and asteroids stop trying to hit us.
nobar on February 16, 2013 at 10:54 PM
Yeah, but how do we get all those sharks into orbit?
GWB on February 16, 2013 at 11:15 PM
Another reason, excuse, to raise taxes.
david kumbera on February 17, 2013 at 12:13 AM
What can be used against the asteroids can be used against the people of the Earth. The Ultimate weapon of Tyranny, a spaced based weapons system.
Of course it power is insignificant against the power of the Force.
Bulletchaser on February 17, 2013 at 12:20 AM
@jimlennon
Even the small bits (if they all come in at once) need to be deflected off of the atmosphere. It’s the total energy imparted that’s the problem.
321mdl on February 17, 2013 at 12:53 AM
Hey, it worked for the dinosaurs.
trigon on February 17, 2013 at 1:01 AM
What could go wrong?
Hopefully they make sure to adequately shield the thermal exhaust port this time.
RINO in Name Only on February 17, 2013 at 5:54 AM
I thought the energy was really only a problem if it was kinetic energy of an object or objects hitting the ground. If everything burns, you convert a lot of the energy into heat and mostly just fry the atmosphere a lot. I guess that could also be a problem, depending on how much “a lot” is, but I’d assume its a qualitatively different problem than the one caused by lots of stuff hitting the ground with lots of momentum. If so, then the conservation of energy doesn’t automatically mean that letting it burn up in the atmosphere is useless.
However, I haven’t thought about physics in years, so everything I just wrote in the preceding paragraph is quite possibly nonsense.
RINO in Name Only on February 17, 2013 at 6:11 AM
“I will disintegrate you with my raay gun!”
Meanwhile the dingbatacrats in Washington want to focus on “global warming”.
Something tells me that a big enough asteroid will make the earth a whole lot hotter than man-bear-pig’s hokey shtick.
kregg on February 17, 2013 at 6:38 AM
I remember reading one of Harry Turtledove’s alternate History books and asteroids and meteors are fitted with engines that allow aiming, in other words they could be turned into weapons.
rob verdi on February 17, 2013 at 8:17 AM
This brings up another set of scary words…weapon of mass destruction in space, in orbit over Earth, over Washington… Oh, OK go ahead!
Old Country Boy on February 17, 2013 at 8:43 AM