[ExI] Asteroid on track for possible Mars hit

[Stefano Vaj]

On Dec 23, 2007 7:02 PM, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> I don't see many reasons to do so. There are some suggestions to land
> a ion or nuclear drive on a rock, but that'd take years for forewarning.

So, I did a quick check and it seems that a bare 1,080 fission bombs
with 1958 technology would already deliver us an Orion payload of
8,000 tons hitting the threatening rock. Unless we are talking a
really massive neo, this should be make an impression... The extremely
high performance would permit even a late launch to succeed, and the
vehicle could effectively transfer a large amount of kinetic energy to
the asteroid by simple impact. Also, an automated mission would
eliminate the most problematic issues of the design: the shock
absorbers.

Stefano Vaj