October 24, 2006

Ruskies claim they can prevent asteroids from striking the Earth

The Russian Space Agency announced today that it can "repel" asteroids to save the Earth from devastating impacts. They didn't specify how they planned to repel NEO's, but I suspect it's something along these lines.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's an idea from pravda, that reputable source of Russian news:

"Scientists also suggest that an object’s descent trajectory be changed. Part of the object should be covered with chalk to attract more sun beams to the latter. The move is thought to be able to change the speed of the object and the direction it rotates. Predictably enough, the amount of chalk is the biggest stumbling block. According to estimates by American scientists, 250 thousand tons of chalk would be needed to change the orbit of the asteroid dubbed “1950 DA.” Besides, as many as 90 booster of Saturn-5 type would be required for carrying the chalk to the object."

Link

Anonymous said...

Oh, I like this bit "Part of the object should be covered with chalk to attract more sun beams"