Supplemental section of the file (for printing purposes, starts at p. 102)



Download 1.03 Mb.
Page2/62
Date23.11.2017
Size1.03 Mb.
#34279
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   ...   62

1AC – Harms

Observation Two is Harms

Scenario One: Armageddon

A. Large Asteroids cause extinction of nearly all life on the planet – the dinosaurs prove.


Sunfellow ’95, David Sunfellow, a writer for the News Brief, BS in astronomy “Doomsday Asteroids”, Nov 17 1995, June 23, 2011, http://www.nhne.com/articles/saasteroids.html
Using the moon's potholed surface as a reference point, Shoemaker set out to see how often celestial objects smashed into the moon and, by extension, also struck the Earth. With the help of modern satellite and aerial surveillance, Shoemaker and other scientists soon identified over 200 impact sites around the planet. One of these impact sites, which measured 100 miles across and which was buried a mile beneath the Earth surface, dated back 64 million years ago--the exact same time dinosaurs mysteriously vanished from the earth. Supporting the idea that whatever struck the Earth 64 million years ago unleashed a global catastrophe, geologists the world over have discovered a dark ring in the geological history of the planet that contains elements very common to asteroids, but very rare on Earth. The geological records above the dark layer contain records of mammals and other recent life forms, while the geological records below contain the records of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. The dark layer also bears witness to some kind of massive global firestorm. And while scientists still aren't sure how, exactly, the dinosaurs were killed off (or, for that matter, how exactly, two thirds of the rest of the Earth's species were killed off and 90% of the Earth's biomass burned up), there is evidence: The skies of the Earth exploded into flames Wild fires engulfed the planet's forests The skies were probably darkened for months, possibly for years All kinds of geological disturbances, such as volcanic eruptions and lava flows, were ignited

B. Medium sized Asteroid strike causes global extinction.


Sidle ‘7 (Roy, Slope Conservation Section, Geohazards Division, Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Chapter 23: Hazard Risk Assessment of a Near Earth Object, in Comet/Asteroid Impacts and Human Society: An Interdisciplinary Approach, SpringLink)

Very large asteroids (> several km) have impacted Earth in the past, but never in the short history of human habitation. Such catastrophic impacts on Earth are believed to occur on average once in about 300 000 yr (Morrison 1992), although it is difficult to express such infrequent occurrence in terms of probability. The energy released by a 3 km asteroid striking land (1 millionMT) would probably be capable of destroying civilization (Morrison 1992; Chapman 2004). This global catastrophic threshold would be reached primarily by the massive ejection of dust into the atmosphere that would depress temperatures for a least a growing season, leading to global scale crop failures and widespread starvation. Ballistic ejecta re-entering the atmosphere would ignite firestorms throughout areas > 107 km2, which would further reduce incoming solar radiation (Garshnek et al. 2000; Chapman 2004). Nitrous oxide produced by the burning of atmospheric nitrogen would destroy much of the ozone layer and the resulting nitric acid produced would pollute soils, lakes, oceans and streams. Following the clearing of the atmosphere (months after impact), the release of large quantities of water vapor and carbon dioxide would strongly enhance global warming (Morrison 1992; Garshnek et al. 2000). Agriculture and forests would largely be destroyed worldwide, leaving few materials for the survivors, and mass extinctions of plant and animal species would occur. Geomorphic hazards would increase both as the direct result of the impact (e.g. earthquake shock, landslides, rockfalls, ice falls, jökulhlaups, coastal flooding), as well as long after the impact due to widespread devastation of vegetation cover, climate change and other indirect effects (e.g. massive soil erosion, landslides, glacial hazards, permafrost melting, localized flooding). Although any estimates of loss of life in such a global catastrophe are totally speculative, it is conceivable several billon people could die from the initial impact of the disaster together with the resulting secondary impacts and global socio-economic collapse (Chapman 2004). In the case of an ocean impact, huge tsunami would occur globally; heights of several hundreds of meters are likely within impacted ocean basin shorelines (Hills and Goda 1999; Garshnek et al. 2000; Ward and Asphaug 2000; Tate 2000). Many inland areas would be inundated and destroyed, and massive erosion, coastline changes, river rerouting and island destruction would occur. The only survivors would be people living far inland or who have been safely evacuated to such higher elevation areas. Such an impact on ice caps could cause sea level rise and regional coastal flooding.



