Seti aff •seti neg •Asteroids Aff
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- Answers To: Solvency
Answers To: Solvency[____] [____] Space based systems are expensive and riskier than ground based ones. NASA Report to Congress, March 2007, “Near-Earth Object Survey and Deflection Analysis of Alternatives,” http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/report2007.html Beyond the fact that space-based systems are historically more expensive than ground based systems, these systems offer there are several additional drawbacks. Getting a space-based system into place subjects it to possible launch and deployment failures and places it in a hostile environment that results in a shorter lifetime (7 to 10 years). This shorter lifetime is an important consideration if a NEO program is expected to continue to track objects for extended periods of time. In addition, they are dependent upon spacecraft-to-ground data links and unique onboard software. [____] [____] Deflection efforts would be hindered both by lack of proven technology and international cooperation. Gregg Easterbrook, Fellow at the Brookings Institution, 06/2008, “The Sky Is Falling,” The Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2008/06/the-sky-is-falling/6807/ None of this will be easy, of course. Unlike in the movies, where impossibly good-looking, wisecracking men and women grab space suits and race to the launchpad immediately after receiving a warning that something is approaching from space, in real life preparations to defend against a space object would take many years. First the necessary hardware must be built—quite possibly a range of space probes and rockets. An asteroid that appeared to pose a serious risk would require extensive study, and a transponder mission could take years to reach it. International debate and consensus would be needed: the possibility of one nation acting alone against a space threat or of, say, competing U.S. and Chinese missions to the same object, is more than a little worrisome. And suppose Asteroid X appeared to threaten Earth. A mission by, say, the United States to deflect or destroy it might fail, or even backfire, by nudging the rock toward a gravitational keyhole rather than away from it. Asteroid X then hits Costa Rica; is the U.S. to blame? In all likelihood, researchers will be unable to estimate where on Earth a space rock will hit. Effectively, then, everyone would be threatened, another reason nations would need to act cooperatively—and achieving international cooperation could be a greater impediment than designing the technology. Answers To: Solvency[____] A. NASA would attempt to deflect an impending NEO with a nuclear weapon. Alan Boyle, Science Editor at MSNBC, 3/21/2007 “Dueling over asteroids,” http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/03/21/97410.aspx That's why he's taking the new report so seriously. NASA's official view is that the most efficient way to divert a potentially threatening NEO is by setting off a nuclear bomb nearby, to nudge it into a safe orbit. "The implication is that it is the preferred way to go to deflect essentially any near-Earth object," Schweickart complained. In contrast, Schweickart argues that the so-called "nuclear standoff" option should be used only as a last resort. He contends that 98 percent of the potential threats can be mitigated by using less extreme measures. For example, he favors the development of a "gravity tractor" - a spacecraft that would hover near an asteroid for years at a time, using subtle gravitational attraction to draw the space rock out of a worrisome path. To kick it up a notch, Schweickart said a threatening NEO could first be hit with a kinetic impactor - say, a scaled-up version of the Deep Impact bullet that hit Comet Tempel 1 back in 2005 - and then the orbital track could be fine-tuned using the tractor. Navigational sensors aboard the tractor would check to make sure the NEO was on a completely safe path. "This combination is obviously the way to go," he said. NASA sees it a different way, however. The report said the gravity tractor concept and similar techniques would be the "most expensive" ways to divert an asteroid: "In general, the slow push systems were found to be at a very low technology readiness level and would require significant development methods," it said. B. This approach is disastrous. A nuclear strike on an asteroid would break it into small pieces that would cause more damage to the earth. Edward Lu, American Physicist and former astronaut, has been to space twice, 4/7/2004 “Why Move an Asteroid?” Testimony before the Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space of the Senate Commerce Committee, http://www.astrobio.net/index.php?option=com_retrospection&task=detail&id=972 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. Answers To: Solvency[____] [____] Bureaucratic inertia means that deflection efforts would be unsuccessful. Russel Schweickart, former astronaut and Co-Chair of the NASA Advisory Council Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense, 12/2004, “Asteroid Deflection: An International Challenge,” Presented at the World Federation of Scientists meeting of the Multidisciplinary Core Group on Planetary Emergencies, Rome, Italy In any event, the minimal policy decision involved in any asteroid deflection would be whether to deflect it at all or simply suffer the consequences of the nominal impact. If the incoming asteroid were on the order of 100 meters in diameter the resultant impact would be on the order of 80 MT and the resulting damage could lie entirely within the borders of one nation. If this nation were not a space faring nation who would respond to a request to mount such a mission? Conversely if the nominal impact were located within the borders of a space faring nation, would the risk to others along the deflection risk path deter that nation from mounting a deflection mission? Who will make these decisions? Who will pay for a deflection mission? Who will be charged with the responsibility for executing such a mission? How is liability to be assigned? Who will trade off local devastation vs. placing many remote lives at slight risk? Who will determine the planning criteria? Who will monitor and/or control the deflection mission? These and many other difficult and critical policy questions are implicit in the concept of asteroid deflection. In all but the exceptional case the choices to be made involve several, if not many, nations. The entire subject is planetary in scope since asteroid impacts may (and eventually will) strike anywhere on the globe. An Alternative to Institutional Inertia The easiest and perhaps most likely course of action for international institutions facing questions of this kind is to simply avoid them. And yet, for those involved in the Spaceguard Survey and others informed on the subject it is clear that addressing these choices only after the announcement of a pending impact will result in great contention, self serving argument, and power politics. Once a specific IP is determined the hope for rationale, equitable policies emerging from such a belated undertaking becomes futile. In the limit an asteroid impact which destroys all human civilization is possible, though extremely improbable. No other natural disaster is capable of such destruction, and yet this natural hazard, unlike most others, can actually be prevented by human intervention. We therefore face the daunting challenge of convincing the international community to plan for a highly unlikely but devastating global event, and to do it now. Yet many more immediate problems involving the lives of millions of people face the international community on virtually a continuous basis. It is “natural” to avoid this issue. Risk situations characterized by extreme infrequency and devastating consequences are difficult for individual human beings, let alone bureaucratic institutions to handle. This is even more the case when the questions to be addressed are so intractable and without precedent. Yet the time for rational policy to be developed to guide behavior and prepare for such an eventuality is prior to the discovery of an asteroid actually bound for an impact. The reality we face, however, is that there is about a one in twenty chance that within the next decade or so we may in fact discover such a pending impact. Worse still, from the standpoint of alarming the public, is the much higher likelihood that in completing the inventory of NEOs down to 100 meters, the astronomical community will in fact discover one or more objects destined to pass within several Earth radii. The problem in this case will arise in that it may take many years before the telescopic observations are able to distinguish between this near miss and an impact. During this period of time no one will be able to state with certainty whether or not an impact is coming. This circumstance, with perhaps a 50/50 likelihood of occurrence, will be extremely frustrating to the professionals and alarming to the public. 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