Nasa aims to move Earth

[dorkulon]

Nasa aims to move Earth
Scientists' answer to global warming: nudge the planet farther from Sun

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2001/jun/10/globalwarming.climatechange/print

Scientists have found an unusual way to prevent our planet overheating: move it to a cooler spot.

All you have to do is hurtle a few comets at Earth, and its orbit will be altered. Our world will then be sent spinning into a safer, colder part of the solar system.

This startling idea of improving our interplanetary neighbourhood is the brainchild of a group of Nasa engineers and American astronomers who say their plan could add another six billion years to the useful lifetime of our planet - effectively doubling its working life.

--snip--

The plan put forward by Dr Laughlin, and his colleagues Don Korycansky and Fred Adams, involves carefully directing a comet or asteroid so that it sweeps close past our planet and transfers some of its gravitational energy to Earth.

'Earth's orbital speed would increase as a result and we would move to a higher orbit away from the Sun,' Laughlin said.

--snip--

The plan has one or two worrying aspects, however. For a start, space engineers would have to be very careful about how they directed their asteroid or comet towards Earth. The slightest miscalculation in orbit could fire it straight at Earth - with devastating consequences.

It is a point acknowledged by the group. 'The collision of a 100-kilometre diameter object with the Earth at cosmic velocity would sterilise the biosphere most effectively, at least to the level of bacteria,' they state in a paper in Astrophysics and Space Science. 'The danger cannot be overemphasised.'

There is also the vexed question of the Moon. As the current issue of Scientific American points out, if Earth was pushed out of its current position it is 'most likely the Moon would be stripped away from Earth,' it states, radically upsetting out planet's climate.

I'm sure nothing could possibli go wrong.
:scared:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. ...

[qazplm]

19. He's a one-trick pony

(It's a pretty big pony).

[TexasObserver]

2. Tugg Speedman film to follow.

[Deja Q]

3. Dumb.

Divers already have means to recycle carbon dioxide into oxygen.

Apart from natural photosynthesis, an analogue of the process could be used on a planetary scale. Less CO2 = less global warming.

Who the frig needs to be a rocket scientist?

So where's MY peace prize and pony? I'm not scaremongering and profiting off of it. I'm just offering solutions. And ponies are tasty too. :9

[Blue_Tires]

4. wow...the absolute intergalactic lengths we would go just to avoid

any major lifestyle changes....

[JHB]

7. Technically, this would be merely interplanetary...

...but either way I wouldn't count on seeing any comet flybys anytime soon.

[dorkulon]

8. The article also refers to the eventual heating of the sun in a billion years or so

By then, we might have a handle on it. Like we'll ever last that long. :eyes:

[Blue_Tires]

17. funny you bring that up

a DUer posted this famous short story last week:

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

[Kalyke]

38. Wow on May 14, 2061, my son will be turning 62.

:)

[csziggy]

26. Yep - it is not a serious proposal for handling current global warming

In the short term, the plan provides an ideal solution to global warming, although the team was actually concerned with a more drastic danger. The sun is destined to heat up in about a billion years and so 'seriously compromise' our biosphere - by frying us.

I suspect the reporter spun this to make it of more immediately interest rather than a dry idea that might be useful in some far distant future.

[Ron Green]

5. Ah, back in my Salad Days,

the earth would move from time to time.

[Forkboy]

6. Well, sex with me would achieve that.

:hide:

[Deja Q]

9. Have any plans for this weekend?

:evilgrin:

[Forkboy]

18. LOL....do you work for NASA?

And is that a rocket in your pants or are you just happy to see me? ;)

[SemiCharmedQuark]

10. Yeah I saw this on Futurama.

Wernstrom!!!

[Buns_of_Fire]

27. "An Inconvenient Truth" even uses the mini-documentary from that episode, if I recall.

So, if we all aim our exhaust in the same direction...

[Beetwasher]

11. Comet??? Just Give Me A Big Enough Lever And Fulcrum

You do the math.

[JHB]

12. A humongous solar sail would be a safer version of this plan...

...as long as it didn't fall.

[Buzz Clik]

13. I vote we scrap that plan and simply cut our greenhouse gas emissions.

[pipi_k]

14. I have a better idea...

the entire world population gets together on one side of the planet, eats tons of baked beans and sauerkraut, and farts the planet a bit further from the sun.

