![]() ![]() The Pharos mission to asteroid Apophis provides the first major opportunity to enhance orbital state and scientific knowledge of the most threatening Earth-crossing asteroid that has ever been tracked. Sharma, Jonathan Lafleur, Jarret Barron, Kreston Townley, Jonathan Shah, Nilesh Apa, Jillian PHAROS: Shedding Light on the Near- Earth Asteroid Apophis Near- earth asteroid-search projects are encouraged to search the mean orbit of the present streams in order to discover additional association members. If the asteroid streams are true nonrandom associations, the opportunity arises for studies of an 'exploded' asteroid in the near- earth environment. Three association patterns have been noted among 139 earth-approaching asteroids on the basis of current orbital similarity these asteroid streams, consisting of two groups of five members and one of four, can be matched to three of the four meteorite-producing fireball streams determined by Halliday et al. In order to accomplish this objective, the mission must (1) rendezvous with a The BILLIARDS Project seeks to perform a demonstration of this mission concept in order to establish a protocol that can be used in the event of an impending Earth/asteroid collision. This would cause an impact which would disrupt the Earth-threatening asteroid or deflect it from its Earth-crossing trajectory. This approach would involve capturing an asteroid approximately ten meters in diameter with a relatively small spacecraft (compared to the launch mass of an equivalent direct kinetic impactor), and redirecting it into the path of an Earth-threatening asteroid. One method that has been proposed to deliver a kinetic impactor with impact energy approaching that of an NED is the "billiard-ball" approach. To date, no demonstration mission has been conducted for either case, and such a demonstration mission must be conducted prior to the need to utilize them during an actual scenario to ensure that an established, proven system is available for planetary defense when the need arises. Kinetic impactors require a relatively simple spacecraft compared to NEDs, but also deliver a much lower energy for a given launch mass. They also present safety and political complications, and therefore may only be used when absolutely necessary. NEDs allow for the delivery of large amounts of energy to a NEA for a given mass launched from the Earth, but have not yet been developed or tested for use in deep space. Proposed strategies for deflecting or disrupting such a threatening asteroid include detonation of a nuclear explosive device (NED) in close proximity to the asteroid, as well as intercepting the asteroid with a hypervelocity kinetic impactor. The hypervelocity nature of these collisions means that a relatively small asteroid (about a quartermile in diameter) could cause a global disaster. Marcus, Matthew Sloane, Joshua Ortiz, Oliver Barbee, Brent WilliamĬollisions from near- Earth asteroids (NEAs) have the potential to cause widespread harm to life on Earth. A weapon like the "Super" is only an advantage when its energy release is from 100-1000 times greater than that of ordinary atomic bombs.BILLIARDS: A Demonstration Mission for Hundred-Meter Class Near- Earth Asteroid Disruption ![]() Rabi, heard about Teller's 10 gigaton proposal, he is reported to have said: "It would have been a better world without Teller." On October 30, 1949, Rabi and Enrico Fermi, the man who ushered in the nuclear age, co-wrote a Minority Annex to the GAC report on Building the H-Bomb, recommending against the creation of the hydrogen bomb: "A decision on the proposal that an all-out effort be undertaken for the development of the "Super" cannot in our opinion be separated from consideration of broad national policy. When the then chairman of the General Advisory Committee (GAC) of the US Atomic Energy Commission, Israel I. And so on." We are talking just one bomb. ![]() With clinical detachment, Teller illustrated the power of his doomsday weapon: "A 10,000 megaton weapon, by my estimation, would be powerful enough to set all of New England on fire. The most disturbing part of the study is a proposal by Edward Teller, the Strangelovian inventor of the hydrogen bomb, to produce a 10 gigaton (10,000 megaton) warhead that would detonate with an explosive power 166,666 times the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. According to the 'Strategic Air Command Atomic Weapons Requirements Study for 1959', available at George Washington University's National Security Archive, major cities, including Moscow, Leningrad, Beijing, East Berlin and Krakow (Poland) were high priorities for atomic bombings. A detailed list of nuclear targets and target systems declassified in December 2015 reveals chilling details about US war plans, including the "Systematic Destruction" of population centres in the Soviet Union, China and Eastern Europe.
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