What if the invention of the nuclear bomb will save planet Earth one day?

[Deleted]

Of course, the point would be to change the asteroid's route for just a few degrees, just to make it miss Earth

PS: I don't know that movie Armageddon.

There are much better ways of doing that that don't involve blowing the asteroid in bits, blowing the asteroid in bits would make small (=ranging from 1-50m diameter) parts who would rain down on the earth, which would do a lot of damage.

[Deleted]

I don't know why people dismiss the theory that nukes could destroy an asteroid. Sure, if it's the size of our Moon, then they won't, but we're talking about a regular sized asteroid like the one that wiped the dinosaurs. So, for the record, let's say there's an asteroid as big as Florida made of earth and metals.

Only Russia has over 1000 nukes alone. Worldwide countries have even more, and we'd have 10 more years to prepare. Imagine 10.000 nukes fired at an asteroid that size! Only pebbles would even reach the athmosphere.

[XDurionX]

Of course, the point would be to change the asteroid's route for just a few degrees, just to make it miss Earth

PS: I don't know that movie Armageddon.

Except that we can´t change the route by "a few degrees". You underestimate the impulse of huge rocks travelling at tens of thousands of kilometers per hour. The impact of our biggest hydrogen bombs is veeery limited. Even if we´d manage to land and drill a hole to plant the bomb in. We could create a small crater, nothing more.

Solar sails et. al. seem to be more promising, even if we ignore the fact that with 99,99% probability we won´t even notice the rock that kills us.

I don't know why people dismiss the theory that nukes could destroy an asteroid. Sure, if it's the size of our Moon, then they won't, but we're talking about a regular sized asteroid like the one that wiped the dinosaurs. So, for the record, let's say there's an asteroid as big as Florida made of earth and metals.

Only Russia has over 1000 nukes alone. Worldwide countries have even more, and we'd have 10 more years to prepare. Imagine 10.000 nukes fired at an asteroid that size! Only pebbles would even reach the athmosphere.

We can´t launch 10.000 nukes into space. At this point, we can´t even launch a single one into space without months/years of preparation. Let alone hit an asteroid with them. That´s not how it works. Our nuclear warheads are NOTHING on a cosmic scale.

[Dezerte]

I don't know why people dismiss the theory that nukes could destroy an asteroid. Sure, if it's the size of our Moon, then they won't, but we're talking about a regular sized asteroid like the one that wiped the dinosaurs. So, for the record, let's say there's an asteroid as big as Florida made of earth and metals.

Only Russia has over 1000 nukes alone. Worldwide countries have even more, and we'd have 10 more years to prepare. Imagine 10.000 nukes fired at an asteroid that size! Only pebbles would even reach the athmosphere.

Nukes behave drastically different in the vacuum of space.

[Rafoel]

I don't know why people dismiss the theory that nukes could destroy an asteroid. Sure, if it's the size of our Moon, then they won't, but we're talking about a regular sized asteroid like the one that wiped the dinosaurs. So, for the record, let's say there's an asteroid as big as Florida made of earth and metals.

Only Russia has over 1000 nukes alone. Worldwide countries have even more, and we'd have 10 more years to prepare. Imagine 10.000 nukes fired at an asteroid that size! Only pebbles would even reach the athmosphere.

Nope. Asteroid that wiped the dinosaurs carried more kinetic energy than all nuclear bombs humans have.

[Nadiru]

What do you mean "will save planet Earth one day?" The invention of the nuclear bomb has prevented all kinds of bad shit from happening so far.

[Sierra85]

i am more worried about someone nuclear bombing the moon

[Reeve]

I don't know why people dismiss the theory that nukes could destroy an asteroid. Sure, if it's the size of our Moon, then they won't, but we're talking about a regular sized asteroid like the one that wiped the dinosaurs. So, for the record, let's say there's an asteroid as big as Florida made of earth and metals.

