Russia Plans to Plan a Plan to Hit Asteroid
Posted by rlee at 00:54, 31 Dec 2009Russian sky and space weirdness continues. We've had the Blue Spiral ("failed Russian missile"), pyramid UFOs over the Kremlin, and now this: news from Russia's space agency that it plans to:
knock a large asteroid off course and reduce the chances of earth impact, even though U.S. scientists say such a scenario is unlikely.
The asteroid is Apophis; 885 foot (give or take I'm sure) object that isn't worrying US scientists much:
NASA had put the chances that Apophis could hit Earth in 2036 as 1-in-45,000. In October, after researchers recalculated the asteroid's path, the agency changed its estimate to 1-in-250,000.
NASA said another close encounter in 2068 will involve a 1-in-330,000 chance of impact.
"It wasn't anything to worry about before. Now it's even less so," said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Russia sees things differently:
Without mentioning NASA's conclusions, Perminov said that he heard from a scientist that Apophis is getting closer and may hit the planet. "I don't remember exactly, but it seems to me it could hit the Earth by 2032," Perminov said.
"People's lives are at stake. We should pay several hundred million dollars and build a system that would allow us to prevent a collision, rather than sit and wait for it to happen and kill hundreds of thousands of people," Perminov said.
Russia's space agency feels confident they can build what they need to build in time, and successfully complete their mission. But this last statement, by the Institute of Astronomy Director Boris Shustov, is cryptic:
"Apophis is just a symbolic example, there are many other dangerous objects we know little about"
The juicy invitation to speculate that this comment hands us is too interesting to ignore ... UFOs? Disclosure? War? Political posturing? Staged events: religious, alien, etc?
"Apophis" is the Egyptian:
demon serpent of darkness whom Ra, as sun god, destroys every morning at dawn
What we can't do with that fun fact of esoteric imagery! (Remember the recent BVM apparition in Egypt earlier this month.) In the context of the already mentioned Russian displays, the plans to plan to plan an attack on Apophis, combined with Shustov's comment, we can expect more Fortean and generally weird things to come surrouding Russia.
Notes
Russia may send spacecraft to knock away asteroid
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_russia_ast...
Infoplease
http://dictionary.infoplease.com/apophis
Apophis, Enemy of Re
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/...
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Comments
22 November 2004
2 weeks 14 hours
For the Russian space program, this looks like a good idea.
They have a solid base, but don't really have much
of a long term direction. This gives them something worth
while with deadlines that don't depend on politics.
Also Russia likes to protect it's population, and here is
a good external threat. The political external threats
are too fickle these days, this one is better.
And if Apophis drifts by without getting too close, they haven't lost anything. On the contrary, they will have
advanced their engineering capabilites significantly. They
will be market leaders for long distance launch capability.
We have heard on this very website that NASA may be deliberately under-stating the risk. If that is the case,
NASA will be caught in a few years, and the Russians will
look like the good guys.
Seems like a sound plan to me. Relatively cheap too. What;s a few hundred million dollars? One weekend at the movies.
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We are the cat.
12 April 2007
58 min 9 sec
The real plan is to eventually creae a market of 'impact offsets'.
...And a happy 2010 to you too, my AGW denier friends! :-P
Like Earthling says, it does sound like a good plan for the Russians, and we all know there are comets and asteroids out there which will have a rendezvous with Earth in the near or far future, so it's pointless to delay the creation of technology that can help us avert the fate of the dinos.
It also occurs to me that this is a very convenient way to try & test technologies that can be made used to divert other kinds of threats, say American ICBMs? and they can always say it's all part of their asteroid prevention program.
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
1 May 2004
18 hours 19 min
Put just enough english on one of these rocks so it lands... on somebody else. It's only ballistics after all. What would the U.S. do? The Russians will claim that they were only trying to help, they didn't intend to drop it on Kansas.
Our only hope is that Boris is foiled yet again by Moose and Squirrel!
23 October 2006
7 weeks 5 days
It also occurs to me that this is a very convenient way to try & test technologies that can be made used to divert other kinds of threats, say American ICBMs? and they can always say it's all part of their asteroid prevention program.
