Incoming Asteroid! by Duncan Lunan

Author:Duncan Lunan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer New York, New York, NY

In early 2007 Dr. Gregory Matloff, emeritus associate professor of physics at New York City College of Technology, began studies with NASA’s Marshall Spaceflight Center on solar sail deflection. Assuming plume velocities on the order of 1 km/s, much lower than those Max later measured, his investigation looked at the dissipation of heat from the ‘hot spot’ on an asteroid and concluded that it would seriously reduce the deflection effect unless penetration was deep enough to create a trench. His tests with lasers on the Allende carbonaceous chondrite meteorite of 1969 suggested that was true, at least for that type of meteorite, and he recommends a preliminary survey of a target asteroid, using lasers to test for penetrability, before attempting deflection [32].

But if we can launch hundreds of Solaris units to Goldilocks, we have sufficient redundancy to try out different configurations, different constellations and different firing strategies. Major policy controversies may arise, as with Douglas Bader’s ‘Big Wings’ in the Battle of Britain, and there will be time to resolve them. Even if the optimum strategy proves to be sacrificial, and the lifetime of collectors on the firing line is short, there will be reserves to throw into the fray as they become required; robot repairers may be able to refurbish them and restore them to action, as John Braithwaite envisaged; and if success needs more mirrors or bigger ones, there is another launch window 6 years after discovery in which what’s needed can be supplied.

At the very least we can say that with so many options, and time to try them out, there is a very good chance that the solar deflection scenario will succeed. But if it isn’t succeeding—if the asteroid is absorbing the thrust, say, or if the plumes are destroying the mirrors—then our question ‘what would we do?’ becomes ‘what else would we do?’ And that, too, has to be asked at the outset, so that in 6 years after discovery we are ready to do it.

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