Nuclear Explosion [weapon] in Space - result?

[Bullgrit]

You know, they really should test moving an asteroid. I'm kind of surpised no one has tried, yet.

Bullgrit

 

[RangerWickett]

Space is expensive, yo. And we're unlikely to get significant results without a nuke, but folks are wary of putting nukes in space.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

I feel we need a thread that discusses how impulse, force, energy and power interact for purposes of "damage" - what is it that causes deformations vs. what causes penetration, for example. If Umbran needs to use some grad students for tests, that's okay with me.

Agreed. Preferably with video.

 

[Umbran]

Bad science from the movie Armageddon wont get you a lot of support, the movie from the same year Deep Impact would be a better reference.

The details in Armageddon were wrong, but the basic idea of getting the weapon inside the asteroid is sound. Maximal energy delivery to the target.

However, when I said close denationalize think within a few miles. Only one side gets the radiation (manly in the form of neutrinos) and boils off the surface layer on one side. This causes a small amount of thrust in the opposite direction. If you aim right and early enough, you can get the asteroid to sift its orbit to miss the earth.

Within a few miles? Dude, that's not going to work.

Nukes are not very directional. If you blow one up in space, the released energy moves out in an ever-growing sphere. If the actual target is miles away, the asteroid is only going to get a tiny fraction of the total energy the nuke has to offer. You probably wouldn't melt much of anything - on Earth you get massive heat effects by compression-heating the air, but you don't get that in space. And, as noted, if you don't focus the outgassing, you aren't going to get lots of thrust.

Furthermore, neutrinos are almost the least-absorbed particle known. Those suckers will usually pass through several miles of solid lead (and, in fact, the entire planet Earth) and not be absorbed.

Where did I get this idea you may ask? A program on the science cable station where they asked astrophysicists for their best ideas to deal with an potential asteroid strike.

Let me just say I am... unimpressed by the scheme as presented here. Maybe there's some important details that have gotten lost in passing it along.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Space is expensive, yo. And we're unlikely to get significant results without a nuke, but folks are wary of putting nukes in space.

Kind of depends what you mean by "significant results". A nice gentle push over a long time will push a mass as surely as one mighty wallop. It's been proposed to land some sort of thruster on an asteroid: Fire it up, and it (eventually) deflects the asteroid from it's original path. Exactly the same principle behind a thruster on any other spacecraft.

But to deflect an asteroid with a relatively tiny thruster would take years. Additionally, the thruster itself likely needs to be relatively bigger, beefier, and more efficient than anything we have today-- and that means it's likely nuclear and obscenely expensive, not to mention not even invented yet.

Most importantly of course, unlike a nuke strike, a little thruster wouldn't make for a very cool youtube video.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Only one side gets the radiation (manly in the form of neutrinos)

That sounds wrong - radiation is mostly alpha, beta and gamma (protons, nuetrons and electromagnetic respectively) isn't it?

Neutrinos are the (almost?) massless particles that they have to bury detectors miles below on the earth on the off-chance of detecting one as thousands of them sleet through the planet as if it weren't there.

That doesn't sound good for deflecting an asteroid

 

[Umbran]

It's been proposed to land some sort of thruster on an asteroid: Fire it up, and it (eventually) deflects the asteroid from it's original path. Exactly the same principle behind a thruster on any other spacecraft.

The best ideas I've heard are based on solar sails, instead of chemical or nuclear thrusters. A big sheet of mylar and some cables instead of nasty complicated ion emitters, and the Sun does all the work for you.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That sounds wrong - radiation is mostly alpha, beta and gamma (protons, nuetrons and electromagnetic respectively) isn't it?

Neutrinos are the (almost?) massless particles that they have to bury detectors miles below on the earth on the off-chance of detecting one as thousands of them sleet through the planet as if it weren't there.

That doesn't sound good for deflecting an asteroid

Yeah, but if we polarize the neutrino flow and channel it through our forward deflectors, it should work.
Wait, we need a tachyon compensator to invert the flux field, and harmonize the frequencies, otherwise it could cause
the end of existence as we know it.

 

[Joker]

Yeah, but if we polarize the neutrino flow and channel it through our forward deflectors, it should work.

Shouldn't you switch the polarity instead?

 

[Pbartender]

Furthermore, neutrinos are almost the least-absorbed particle known. Those suckers will usually pass through several miles of solid lead (and, in fact, the entire planet Earth) and not be absorbed.

As an example... One the primary experiments at the lab I work at is shooting a stream of neutrinos underground from Chicago through about 460 miles of dirt and rock to a detector at the bottom of an old iron mine in northern Minnesota.

That's is why the movie 2012 made me laugh.

But yeah, the one thing Armegeddon got right is... Bury the nuke. More energy transfer, more ejecta as propellant, and a more directed blast.

Nukes would probably be best used on smaller asteroids (or larger meteoroids, depending on how you look at it... the line between them is a little blurry). The ones that could feasibly be blasted into gravel with a few subsurface nuclear blasts. As Umbran said, millions of 1 ounce meteors are practically harmless. A single 31 ton (1 million ounces) meteor can be pretty dangerous.