C. Even Small asteroids which are undetectable from ground-telescopes cause the “Air Hammer” effect – a giant fireball that outweighs nuclear war.


Arentza et al 2010 NEO Survey: An Efficient Search for Near-Earth Objects by an IR Observatory in a Venus-like Orbit Robert Arentza, Harold Reitsemaa, Jeffrey Van Cleveb and Roger Linfielda a Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. 1600 Commerce St. Boulder, CO 80301 303-939-6140; rarentz@ball.com; hreitsema@aol.com; rlinfiel@ball.com b SETI Institute NASA Ames Research Center NS 244-30, Room 107G Moffett Field, CA 94035 650-604-1370 Space, Propulsion & Energy Sciences International Forum

Crucial to the politics of NEO searches is the size-frequency distribution, which until the past two or three years has statistically indicated that the next significant impact is not likely for maybe 1,000 years, enough time for the groundbased community to find most of the NEOs with diameters roughly larger than 100 meters. However, M. Boslough (2009), of Sandia National Labs, has recently changed this argument by applying supercomputing-based numerical codes, used to model nuclear detonations, to the enigma of the Libyan Desert Glass (LDG) event. Boslough concluded that a 100-meter-class NEO disintegrated in the air far above the Saharan desert, with all of its kinetic energy and momentum continuing downwards as something informally referred to as an “air hammer.” When this air hammer struck the Earth’s surface, the entrained fireball initially had core temperatures on the order of 5,000 kelvin. The fireball portion of this complex event then spread laterally to about 20 kilometers in diameter. The air hammer also produced a hypersonic blast wave that extended radially for perhaps 50 kilometers. The fireball portion of the interaction remained on the ground for about 40 seconds and melted a patch of sand some 15 kilometers in diameter and several centimeters thick to produce the Libyan Desert Glass. Occasional expeditions to the site collect 100s of kilograms of the glass and sell it on the internet for a few dollars a gram. Boslough (2009) also modeled the 1908 Tunguska event and rescaled the estimated size of the Tunguska body downwards from ~80 meters to ~30 meters. At this new size, the mean interval between impacts is 150 years. Here is where the astrosociology of this paper’s contents becomes pertinent— This newly recognized threat régime (diameter >30 meters) contains far more objects than the diameter >140 meter NEOs. This 140-meter threshold arose circa 2003 when the United States Congress set the goal of compiling a catalogue complete to 90% by 2020 of all NEOs larger than 140 meters in diameter. This 90%, 140 meter, 2020 set of goals was named in honor of George E. Brown (GEB). Merging the GEB goals to Boslough’s (2009) work gives two results. The first is that all the 1,000-year-interval arguments no longer work. Instead, the mean interval between serious impacts is roughly 150 to 200 years. This shortened mean-interval forcefully argues for an efficient and timely NEO survey being completed in the next few years. Next (and this point is both subtle and powerful), typical arguments against performing a spacebased survey usually begin by a person saying something like-- “Yes, an event similar to Tunguska might happen in the next 100 years, but so what? Roughly six percent of the Earth’s surface is populated, so the next event is likely to be a non-event in terms of fatalities.” However, even though ~6% of the Earth’s surface is populated, the world’s widely distributed infrastructure is vastly larger and extremely vulnerable to the physics of Boslough’s (2009) modeled airbursts. A typical LAA airburst could create a cascade of failures across many distributed and interconnected networks which would be extensive, unpredictable, and impossible to quantify. Additionally consider the following: Suppose a large-scale airburst occurred above the Indian Ocean and killed no one. The resulting psychological trauma around the world could create panic on an unprecedented scale, panic which would at least ripple though the global financial markets. And if such an airburst happened without warning in places like the Middle East, or the much larger, and nuclear- armed areas of Asia or Russia, the resulting response could initiate a chain of human events resulting in severe military action. It’s this nonlinear psychological aspect that needs addressing in this conference because its message has been overlooked in the past. Most risk analyses done to date have only considered what can be quantified—the immediate body count and all the property damage arising from the initial impact. Perhaps this conference should place an added emphasis on the world’s vastly extended infrastructure and its interdependency, as well as the realities of large-scale human reaction to a sudden and catastrophic airburst vent.