If we do it slowly enough, we can get the moon to follow

[HopeHoops]

20. And boiled cabbage - don't forget that!

It just might work!

[pipi_k]

23. And a few lbs. of sugarless candy for everyone, just to make sure...

:7

[Soylent Brice]

15. uh, how about we try stopping pollution first. just a thought.

[Bill219]

16. I guess these guys have never watched Thundarr the Barbarian

In the opening credits, everything bad that happens to the earth is because of a comet.

In the year 1994, a comet hurtles between Earth and the moon. The moon is destroyed, and the Earth loses its ozone layer--causing the entire planet to be laid waste. Centuries later, Earth has become "a world of savagery, super-science, and sorcery," inhabited by various evildoers, scavengers, and magicians. Thundarr, a warrior who wields a powerful sword, is joined by his friends Ookla the Mok and Princess Ariel as they make their way through this strange world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kIIc4tvtF0&feature=related

[Blue_Tires]

21. lol...when i was a kid i actually thought that would happen in 1994

looking back, i am amused that they were not able to rebuild some sort of functioning societies after all those centuries...

[JHB]

22. How could the moon have been destroyed in 1994...

...when everybody knows it was blasted out of orbit in 1999?

[Bill219]

25. touche

;-)

[redqueen]

24. This is 8 years old. The plan is meant to deal with avoiding an expanding sun.

Journalism... pfft.

[Echo In Light]

28. "America can, will, and should blow up the moon."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csj7vMKy4EI

[csziggy]

29. And the Bush administration talked about cooling the Earth with smoke and mirrors!

US answer to global warming: smoke and giant space mirrors

Washington urges scientists to develop ways to reflect sunlight as 'insurance'

* David Adam, environment correspondent
* The Guardian, Saturday 27 January 2007

The US government wants the world's scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming, the Guardian has learned. It says research into techniques such as giant mirrors in space or reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere would be "important insurance" against rising emissions, and has lobbied for such a strategy to be recommended by a major UN report on climate change, the first part of which will be published on Friday.

<SNIP>

The US response, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, says the idea of interfering with sunlight should be included in the summary for policymakers, the prominent chapter at the front of each IPCC report. It says: "Modifying solar radiance may be an important strategy if mitigation of emissions fails. Doing the R&D to estimate the consequences of applying such a strategy is important insurance that should be taken out. This is a very important possibility that should be considered."

Scientists have previously estimated that reflecting less than 1% of sunlight back into space could compensate for the warming generated by all greenhouse gases emitted since the industrial revolution. Possible techniques include putting a giant screen into orbit, thousands of tiny, shiny balloons, or microscopic sulphate droplets pumped into the high atmosphere to mimic the cooling effects of a volcanic eruption. The IPCC draft said such ideas were "speculative, uncosted and with potential unknown side-effects".

<SNIP>

The likely contents of the report have been an open secret since the Bush administration posted its draft copy on the internet in April. Next week's science report will say there is a 90% chance that human activity is warming the planet, and that global average temperatures will rise another 1.5C to 5.8C this century depending on emissions. The US response shows it accepts these statements, but it disagrees with a more tentative conclusion that rising temperatures have made hurricanes more powerful.

See the US document here: http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2007/01/26/USGReview_pp6_7.pdf

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jan/27/usnews.frontpagenews

[dorkulon]

30. "Ever since the beginning of time, man has yearned to blot out the sun."

[csziggy]

35. I need one of those on the west side of my house

For about two weeks each spring and fall, the sun shines straight into my kitchen window.

Of course, the reason it only does it a few weeks a year, we planted trees to shade the house but had to leave a slot for the driveway. :eyes:

The east and south sides get more sun, but I have plans for what to plant to shade on those sides to shade them.

[LeftHander]

31. brilliant....

The earth floating aimlessly in space turning into a ice ball.

[piratefish08]

32. Oh - THAT should end well............

:sarcasm:

[sinkingfeeling]

33. I can't think of any risk involved in this plan. Can you?

[Orsino]

37. I think the outer solar system will greet us as liberators.

Could take six days, maybe six weeks...I doubt six months.

[question everything]

34. Just like the Losties moved the island? (nt)

[Fumesucker]

36. The idea has been around in SF for quite some time now..

The first time I recall reading it was in this book from 1976..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_World_Out_of_Time