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Out of the Blue

[Feb 15, 2013, 10:14 am ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

We ended up laying low last night, and will go out to celebrate Valentine's Day over the weekend (after being married for a while, practicality starts to influence the romance). This weekend is also the President's Day weekend, so hopefully we won't have trouble getting into a restaurant amid all the celebrations this will inspire.

Inspired Links:	Thanks Ant and Acleacius.
Play:	Steampunk Tower.
Links:	The pleasure of finding things out about Richard Feynman.
Stories:	Ex-mayor's $1 billion gambling woes stun San Diego. Golfer Picks Out Black Widow Venom with Tee, Finishes Round. Thanks theAntiELVIS.
Science:	First bionic eye gets FDA blessing. Anti-anxiety drug found in rivers makes fish more aggressive.
Images:	'Groundhog Day' Cast: Where Are They Now?
Media:	Beercade: The Last Barfighter. Robot Chicken: A Critical Component. How Single Cats Are Spending Valentine's Day.
Follow-up:	Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks.

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20.

Re: Out of the Blue

Feb 16, 2013, 01:07

Creston

Observatories simply for near earth or middle earth objects? No. I agree. It probably wouldn't even cost that money to monitor everything (in government terms, anyway, considering NASA currently spends less than 10 million on it.) But what's the point? So you can see them coming? And then what? Contrary to Hollywood's belief, there really isn't anything we can do to stop an asteroid from hitting Earth. Shooting a nuclear weapon at them will cause more damage and cost more lives from the fallout in the atmosphere than an asteroid impact of the size that's small enough to be destroyed by a nuke. And that's IF there is a nuke that can be launched at it to intercept it, which isn't a given. The only benefit an observation system would have is for warning purposes, but it's not like people really have a place to go to evade an asteroid strike, unless they have or live near a nuclear bomb shelter. The thing that hit today did little more than break glass, and people aren't going to listen to a warning to stay away from windows anyway. And that's not even considering the fact that these thing typically break up in the atmosphere and thus are very liable to alter their course by hundreds of miles, at which point your warning is wasted. There's really no point in watching for something if you can't do anything about it. It's just wasted money. Creston

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