Asteroids Aff
Download 420.22 Kb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- GENERAL DEFLECTION TECH SOLVENCY
DETECTION SUFFICIENTDetection capabilities are key—standing deflection program is unnecessary PARK et al. 1994 – President of the American Physical Society, PhD (Richard L., Lori B. Garver of the National Space Society and Terry Dawson of the US House of Representatives, “The Lesson of Grand Forks: Can a Defense against Asteroids be Sustained?” Hazards Due to Comets and Asteroids ed. Tom Gherels, pg. 1225-1228) A standing defense against large asteroid and comet impacts is rendered impractical by the long interval between events. Governments, which are under constant pressure to respond to immediate crises, are unlikely to sustain a defense against an infrequent and unpredictable threat. Nor can it be argued that such short-term priorities are misplaced. Indeed, civilization will do well to survive long enough to be threatened by a major asteroid impact. The emphasis should be on early detection, thus allowing sufficient time to mount a response to a specific threat. Detection allows us to develop deflection tech with sufficient time LEWIS 1996 - professor of planetary science at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (John S., Rain of Iron and Ice, p. 183-222) This network of stations will discover and track our 200.000 asteroids. The survey will not be complete after twentv or thirty years because some of these bodies are in orbits that do not make observationally favorable passes by Earth during that time, and of course some will be missed because of poor weather or telescope downtime. Nonetheless, the survey will be more than 90 percent complete in this time, and will continue to improve with longer periods of observation. The average death rate from bodies of this size is about 1,000 per year for tsunamis and 500 per year for continental impacts. The rate of saving lives would be about 90 percent of this number (10 percent of the impactors remain undiscovered), or 1,350 people per year. With expenses of about $600 million spread over the first twenty years of intensive search, the budgetary impact is about $30 million per year, or $22,000 per life saved. This is a very reasonable cost for a life-insurance policy. But loss of life is not the only consideration. In general, the decision whether to take action against a threatening impactor would be partially based on lethality and partly based on the projected cost of the physical damage that would be done by the impact compared to the cost of taking actions to divert the body and avoid an impact. The mean time between such impacts is thousands of years, and the lime to find and catalog these bodies is decades. The probability that we will discover an object of this size on a collision course less than a year before it is due to strike Earth is about 0.01%. There is only a 2% chance that the threatening body will be discovered less than two hundred years before its impact. The most likely result is that the most threatening object discovered will not collide with us for several thousand years after its discovery. This gives us more than ample time to learn all we need to know about the body, and to develop the most appropriate technology and hardware to deal with it. GENERAL DEFLECTION TECH SOLVENCYNASA should demonstrate deflection technology—this is key to lead an effective international response NAC 2010 (“Report of the NASA Advisory Council Ad Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense,” Oct 6, http://www.nss.org/resources/library/planetarydefense/2010-NASAAdvisoryCouncilOnPlanetaryDefense.pdf) To prepare an adequate response to the range of potential impact scenarios, NASA should conduct a focused range of activities, from in-space testing of innovative NEO deflection technologies to providing assistance to those agencies responsible for civil defense and disaster response measures. 4.1. Disaster Response. NASA should work with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other relevant U.S. government agencies to assign roles and formulate plans for civil defense, such as evacuation of threatened areas, should NEO deflection prove impractical. The disaster management and response community should plan for the most likely impact scenario: a small (tens of meters in size) NEO striking with only days or weeks of warning. A transparent, effective, credible public communication plan is a high priority, to include topics such as the possible impact area, physical effects, and improved probability estimates as observations improve. The disaster management and response community has not extensively dealt with the threat of NEO impacts, nor is NASA well-versed in the processes or needs of the civil defense community. NASA and the DHS should coordinate their mutual information needs for a NEO impact response as soon as possible. 4.2 Deflection Research Program. In parallel with impact disaster response planning, NASA should perform the necessary research and development to perform an in-space test of a deflection campaign, with the goal of modifying, in a controlled manner, the trajectory of a NEO. Such a demonstration program should include both a powerful impulse technique (e.g. kinetic impact) and a gradual, precise (e.g. gravity tractor) deflection capability. 16 With sufficient warning, existing technologies are likely adequate for NEO deflection but it is critical for both public and government confidence to physically demonstrate them prior to employment in an impact threat scenario. The European Space Agency, Russian Federal Space Agency, and others have examined and are planning NEO deflection missions, and NASA should aggressively pursue a cooperative deflection capability demonstration. 4.3. Explosive Technologies. Although nuclear explosives are considered a rarely needed and last-resort deflection option, it is prudent that NASA should collaborate with the Department of Energy and Department of Defense to develop an analytic research program to explore the applicability, utilization, and design of nuclear explosion technology for NEO deflection. If a large NEO deflection demands a total impulse greater than that deliverable via multiple kinetic impactors, then detonation of a nuclear device in standoff or other mode may be necessary to avert an Earth impact. Until non-nuclear techniques of comparable capability are proven, NASA should collaborate in nuclear deflection technique analysis and simulation. 4.4: Deflection Physics. NASA should initiate both analytic and empirical programs to reasonably bound the “momentum multiplier” (termed “β”) in kinetic impact deflection. β is the key variable in determining kinetic impact deflection performance. The momentum multiplier describes the extent to which the momentum of ejecta blasted clear by the impact augments the momentum transferred directly to the NEO by the incoming projectile. This parameter is unlikely to be known precisely before an actual deflection, and current estimates vary by factors of five, ten, or more. The success of both mission planning and assessments of deflection feasibility depends strongly on bounding the value of β by analytic and empirical means. Research should include computer hydrocode impact simulations, laboratory gas gun tests, and other appropriate experiments aimed at better understanding the momentum transferred to a target by a kinetic impactor. The sensitivity of the momentum enhancement factor (β) to the target’s composition and structure should be examined, along with the scaling expressions appropriate for impacts at varied velocities and encounter geometries. 4.5. Impact Scenarios. NASA should develop a reference set of a few impact threat scenarios and a corresponding set of deflection campaign design reference missions. These reference deflection scenarios should be shared nationally and internationally, forming the basis for future impact gaming exercises. Such impact threat and response scenarios should reinforce the concept that many NEO deflections will result in near-misses occurring periodically in future years on nearly the same calendar day, because the NEO and Earth orbits nearly intersect at that point. At each close17 approach, Earth's gravity will deflect the NEO into a new orbit that will again encounter the Earth's orbit and possibly a number of nearby "keyholes" (small regions in space near Earth through which a passing NEO may be gravitationally redirected onto a path to impact Earth). To preclude such a future keyhole passage and subsequent Earth collision, each deflected NEO will need periodic monitoring to determine if some orbital fine-tuning is required. Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. Objective files -> Pop Warner History files -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose files -> Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Program Data: Standard 1 Exhibit 4d files -> Hanban – asia society confucius classrooms network 2010 request for proposal files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations Download 420.22 Kb. Share with your friends:
|