Scenario Two: Broken Arrow

Due to poor detection we wouldn’t have adequate warning for a NEO strike, Nuclear weapons would be the only option.


Betts ‘9 (Bruce, The Planetary Society, “Final Update from the Planetary Defense Conference,” 4-30, http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001927/)

Unless we have a warning time of at least a decade (more for a large asteroid), most scientists and engineers agree that, at this point, the only option is nuclear weapons. The usual concept is to detonate a nuclear weapon a few tens or hundreds of meters from the NEO, which will vaporize some of its surface. That vaporized rock act like a rocket jet, moving the NEO in the opposite direction. This concept needs a lot of work, though scientists feel they understand the physics of the nuclear explosion extremely well. What isn't well understood is the upper surface of a NEO: solid, fluffy, rubble-pile. Each surface will have a different effect. Then, there is the challenge of getting the nuclear weapon to the asteroid -- possibly very quickly -- and detonating it at the right place. For objects of a few hundred meters or smaller, one may be able to use kinetic impact alone and slam a spacecraft, preferably heavy, into the NEO at very high speed. If there is more lead time, one can use slower impulse methods ranging from gravity tractors, where we actually use the spacecraft's gravity to slowly tug the asteroid. Many more exotic methods were also discussed, from laser ablation creating jets, to tethers, etc. In all cases, these deflection methods need more work and study. Finally, if we have little warning, days for instance, all we can do is attempt to evacuate the area that will be affected. At this conference, there was more emphasis on the case of very short time frame small object impacts than there has been in the past. Part of the reason was because of two small impacts that occurred in the last couple years (since the last Planetary Defense Conference). Asteroid 2008 TC3 was discovered less than 2 days before it impacted over Sudan. But, there were enough observations to generate a prediction of where it would hit. It was the first time a natural object had been observed in space before it entered the Earth's atmosphere, and as a bonus, portions of the space rock were recovered. Though it was a very small object that broke up and caused no more damage than scattering meteorite fragments, it demonstrated that current NEO surveys have a chance to observe a NEO "at the last minute" during its so-called death plunge. This type of observation requires particularly quick action, and for an object much larger than 2008 TC3, would ideally allow time for evacuations. The other impact reported at the conference occurred a couple years ago in Peru -- the Carantas impact. There are indications that it was a relatively small object (2 to 5 meters) that would not have been predicted to make it through the atmosphere in one piece, yet it created a 14 meter crater in a dry river in a field. It occurred at 3800 meters altitude, and the blast wave knocked a man off a bicycle and a bull to the ground. There is also discussions beginning with emergency management agencies across the world about this issue, but lots more is needed. They would be the ones involved in evacuations, and post-disaster assistance. The bottom line is still that impact is a low probability any given day, but it definitely will happen eventually. As I've seen at this conference, we can plan for and perhaps even prevent such an impact, but it will take more investment and work.

And, Destroying NEOs with nuclear weapons fails, the NEO will hit more cities, morph into a radioactive lump of metal, and causes massive space militarization.


