From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sun May 25 2003 - 02:33:24 MDT
On Fri, May 23, 2003 at 03:57:55PM -0700, Party of Citizens wrote:
> NASA and USM are considering going out and moving smaller rocks in
> the asteroid belt which may collide with earth. What is the biggest rock
> you think could be moved around by modern rockets?
It is all a matter of how much time you take. Even a fireworks rocket
can, if it fires long enough, impart enough delta-v on an object to
change is orbit completely. Also, if you have plenty of lead time you
can impart a small delta V into the object - the displacement will grow
at least linearly with time.
Take a look at http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/index.htm for some analysis.
It looks slightly dated (given current rock-pile models), but it makes a
comparision between some near future methods (and some utterly far out
ideas).
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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