When you listen to Apollo astronautRusty Schweickarttalk about the US government ’s current attack to distract ELE asteroid away from Earth , you ’d be excused for cogitate the great mind at NASA had watch Armageddon a few too many times . That ’s because NASA ’s preferred method , as outlinedin a 2007 report , is to blast threaten asteroids out of the sky with nuclear artillery . The approach is America , Fuck Yeah!-approved , for sure , but at the very least it ’s ineffective , Schweickart told meeter during a public lecture in San Francisco last week . At the very worst it ’s a government - pressured nightmare scenario the right way out of Dr. Strangelove .
First of all , understand that Schweickart loves NASA . The office put him in orbital cavity around Earth , after all , but he believes its immediate payment - strapped later old age might have lead the agency - under immense pressure from Washington - to endorse a program with an ulterior motive : put atomic weapon system in space .
To remedy that situation , Schweickart ’s group , theB612 Foundation , intends to “ use gentler tactics ” to keep and eventually deflect asteroids . It ’s totally make love , not intergalactic war , man .
These new methods let in using more hefty scope as they come online throughout this 100 to ID object ASAP , as well as unmanned spacecraft and probes . Most asteroids could be redirected easily by fundament - ending or tow them with these craftiness , Schweickart said .
In his lecture Schweickart compared Earth ’s citizens to a blindfolded hitter in a batten coop . We know the painfulness is come , but we have no elbow room of knowing when . One day we will , and people like Schweickart Leslie Townes Hope we ’ll be ready to respond with the most effective means possible . According to him , that means no thermonuclear warhead . Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum will simply have to incur another room to stamp out the aliens . [ Wired ]
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