O'Neill 2008 (IAN O'NEIL, O’Neill is a British solar physics doctor with nearly a decade of physics study and research experience, November 27th, 2008, “ Apollo Astronaut Highlights Threat of Asteroid Impact”, Astroengine.com, accessed 6/22/11, http://www.astroengine.com/2008/11/apollo-astronaut-highlights-threat-of-asteroid-strike/, JK)

Unfortunately, the commonly held opinion is to dispense an incoming asteroid or comet with a few carefully placed atomic bombs (by a generic crew of Hollywood oil drillers). Alas, Armageddon this ain’t. Even if we were able to get a bomb onto the surface of an incoming object, there is little hope of it doing any good (whether we get Bruce Willis to drop it off or launch it ICBM style… or would that be IPBM, as in Interplanetary Ballistic Missile?). What if we are dealing with a near-Earth asteroid composed mainly of metal? A nuclear blast might just turn it into a hot radioactive lump of metal. What if the comet is simply a collection of loosely bound pieces of rock? The force of the blast will probably be absorbed as if nothing happened. In most cases, and if we are faced with an asteroid measuring 10 km across (i.e. a dinosaur killer), it would be like throwing an egg at a speeding train and expecting it to be derailed. There are of course a few situations where a nuclear missile might work too well; blowing the object up into thousands of chunks. But in this case it would be like making the choice between being shot by a single bullet or a shot gun; it’s bad if you have one impact with a single lump of rock, but it might be worse if thousands of smaller pieces make their own smaller impacts all over the planet. If you ever wondered what it might be like to be sandblasted from space, this might be the way to find out! There may be a few situations where nuclear missiles are successful, but their use would be limited. Personally, I think using nuclear weapons against a comet or asteroid is a bad idea, and so does Schweickart. In fact, the ex-astronaut believes there might be some ulterior motives for the push to use nuclear weapons against threatening asteroids. By clearing the use of nuclear weaponry in space (under the guise of “global safety”), it may open the floodgates for nuclear proliferation in Earth orbit. Schweickart has specifically targeted the goal of putting together a non-nuclear solution to the deflection of asteroids. However, mankind will need a massive lead time to enact any avoidance measure. We will therefore need better observation techniques (and we are getting better at spotting and tracking asteroids, as was the case with asteroid 2008 TC3, the first ever asteroid impact predicted by astronomers), and we will need to work on novel deflection techniques.




And, Nuclear explosions are imprecise and cause fragmentation making the impact worse


Lu ‘4 (Statement of Dr. Ed Lu President, B612 Foundation, “Near-Earth Objects,” testimony before the Committee on Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space, Apr.7 CQ, lexis)

Why does the asteroid need to be moved in a "controlled manner"? If the asteroid is not deflected in a controlled manner, we risk simply making the problem worse. Nuclear explosives for example risk breaking up the asteroid into pieces, thus turning a speeding bullet into a shotgun blast of smaller but still possibly deadly fragments. Explosions also have the drawback that we cannot accurately predict the resultant velocity of the asteroid - not a good situation when trying to avert a catastrophe. Conversely, moving an asteroid in a controlled fashion also opens up the possibility of using the same technology to manipulate other asteroids for the purposes of resource utilization.



And, the resulting fragmentation causes oxygen depletion and extinction


Verschurr ’96 (Gerrit, adjunct professor of physics for the U of Memphis, Impact: The Threat of Asteroids and Comets, pg. 40)

Did consider are potential risk to earth if it were to run into the head of a comet made up of lots of meteorites. The picture he painted was based on what an earlier astronomer, Sir Simon Newcomb, had written about this possibility. Newcomb admitted that, although there were more likely ways to die than as a result of comet collision, such a fate was real. Should such a collision, occur, Gregory conjured up a picture of what might happen. On the one hand, if the comet head was made up of dust, the earth’s inhabitants would experience nothing more than a stunning display of shooting stars. But if the comet head was made of cannonball sized objects the consequences would be dire. Myriads of meteoritic masses would beat upon the earth, and the burning of the materials of which they are composed would probably use up the oxygen in the atmosphere, in which case, man and all the animal creation would perish. The temperature of the air would be raised to such a degree that all vegetation would be destroyed and our world would be transformed into a desolate and barren rock.






Download 1.03 Mb.

Share with your friends:
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   ...   62



The database is protected by copyright ©ininet.org 2024
send message
    Main page
national academy
outer edge