Asteroid Space Defense System - Grant Eagar

 

     For my English Expository Composition class, I decided to write about something I was interested in so I chose comet and asteroid defense system.  Since the teacher liked it and I got a good grade I thought I would share it.  I have omitted the works cited to keep students from using my paper for their research papers. Have a little pride people and do your own work.

Asteroid and Comet Space Dense System:

Cost Justification

 

     The prospect of a huge asteroid or comet hitting the Earth has always been fascinating in a morbid end-of-the-world sort of way.  The objects we are concerned with are those that have an orbit that comes somewhat close to the Earth and are large, thus they are called Near-Earth-Objects (NEO)s. Some people’s fears of comets and asteroids come from the book of Revelations in the Bible, “And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea” (Rev. 8.8). This could be interpreted as an asteroid the size of a mountain hitting the Earth. This is the size of the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs. Another catastrophe is described in verse 10, “And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp” (Rev. 8.10). Many have interpreted this to be the description of a comet hitting the Earth.  The fear of comets and asteroids also comes from movies such as Don’t Look Up (asteroid the size of Mount Everest), Armageddon (asteroid the size of Texas), and Deep Impact (monster comet). These fears are valid, given the history of Near-Earth-Objects. It is not all bad; dinosaurs would still rule the Earth if they hadn’t been forced to extinction by a killer asteroid. The dinosaurs could have used a space defense system. The funding for a space defense system should be increased because the consequences of an asteroid or comet hitting the Earth would be catastrophic; there have been numerous near misses, and several viable solutions exist.  

     The current funding for space defense is inadequate. This is illustrated in the Insurance Journal which speaks of existential risk and defines it as the risk of something hitting the Earth that would end all humanity.  This is a real concern since 66 million years ago this happened when an asteroid slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula. The odds are quite low each year, but over time there will be objects that hit the Earth; it is not a matter of if, but a matter of when. The current space defense budget is $150 million; this is all that is available to track Near-Earth-Objects and to come up with viable plans to deter asteroids and comets.  Progress has been made legitimizing a space defense program. The idea of providing a defense against unwanted objects used to be the topic of doomsdayers, not a reputable organization such as NASA.  The public has always thought that if they didn’t take this seriously and just put their proverbial head in the sand, they wouldn’t have to worry about it. The reality is that with advances in technology humanity can define their destiny, and not be at the mercy of whatever comes along.  And don’t worry, something will be coming along. It would be a shame to have the capability to do something but lack the foresight. That is part of the basis of the movie Don’t Look Up. How to get an apathetic public to “Look Up”.

     The cost of a serious mission would be five to ten times what is spent now. Dr. xxxxxx project lead for the aerospace corporation discusses the cost of a single mission, the amount of mass that must be delivered drives the expense of constructing a kinetic impactor spacecraft. The total mission cost for commercially available rocket service providers could be $1 billion with each launch costing between $270 million and $450 million (3).  A kinetic impactor is simply ramming an asteroid or comet with a spaceship. So, the bigger the object the bigger the spacecraft that must be used to ram it with. It may be prudent to launch ten missions at a killer asteroid or demon comet; if some fail others might succeed. It would be foolish to pin humanity’s survival on a single mission. There is too much that could go wrong.  Also, it would be much better to have tested out and validated numerous approaches. If humanity just had six months like in the movie Don’t Look Up, when they finally figured out what was going on they would be in a mad scramble to find a feasible solution, and like in the movie, it may take several months to get everyone’s attention.

     The consequences of an asteroid hitting the Earth would be terrible. The effects of an asteroid hitting the Earth are discussed by Dr. xxxxx; the chances of larger objects colliding with Earth would be disastrous. In 2015, a 600-meter asteroid whizzed by the planet at a speed of 126,000 km/hr at 480,000 km away. If this item had collided with Earth, the repercussions would have been 7.5 Richter scale earthquakes, severe burns, the collapse of tall buildings, and Tsunami waves up to 37 meters (3).  Most people can’t imagine a 37-meter tsunami surge; it would be like the terrible tsunami that hit Sumatra Indonesia. It is important to point out that a Tsunami is not a single wave but a large body of ocean surge that keeps on coming. This is a likely scenario since 71% of the Earth is oceans. The fireball would be like numerous atomic bombs going off. So, if an asteroid landed off the coast of Los Angeles it would first cover the city with a massive fireball, then terrible earthquakes, and finally a huge tsunami flooding the city. The good news is that the fire would be put out by the tsunami.

