© 2005 All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute or repurpose this work without written permission from the copyright holder(s).
Printed from https://danginteresting.com/retired/saving-the-world-one-ton-at-a-time/
This article is marked as 'retired'. The information here may be out of date, incomplete, and/or incorrect.
Today Space.com reported a new and exciting plan to save the Earth from a possible asteroid collision that doesn’t involve either Bruce Willis or Elijah Wood.
The idea, in a nutshell, it to build a 20 ton spacecraft that will approach the threatening asteroid, and use it’s weight to draw the asteroid toward it. The thrusters are situated so that the exhaust won’t disrupt the delicate gravitational bond, and the craft’s mass will slowly shift the asteroid’s course.
Sometimes the simplest ideas are the most elegant but I see one small flaw … launching 1 pound of material into space is $10,000, right?
1 tons = 2000 lbs
20 ton spacecraft = 40000 lbs
40000 lbs of ship = $400,000,000 launch.
“We’re sorry, we can’t afford to save the Earth today.”
© 2005 All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute or repurpose this work without written permission from the copyright holder(s).
Printed from https://danginteresting.com/retired/saving-the-world-one-ton-at-a-time/
Since you enjoyed our work enough to print it out, and read it clear to the end, would you consider donating a few dollars at https://danginteresting.com/donate ?