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Originally Posted by asaris
Yes, but fracturing an asteroid would increase its surface area, increasing the amount of disintegration as it enters the atmosphere, right?
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Yes, fracturing a large body into several dozen smaller bodies will greatly increase surface area.
With a high surface area - to - mass ratio, it is likely that a smaller body (say about 10 meters long) will burn up as it descends through the Earth's atmosphere.
BUT it is a calculated risk to blow up a large body at close range..
If the inbound fragments are larger than about 100 meters, you're going to have very serious problems when they strike the earth's surface.
If they hit land, you would probably see replays of the 1908 Tunguska event (
LINK).
If they strike off-shore, you could very well see massive tsunamis.
A direct hit from a 2.5km asteroid would be sufficient to wipe us off the map. So if nuclear weapons were employed to break a large asteroid up, IMO they ought to be employed at the earliest opportunity, not the last minute (as seen in Armageddon
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Originally Posted by The_Jazz
... As for a solid fuel boster, we still have the same problem with having the requirement of a manned mission to the object, but you also run the risk that the booster will cause the object to shatter or to move in an unforeen way because of balance issues. By definition, you can't turn off solid fuel vehicles, although you could use a series of them to make a number of small corrections. Regardless, it's a difficult and dangerous way to accomplish the task. I still think that if such an object is found tonight and scheduled to hit 5 years from now, the most effective way to either destroy or deflect it is a warhead(s). But I'm not a rocket scientist, nor do I play one on TV.
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Good point about the downside of the SRB proposal... in retrospect, I should have proposed a more controllable output of thrust. God forbid, the rock could start to spin 'round like a gyroscope and still come straight at us.