Only Russia has over 1000 nukes alone. Worldwide countries have even more, and we'd have 10 more years to prepare. Imagine 10.000 nukes fired at an asteroid that size! Only pebbles would even reach the athmosphere.

But why? If you've got 10 years, sending some rockets without warheads to impact into the asteroid would set it enough off course to avoid hitting Earth 10 years from now. No nukes needed.

Hell, you could probably just spraypaint the thing white and the extra pressure from solar radiation would push it off course.

And even if you did blow it up and only pebbles reached the atmosphere, enough pebbles burning up in the atmosphere at once could create a nasty warming effect, and then possibly a cooling effect from all the dust up there.

[Deleted]

yey!
instead of one giant rock to deal with in a more appropriate manner, we now have a shot gun blast of highly radioactive material burning up in the atmosphere. Never mind the damage caused by the rocks that get through, the radioactive dust from the bits that get through would be akin to a dirty bomb And lets not forget that earth goes round in a circle round the sun, so we would have to contend with going through a radioactive cloud of meteor's and meteorites every year.

Well done, your nuking the asteroid has saved the earth, but turned into a target for a radioactive shotgun.

[Zantos]

Doubtful. Would you really want radioactive chunks of meteor guts falling all over the planet? The repercussions of such a thing are bad. If it was a bomb that wasn't going to turn the debris into radioactive stuff then sure. Like some else said, our current bombs would Not break the meteor apart at all. I mean, they blow away structures sure, but they don't do any real damage to the planet.

[Wyshbonez]

Seems like the plot to Armageddon

[zorkuus]

Trying to stop a big asteroid with a nuke is like trying to stop a jumbojet with an air gun.

[Hammerfest]

I think that show Sliders explored this idea long before the Michael Bay Armageddon movie. ("Armageddon" was such a stupid title for that film.)

[Teph]

We should gather all of our waste, form it to a giant ball and launch it at the asteroid to bounce it off.

[Deleted]

I don't know why people dismiss the theory that nukes could destroy an asteroid. Sure, if it's the size of our Moon, then they won't, but we're talking about a regular sized asteroid like the one that wiped the dinosaurs. So, for the record, let's say there's an asteroid as big as Florida made of earth and metals.

Only Russia has over 1000 nukes alone. Worldwide countries have even more, and we'd have 10 more years to prepare. Imagine 10.000 nukes fired at an asteroid that size! Only pebbles would even reach the athmosphere.

Radioactive pebbles* Lots and lots and lots of radiactive pebbles.

[Revi]

You could say the political and cultural reactions after WW2 has already saved and improved the lives of potentially billions of people.

[Voij]

You mean like the genocide in Ruanda or 9/11?

More to check here (obviously ignore the ones pre-atomic bomb invention). And then there is http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/massacre.html

I may have read this wrong, correct me if I did, but your statement seems to me as though you were trying to dismiss his point, that nuclear bombs prevented a lot of terrible stuff from happening, by arguing that not ALL terrible things were prevented.
If so, then that's a terrible way to argue.

[Deleted]

What happens when the asteroid comes from the direction of the sun? The one that hit russia last year or the year before that, none knew it was coming until it hit. Having a nuke wouldnt save you if you can't see it coming.

[Lyllian]

Disclaimer: I'm not someone pro-war or something like that.

Introduction: technology has been improved through centuries mainly because of military purposes. The main military invention of the last century was the terrible atomic bomb, which made millions of innocent victims and is actually used as a warning for enemy nations.

Wrong, nuclear weapons have only directly claimed around 220 thousand lives since their invention. Conventional weapons have killed between 150 million to one billion throughout Human history.

Whilst nuclear weapons are very powerful, they are a weapon of last resort, and will never come close to the overall lethality of other weapons. Hell each year worldwide over four times as many people die in car accidents than have ever been killed by nuclear weapons.

[dextersmith]

Nukes released in space (near earth) cause huge tech issues. It's ok though, just call Superman, Goku, Aquaman, or the Smurfs.