Posted:Tue Jan 6, 2009 11:40 PM CST
Solution to Asteroid Collisions
So there I am, sitting around watching a DVD the other night and of all things, its 'Deep Impact' with Moragn Freeman. It's about some comet that's going to take out all life on earth. Now,I'mnot going to give a movie review however, it was a pretty good one but, not as good as the other one with Bruce Willis in it (I actually met him once) called 'Armageddon.'
See the two are similar as they both try to avert disaster by sending up some high paid shmucks from NASA with drills to grind their way into the hurdling rock to drop in a couple of nukes and split it up like a walnut. Of course, being on a fissure blowing asteroid hurtling towards the earth at ten times the speed of a bullet with a dysfunctional crew on deep space doesn't need much more excitement to make it word as a movie so I can see why this formula works.
Anyhow, in both movies, we fret over the welfare and sacrifice of the men and woman of the crew as they battle while we wring our hands at home hoping they succeed (well, praying anyhow.) Another similarity is that in both movies, they screw up the first chance and somehow, manage to pull a rabbit out of their ass to make it work but not without sacrifice and heroes being born.
Anyways, I watched this and thought to myself that if something like this happened that we would, as a planet be totally screwed as Bruce Willis and Robert Duvall really don't exist as real heros then, it hit me while I was half drunk, listening to eros Ramazotti and making pasta. They don't need to traina crew for months and send them up on a hastily planed mission in a second rate space shuttle, there are alternatives right here and now.
Make fifty of those 'chunnel' drills, throw a nuclear reactor and a bomb in 'em and send them up. They could all circle around the rock, land and then drill to their heart's content till they run out of power, then, wait for a command to blow.
Imagine, they could be built now, sit around in people's garages until needed, the cost savings on stress as the world has to sit around listening to some lame duck president give his hopefully last address and the need for high priced actors to man complicated NASA missions would be gone.
Anyhow, seriously, bet they already have something like that in the planning stage at least. What think?