Apophis

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DanM
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Apophis

Post by DanM »

Have you heard about this asteroid that might hit us in 2036, NASA is designing a vehicle to stop it, I might right science fiction on it with the constellation program.
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Post by des »

NOVA Science NOW had a whole segment on it Tuesday. Yep its scary. Of course then they mentioned all the ones we might not know about! The close approach (*current* forecasts say we miss it-- with a proviso that it doesn't go into what is called the keyhole, which is a area of space that would slingshot the thing around only to hit us a year later) is supposed to be 2029.
Current forecasts say I should live that long. Of course it would be a way to go out with a BANG!!

I reread your post. Maybe I got the year wrong.

--des
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Post by DanM »

Fortunatley, if it does hit (hopefuly on land), it will only destroy a city if close enough, and it would destroy a few if impact the water, if it will hit anywhere, let's hope its not densly populated, or it is a major imortant place, or full of nukes.
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Post by DanM »

Of course we might have nuts (not neopagans, just nuts) look up at the asteroid in 2029 yelling "TAKE ME RAAAAAAA!" at the rock.
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Post by JennieM »

Time for Bruce Willis & Ben Afflack to start training. :wink:
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Post by ApolloXI »

JennieM wrote:Time for Bruce Willis & Ben Afflack to start training. :wink:

Because of Ben no civilians are allowed to use the NBL in Houston anymore. Ben freaked out when they started to lower him in the water because of the claustrophobia of being in a suit.
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Post by JennieM »

ApolloXI wrote:
JennieM wrote:Time for Bruce Willis & Ben Afflack to start training. :wink:

Because of Ben no civilians are allowed to use the NBL in Houston anymore. Ben freaked out when they started to lower him in the water because of the claustrophobia of being in a suit.

Darn Hollywood actor has to ruin it for everybody! 8)
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Post by des »

Not quite true. If it goes down in the water the impact could be *greater* than coming down on land. The effect would be like a continuous tsunami that is something like 55 ft high. (The one that hit Indonesia, etc a few years ago was a one shot deal.)

It is also possible, if it hits land, that it would cause major climatic changes much like a "nuclear winter", if you are familiar with this term, as I haven't heard of it in a few years. The landing would kick up a great deal of dust and soot and block out the heat sun. In fact, I think that's the explanation of the extinction of the dinosaurs.

It would be best to stop the thing, but the one thing you would NOT want to do is hit it with nuclear power. All you would get are MANY fragments that would go somewhere. The idea suggested in the program was a gravity tractor which would basically attach and change the gravitation pull on it. It would be subtle but just enough to change it's trajectory.

Of course, there's Apophis. There are then all the ones we DON"T know about.

--des
DanM wrote:Fortunatley, if it does hit (hopefuly on land), it will only destroy a city if close enough, and it would destroy a few if impact the water, if it will hit anywhere, let's hope its not densly populated, or it is a major imortant place, or full of nukes.
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Post by Richasi »

JennieM wrote:Time for Bruce Willis & Ben Afflack to start training. :wink:
Darnit, now I have that SONG in my head.... GAH!
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Re: Apophis

Post by des »

Dan, if you really want to get the science right on this--instead of just a story you could read up on this (maybe the NOVA story is on streaming video if you can do such a thing, I just don't have a fast enough connection). Then your details could be very good instead. There isn't a lot of true sci-fi, imo. I think the guy who wrote 2001-- name escapes me, is one of the best. He actually predicted stuff like geostationary satellites for communication, etc.
(And I think space elevators, hasn't happened yet, but I think it will someday.)

--des
DanM wrote:Have you heard about this asteroid that might hit us in 2036, NASA is designing a vehicle to stop it, I might right science fiction on it with the constellation program.
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Re: Apophis

Post by rkolker »

des wrote:I think the guy who wrote 2001-- name escapes me,
That would be Arthur C. Clarke.
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Re: Apophis

Post by des »

rkolker wrote:
des wrote:I think the guy who wrote 2001-- name escapes me,
That would be Arthur C. Clarke.
YIKES, of course it is! I had Isaac Asimov's name in my head and couldn't get it out. I knew it was not him.

BTW, there IS an asteroid named after Arthur C. Clark (A dubious honor? But I don't think it is a near-Earth object-- 4923 Clarke. Another (now) dubious honor is that the Odyssey of Apollo 13 was named after the craft in 2001.

Another cool factoid: In 2001, the computer singing "Daisy Bell" when its processors were cut out was done by an early speech synthesizer computer circa 1962.


--des
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Re: Apophis

Post by Benji »

des wrote:...the computer singing "Daisy Bell" when its processors were cut out was done by an early speech synthesizer computer circa 1962.
Darn it, now I have that song stuck in my head. And in crude 1962 computer vocalizations, none the less.
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Post by Mercergl »

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Re: Apophis

Post by des »

Oh sorry sorry. Funny thing though. I had an ancient computer program called "Power Secretary" put out by Dragon Dictation. Anyway, it was one of the earlier speech to text software programs. It was called "discrete dictation' because you had to say each word clearly separated from each other and use alpha, beta, echo, etc to spell (can't recall but it what pilots use). Anyway, so you would have to say I sentence like this. I... will... say.. a...sentence. Even so the accuracy was only about 75% or so. That means in a ten word sentence you would have more than 2 errors. But sometimes it said pretty funny things and sometimes even said things that you might really wish to say but wouldn't. I used to keep a file of them but sadly that computer had a crash or something and I didn't think to save these.

--des
Benji wrote:
des wrote:...the computer singing "Daisy Bell" when its processors were cut out was done by an early speech synthesizer computer circa 1962.
Darn it, now I have that song stuck in my head. And in crude 1962 computer vocalizations, none the less.
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