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[TheBiggerFish]

I remember once trying to calculate how much of the surface area of Australia could be actually incinerated by US nuclear weapons. I ended up estimating between 1/3 and 1/2 of all land in Australia could be caught in the direct blast (which, it occured to me latter, is probably wildly unnecessary given how freaking empty Australia is; this would be only useful if Australia was overrun by mutant fungus or something).

....It's Australia, you think they're not going to be overrun by mutant fungus and/or emus at some point?

[wierd]

Seriously, if you are looking to cause an extinction level event, all you need is a few well placed nukes just ahead or behind of earth orbit, to redirect some really big space rocks.

For a tiny fraction of the cost to glass AU, you can destroy all complex life on the planet. Be economical here, if you intend to be a super-villain.

[Egan_BW]

Can you actually meaningfully and accurately redirect asteroid trajectories with just nukes? If so, why haven't we knocked a juicy one into orbit to mine yet?

[Sirus]

Had a fairly close encounter with a train today.

[TheBiggerFish]

Eep!  No having close encounters with trains, Sirus!  :v

Glad you're alright though.

[Frumple]

Long as you're alright and your vehicle in one piece?

Can you actually meaningfully and accurately redirect asteroid trajectories with just nukes? If so, why haven't we knocked a juicy one into orbit to mine yet?

Cost, mostly, near as I can recall. Our lift capacity (up and down) isn't quite to the point it would be worth the price to do the mining, never mind the actual nuke part (and getting the world's nuclear powers to sign off on openly putting nukes into space to begin with). Beyond that, while we're pretty damn good at the whole orbital mechanics thing at this point, we're not quite to the level anyone in particular would be comfortable playing nuclear billiards with asteroids and our only planet as the corner pocket. Also you'd again have to convince world powers to let you do that, when a cockup can mean tunguska except in downtown LA or something. People get rather skittish when a cockup means tunguska in the middle of an urban area.

Basically, even if we do have the technical capability, it's still going to be quite a while before someone gets to try it without someone shooting them for the attempt.

[Egan_BW]

Sounds like a job for mad science.

[Emma]

I remember once trying to calculate how much of the surface area of Australia could be actually incinerated by US nuclear weapons. I ended up estimating between 1/3 and 1/2 of all land in Australia could be caught in the direct blast (which, it occured to me latter, is probably wildly unnecessary given how freaking empty Australia is; this would be only useful if Australia was overrun by mutant fungus or something).

....It's Australia, you think they're not going to be overrun by mutant fungus and/or emus at some point?

Just a reminder to you all that Australia has gone to war with the emus before. We lost.

The Great Emu War

[wierd]

Can you actually meaningfully and accurately redirect asteroid trajectories with just nukes? If so, why haven't we knocked a juicy one into orbit to mine yet?

If sufficient angular trajectory is allowed for, YES. (.1 degrees, over several hundred thousand miles travel distance, is *A LOT* of deviation See? One nudge at 100,000mi, resulting in a .1deg change in trajectory, will result in a 174.5 mile deviation. Do that several times at the right times, and you can steer that asteroid wherever you want.. Proper planning and delivery would allow this to happen.)

We have not, because:

1) Cost of imprecise calculation is having a big asteroid hit the planet.
2) It is illegal to launch nukes into space like that.

However, if you are a mad scientist, who WANTS to kill all life on the planet, those two pitfalls are meaningless, and for the cost of a few stolen ICBMs with nukes on the end, he can doom the entire planet, on the cheap.

[hops]

Why would you use nukes anyways? I feel like the radiation would be wasted on a piece of rock, and make mining harder.

[Lord Shonus]

Short of putting a rocket motor with lots of fuel on there (which would potentially be better because it would be sustained acceleration instead of transient) a nuclear explosive would give you the greatest amount of delta-V for the mass cost. Nothing else we have rivals the energy density of a nuclear warhead, and (despite alarmist propaganda) the long-term radiation from a nuclear blast isn't that severe, particularly in space (where most of the fallout would disperse harmlessly).

[wierd]

For the purposes of global annihilation, It is very hard to pack the same energy/kg ratio for fuel to divert the asteroid. Especially when the REASON you want the asteroid, is to use it as a kinetic impactor.

For the purposes of mining it, in addition to all the ethical and legal issues of trying to orbit one (Due to the risk of, you know, dropping it on somebody because you were a decimal place off in your calculations, or forgot to account for the gravitational influence of the moon, or whathaveyou) YES-- it being irradiated would be another difficult problem, which if you decided was too significant, you will then greatly increase the costs of the mission to use significantly less energy dense fuels to divert said asteroid, greatly increasing launch costs of your mission.

Again, the statement was that if you wanted to -- eg, "destroy Australia", you need not use the entire world's arsenal of nuclear weapons. You only need a tiny fraction thereof, if you decide that you want to use a giant flipping meteor instead.

[Egan_BW]

Still, it makes no sense that someone would rather use the same amount of resources to kill us all than to give us all cheap minerals. Most people with lots of nukes would probably prefer the latter scenario.

[Helgoland]

Short of putting a rocket motor with lots of fuel on there (which would potentially be better because it would be sustained acceleration instead of transient) a nuclear explosive would give you the greatest amount of delta-V for the mass cost. Nothing else we have rivals the energy density of a nuclear warhead, and (despite alarmist propaganda) the long-term radiation from a nuclear blast isn't that severe, particularly in space (where most of the fallout would disperse harmlessly).

Actually, couldn't you use a nuclear reactor to heat up part of the asteroid's mass and expel it into space? That should be much more efficient than effectively using the nuke itself as reaction mass.

[Egan_BW]

Even better if you do heating using a laser. Nuke powered laser asteroid mover.