Kudos, Sass =D I've never heard of this, but it's very feasible. As it mentions by usage of "keyhole", there is a sweet-spot that needs to be hit in order for the body to not get brushed aside by our Van Allen belts. It's akin to hitting a ramp in order to make a jump; if you're off, you'll miss or even screw up your trajectory. The drawback is that, given our constraints on sizes we could make these tractor shuttles or bodies, it'd need to be laid well in advance (the "shove" isn't too huge). If those fail, I think that directly plowing in to the asteroid body would be the follow-up; crude, inaccurate, but far more fast in its results.

Elixir falling off his chair.

The whole premise of the article is that we don't know how many NEOs are out there.

and
So to say there's "No Way", it could happen is quite wrong. In fact, it is the most likely thing to happen (that we won't see it coming), as any objects discovered and deemed dangerous would be dealt with. Also, "keyholes" only help us when we know about an asteroid (or comet) and can determine what the specific path it needs to take to be on a collision course.

Of course there's always the threat of some random comet coming out of nowhere that we've never seen before; they have been known to have highly eccentric orbits. Something of that nature could have a 100,000 (or however long outside of human history) year orbit and we'd have absolutely no record of them.

Do you have any idea what an impossibly small fraction of space we have under consistent observation? Do you have even the slightest idea? The most detailed and thorough image we have from Hubble is the Deep Field. The Hubble Deep Field is thought to represent roughly one thirteen-millionth of the sky. The observe the entire sky at that level of detail would, with current technology, take over a million years.

Space telescopes are an important and useful development, but omniscient they ain't.

So what you're basically saying is "We won't see it until its right in front of our noses, and then its too late." right? Because what I am implying is we would have ample time to prepare for such an object converging on our planet's orbital trajectory and ample time to do something about it. Not like a NEO is going to just appear out of nowhere and we will just have to brace for impact...

(in before any matrix jokes)

The deep field image is also pretty much all galaxies, and I don't think it's the way we'd go about looking for asteroids. It would be like trying to find an elephant on the savanna using a microscope.

I'm only using it as an example of how silly it is to assume that we'll automatically see any significant objects just because oh gee we got some telescopes. I'm not falling into Nehmi's predictable repent-the-end-is-near attitudes, but saying the issue is like TOTALLY TAKEN CARE OF, NO WORRIES is a little naive. Also naive is the notion that a collision-course object would automatically be dealt with, should it be observed. We'll just send the Space Marines, yeah?

We might require more Vespene Gas to do that.

But what about the mobile suits?!


Also see Sass' post for more info about changing trajectories and whatnot. It seems possible and likely. Also I am for sending mass amounts of weaponry into space to divert such crisis (Nuclear Missles that can reach outer orbital levels and collide with NEOS and whatnot). Hell, lets equip the International Space Station with reverse low-orbital Ion Cannons at this point and we are set!

keep hoping :p

Nehmi posted an interesting link. I wonder how big is that comet that's coming soon...

Damnit Lehah, I was thinking about posting a Starship troopers reference, but I doubted its validity on being funny.

I am - and I'm not the only one. Maybe that should give you an inkling of your posts instead of some glib smiley reply.

Let's see what I can do about this.

Well all in all, I hope that damn thing they're setting off tomorrow doesn't blow us up, and the asteriod they say will make a "fly by" won't hit, I didn't pop out my kids for nothing!
I plan on being around well passed 2012 and I plan on my neighbors and city to stick around until I'm long gone too.. I see the giant volcano erupting before any of these other crazy ideas take place...

You obviously don't know what CERN collider does.

I doubt she even knows what a collider is :(

Its'a large hadron colander. You use it to'a drain's your'a pasta for your'a large'a spaghetti dinner. Gonna be'a wonderful Wednesday! [/pizzapie]

Holy shit. Forget Jesus and his posse, I'm gonna start praying to this pew pew pew guy. Nigga gets shit DONE.

Collider? But I only just met her.

Then explain the hardon, you prude :mad:

My end of the world theory is the Earthquack. One day ducks will rise up an control the world, and we as humans will be forced to live in ponds and lakes the rest of our lives.
It will be a rather nice existence, to be honest. We get to chill out and let little ducklings feed us bread, our only concern will be when some jackass ducks shoot at us as we try to run south for the winter.

But honestly, I'm going with the super volcano theory even though it might only mean North America is doomed for certain. Australia will probably just sit there at the complete opposite end of the world laughing at us or something.

I did not agree with this prediction. I know this date comes from the Mayan calendar, which many believe says that the end of time is 2012. This is an incorrect interpretation of the Mayan perception of time. It is the end of an age in 2012. The Mayans had a 52 year cycle, much like we have a 100 year cycle. The date of 2012 is the end of one age, and the beginning of another.

Would you care to back that up with, you know, evidence, oh weary time-traveller?