PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet ESSAY, 5 October 2000
PEEKING THROUGH CRYSTAL BALLS,
OR WHY WE SHOUDN'T GAMBLE ON THE IMPACT HAZARD
By Bob Kobres <bkobres@uga.edu>
"In my opinion, we are not
adequately addressing even the front
end of this situation until we have
placed detectors where it
doesn't matter whether the weather is
fine or foul. We can, in the
clear light of Space, find, catalog, and
keep track of all those
little bits and pieces that, while not
globally threatening, would
not be welcomed into anyone's
neighborhood!"
-- Bob
Kobres, 5 October 2000
Hey, I want one of those crystal balls that some of you guys must
be
using!
From: http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc100200.html
[. . .]
The first concern is regarding the usage of nuclear power to
mitigate an
impactor. Although the report focuses on the nuclear bomb as one
of many
mitigation methods, it is mentioned explicitly. Some military
people use
the NEA problem to maintain the nuclear bomb. Yet, it is more
dangerous
to keep it than to have a NEA collision in the near future. If we
would
determine all the orbits of hazardous NEA, we could determine
their
collision time well in advance and could mitigate an threat by
some
methods except the nuclear bomb. In any case, it is the most
important
aspect of NEO resesarch to detect all the hazardous NEA since
otherwise
we cannot make any types of mitigation.
[. . .]
Syuzo Isobe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That it is more dangerous to retain the option of using nuclear
devices
than to have a NEA collision in the near future is an assertion
with
very little, if any, fact to back it up.
This subject has come up before:
From: http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc062598.html
Nuclear reaimament is what I called the potential to convert
nuclear
weapon technology to the task of Earth-defense. Let's face it,
the
genie is out of the bottle. See: http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/1908.html
While there is no way to ensure that this knowledge will not
again be
used to destroy life and property there are ways to make it less
likely
for that to happen. Rather than rehash the steps that could be
taken,
I'll point the reader to earlier documents that express some
still
pertinent ideas:
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/nucreaim.html
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/rma.html
I'm no advocate of large-scale Earth-based nuclear use. All we've
managed to do with nuclear energy technology is boil water with a
vengeance, creating a good deal of waste heat plus nuclear waste
storage problems. With nuclear weapons we've actually blown
adversaries
to smithereens and threatened to do so again, ultimately leading
to
various strategic plans of MAD (suicidal vengeance). In other
words the
nuclear-power-genie is a beast in the biosphere-better to banish
what
we've made to the Moon! By verifiably removing weapon grade
nuclear
material from Earth, in conjunction with international
cooperative Space
development aimed at reducing the need of high grade energy
within the
biosphere, we can greatly reduce the potential for conditions
that might
cause a reactionary mess on our planet.
[continued]