The technologies involved are far, far different for dealing with a object approaching from deep space and an object on a "simple" point on Earth to point on Earth ballistic trajectory.
E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas
12 April 2007
58 min 9 sec
Who's talking about technologies? I'm talking about allibies here.
The same way the Iranians are always trying to convince us that they only intend to enrich Uranium to produce energy, and yet the Americans worry that their true intentions are militaristic.
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
22 November 2004
2 weeks 14 hours
I'm taking the side of Russian honesty on this one. They are
not telling anyone that they do not have intentions to
upgrade their nuclear weapons and delivery systems. They
are working hard on those issues, and telling everyone
about it.
Of course this asteroid/meteor redirection business could have
military applications as well. Like smashing a city near
you without the ugly radioactive fallout of nuclear weapons.
A bit impractical perhaps because you would have several years
warning.
But honestly, I think the proponents see this as good business. They already are market leaders in rocket engines.
They could own the seriously long range transportation
market, above geostationary orbit and this side of Jupiter.
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We are the cat.
23 October 2006
7 weeks 5 days
Of course this asteroid/meteor redirection business could have military applications as well. Like smashing a city near you without the ugly radioactive fallout of nuclear weapons.
Impactor diversion, even with nuclear explosives, is a far different task than smashing a city. The best idea is to have an early enough warning so nuclear charges do not have to be used.
But honestly, I think the proponents see this as good business. They already are market leaders in rocket engines.
They could own the seriously long range transportation
market, above geostationary orbit and this side of Jupiter.
No doubt they do see it as good business, a project which will have internal Russian support. But there is little doubt that China, with their new Long March 5 launcher, will be THE low cost leader in the launch market. China will also be offering its own communication satellites, weather satellites, and Earth resource satellites for sale as well, on very favorable terms.
E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas
23 October 2006
7 weeks 5 days
2001
An improved English translation of
THE RUSSIAN POSITION PAPER ON PLANETARY DEFENSE
by Anatoly V. Zaitsev
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc0207...
By the way, comet and asteroid impacts are not an imaginary problem. That's why I wrote my book "Man and Impact in the Americas", and there were going to be two more volumes
"Man and Impact in the Ancient Near East", and "Man and Impact in Europe" before I got hit with my stroke.
These impacts and the ensuing climate collapses explain a lot of history's mysteries, the mysteries the theosophist "cult archaeologists" use to build their imaginary histories to support their religious beliefs and to make money.
The way that NASA has handled this problem is a scandal of the first order, in particular their estimates of cometary impact. While Apophis presents some concern, I believe the current estimate is that we will be in the debris chain of Comet Schwassmann Wachmann 3 in the year 2022, and with the current detection mechanisms we could get hit with a dead comet chunk, something like that which hit at Tunguska, with no warning at all.
The Congress of the United States passed the George Brown Jr. amendment, telling NASA yo find these things before they hit. Bush Jr's NASA Administrator and Thiokol enthusiast Michael Griffin, sat on the JPL report, in direct contempt of the Congress's instructions.
Whether the new NASA Inspector General will report on this depends on politics, and Thiokol has a lot of money to lobby with from arms sales.
E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas
12 April 2007
58 min 9 sec
Asteroid threats are a global problem, not to be solved by just one superpower, either Russia or America. But of course, we can't even get together to try to solve global hunger or climate change :-/
I think those big-ass rocks are the ultimate test for sentient species in the Universe. In order to prevent extinction from above, an intelligent race must have first solved most of its internal local problems, or you don't have enough resources to face external ones.
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
22 November 2004
2 weeks 14 hours
Actually the rocks are an easier problem than global hunger,
or climate change.
You need:
- decent telescopes - we are working on that
- decent computers to keep track of all the rocks - got those
- decent rockets to go and divert them - a little weak on this
And of course then you have to go do it.
But the Russian approach is promising. Go do first and then
ask whether the global community likes it. Don't wait for
permission.
Oh, almost forgot - you also need to look ahead a few years. That's why you won't get permission from the global
community.
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We are the cat.