     Even if the object just passed through the atmosphere, it would create fireballs that would vaporize cities. XXXX a professor of geology and his associates describes this as an explosion called an airburst event resulting from a comet passing through the atmosphere creating widespread damage such as the Tunguska catastrophe of 1908 (1). This would still cause a fireball and create shockwaves that would level forests and buildings. Again, humanity now has the technology to avert this kind of event; it would be imprudent not to take advantage of it and prevent the calamity.  

     There have been numerous near-misses since thousands of objects are in the near-Earth orbit. From xxxx, the asteroid 2014 J025 passed by Earth in 2014, coming within [1.7 million kilometers] of the globe – a close call by cosmic standards and the closest in almost a decade. J025 was a big one. It could have killed tens of millions of people if it had impacted a densely populated area (1). The significance of the near misses is they are the leap from theory to reality. They can be measured and their speed and size quantified then it is simple physics; something this big going this fast causes this amount of damage. They are also a wake-up call for humanity to understand what is out there and what the consequences of inaction are.

      There are several popular strategies to consider, the first being to impact the asteroid or comet with a spaceship to change its trajectory. This is a viable defense mechanism. Professor xxxxx from Auburn University Department of Aerospace Engineering explained, “The proposed NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission . . . plans to launch spacecraft in March 2021 to target the binary . . . Didymos in October 2022 . . . In this mission, the DART spacecraft will impact the secondary of Didymos” (1). In this test, there is a small asteroid that circles a larger asteroid. In theory, the collision will change the velocity of the smaller asteroid and its orbit around the larger asteroid can be measured and the scientist will be able to determine the effect of the collision. They assume using principles of physics that it will slow a certain amount. In the experiment, they will be able to compare the actual with the theoretical. This is an exciting development since NASA’s going to perform an actual test and from the data received, the science behind changing the course of an asteroid will be advanced. If the threat from a NEO can be determined early enough, possibly several years, the required nudge to change its trajectory would be small.

     Another method of changing the course of a NEO object would be to launch a nuclear warhead to intercept and either destroy a comet or deflect an asteroid is also effective. To explain this xxxx executive director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (GCRI) mentions that using a nuclear deterrent for deflecting an asteroid is both promising and controversial; it is promising given the high amount of energy released in a nuclear explosion it is a very promising deflection technique and humanity could transfer their nuclear weapons into a peaceful end. On the other hand, given the treaties limiting nuclear weapons in space, it is contentious and politically challenging as well.  There are many people against nuclear weapons even for a good cause; they feel the mere existence of nuclear weapons is a danger far worse than any NEO (2428). So, if we discover a NEO has an intercept course with the Earth several years ahead; then it would be prudent to use the DART type approach because a small nudge over several years will have the desired effect, on the other hand, if we have only a few months before the impact then we need to hit the asteroid with something bigger, thus the benefit of the nuclear deflection system. 

     Collecting space rocks and ramming them into an asteroid is another viable solution. This concept is referred to as the Enhanced Kinetic Impactor (EKI). Senior technical engineer xxxxx and associates describe the process:

      1 - Launch. An existing heavy launch vehicle . . .

     2 - Rendezvous with an NEA & collect rocks . . . More than one hundred tons of rocks are collected            from the NEA . . .

     3 - Maneuver. After the rocks are assembled into the EKI, the electric propulsion system begins to           maneuver the EKI away from the original orbit toward the Potentially Hazardous Object (PHA) . . .

     4 - Impact PHA. The EKI is maneuvered to impact the PHA at a high speed. After impact, the PHA             will be farther away from Earth during the close encounter (2).

      It would be harder to create a rocket large enough to send one hundred tons of payload to ram into an asteroid rather than sending up a spacecraft that can lasso small asteroids and ram them into potentially hazardous asteroids or comets when they are far from the Earth. A possible way of capturing the small asteroid would be to release a net that can encircle the asteroid. The downside to this approach is that the scientists would need to know several years ahead of the potential impact on the Earth because the logistics are complicated.

     Don’t bring a butter knife to a knife fight, instead bring a shotgun, a pistol, and maybe a hand grenade. It may be prudent to launch ten missions at a killer asteroid. After considering the DART, Nuclear impact, and Enhanced Kinetic Impact solutions, the importance of a better detection system is obvious. NASA’s efforts to monitor and catalog Near-Earth-Objects are a good start, but they need additional funds if they are going to be effective. Too many Near-Earth-Objects are not detected until they pass close to the Earth. For the well-being of humanity, the planet needs to provide a defense system. With advancing technologies, humanity is no longer at the mercy of the universe but rather humankind has the means to define its future. They just need to have the wisdom and foresight to prepare for that future.