TEOTWAKI (Theoretical...of course)

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**LordofHats**

That all sounds well and good, but will we be able to find a plucky Russian guy in the current political climate?

Someone's gonna have to conduct impromtu repairs, and they just might need a little bit of the "how we do it in Mother Russia" magic.

**Vulcan**

BobtheInquisitor wrote:
No, he's talking about Deep Core Miners, the Norwegian thrashmetal band. About fifteen seconds of their bass line should crack any asteroid.

Yeah, that should do it!

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grey Templar wrote:
In the event of an asteroid, it might be easier to deal with it than we think. We already have a lot of missiles more than capable of entering orbit, and they've already got bombs onboard. they're called ICBMs and they already enter orbit before coming back down, and once its in orbit you just have to have it enter a collision course with the asteroid. The only really tricky part might be getting the timing right because explosions are significantly less impactful in space than in atmosphere. That and detecting the Asteroid early enough to do something about it.

Remember that the Space Race was really just a rather flimsy cover for ICBM development. The same rockets that carried the Astronauts and Cosmonauts into space are the same ones that had nukes place on top.

I actually would not be surprised if there is already a nuclear launch protocol in the event of a world ending Asteroid to attempt to destroy/blow it off course.

Unless its a fairly small asteroid, orbital range is nowhere near enough. You'd have to destroy it outright; it would be far too late to deflect it.

**Grey Templar**

The missiles just need to get into space. Once there they can head towards the asteroid in deep space.

**Vulcan**

Grey Templar wrote:
The missiles just need to get into space. Once there they can head towards the asteroid in deep space.

No, they need to get out of orbit to do that. Your basic ICBMs can't even achieve orbit. As was pointed out earlier, they're suborbital by design. Some might be capable of reaching LEO (low earth orbit), but not all of them. None, as designed and built for ICBM duty, can make it even to geosynchronous orbit without using a trans-stage.

What you'd need is a platform designed to launch large payloads into geosynchronous orbit, and use that large payload capacity to carry a second trans-stage and the warhead (or warheads) to get out of orbit and onto an intercept course.

**Dreadclaw69**

LordofHats wrote:
That all sounds well and good, but will we be able to find a plucky Russian guy in the current political climate?

Someone's gonna have to conduct impromtu repairs, and they just might need a little bit of the "how we do it in Mother Russia" magic.

Chekov?

**Peregrine**

Grey Templar wrote:
The missiles just need to get into space. Once there they can head towards the asteroid in deep space.

No, because delta-V requirements are a thing and it still takes an immense amount of energy to go from space to anywhere else in space. The only thing ICBMs would be relevant for would be providing the nukes to arm more powerful rockets with.

**A Town Called Malus**

Vulcan wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:
The missiles just need to get into space. Once there they can head towards the asteroid in deep space.

No, they need to get out of orbit to do that. Your basic ICBMs can't even achieve orbit. As was pointed out earlier, they're suborbital by design. Some might be capable of reaching LEO (low earth orbit), but not all of them. None, as designed and built for ICBM duty, can make it even to geosynchronous orbit without using a trans-stage.

What you'd need is a platform designed to launch large payloads into geosynchronous orbit, and use that large payload capacity to carry a second trans-stage and the warhead (or warheads) to get out of orbit and onto an intercept course.

You would definitely not want to get into a geosynchronous orbit. Geosynchronus orbits are very large orbits, ~36,000km high. In comparison, the ISS orbits at ~400km and Apollo launched off to the moon from low earth orbit. If you want to escape from the Earth system, you want to use the earth's gravity to give you a slingshot, which is best done from closer to it in an elliptical orbit to make the most of the increase in velocity you get as you approach apogee.

And we do have rockets capable of that. We've intercepted asteroids way further out than any on a collision course with such a small time until impact.

**Vulcan**

A Town Called Malus wrote:
Vulcan wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:
The missiles just need to get into space. Once there they can head towards the asteroid in deep space.

No, they need to get out of orbit to do that. Your basic ICBMs can't even achieve orbit. As was pointed out earlier, they're suborbital by design. Some might be capable of reaching LEO (low earth orbit), but not all of them. None, as designed and built for ICBM duty, can make it even to geosynchronous orbit without using a trans-stage.

What you'd need is a platform designed to launch large payloads into geosynchronous orbit, and use that large payload capacity to carry a second trans-stage and the warhead (or warheads) to get out of orbit and onto an intercept course.

You would definitely not want to get into a geosynchronous orbit. Geosynchronus orbits are very large orbits, ~36,000km high. In comparison, the ISS orbits at ~400km and Apollo launched off to the moon from low earth orbit. If you want to escape from the Earth system, you want to use the earth's gravity to give you a slingshot, which is best done from closer to it in an elliptical orbit to make the most of the increase in velocity you get as you approach apogee.

And we do have rockets capable of that. We've intercepted asteroids way further out than any on a collision course with such a small time until impact.

Yes, we do have rockets capable of intercepting asteroids. But they are quite different from the ICMBs Malus is referring to.