Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

What could possibly go wrong?

Link wasn't paywalled for me.



https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-ne...test-defences/

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

Having had no asteroid take out the earth in however many millions of years we have been here, I have to ask is it really necessary?


The millions of pounds this will cost when there are people without food or more important problems in the world to face right now. Hmmm.

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

Crisis planning necessitates preparing for a crisis when one is not imminent. To be blunt, I’ve always found the “but people are starving” line a bit cheap - intended to win an argument by virtue signalling rather than by genuine engagement with the issues.

Sure, people are starving. Sure we should be doing something about that. But is that the only thing we should be doing?

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

Well, Tunguska was just over a hundred years ago…

https://earthsky.org/space/evidence-...ts-since-2000/

And Chelyabinsk was only 8 years ago.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/five-ye...etary-defense/

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

I guess it depends on whether you actually want the human race to survive whenever such an emergency arises in the future. It’s only a matter of time. It may be in a million years or it might be next week.

As for hunger and poverty - even Jesus recognised that there will always be the poor in any society. And I’m not going to start an argument with Him. :erm:

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

In none of scriptures regarding Jesus did he ever say or infer that. In fact the opposite as he referred to the coming of Gods Kingdom that later in the bible tells of an end of suffering. But that is all another subject entirely

I think the money can be better spent. With our level of technology as it is we have no chance of diverting anything big enough to do enough damage and lets face it if something was coming in the relative near future they already know about. In fact maybe they do and this is their attempt to see if they need to tell us the end is nigh

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

Or, using your logic, they are spending the money to prevent it.

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

maybe. Lets hope so. The megalomaniac I was when i was young would have loved the idea of the world ending and everyone dying when I did but since I had kids I regained a small amount of my sanity

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

I'm curious, do you go out for drinks, concerts, football, or other sport/entertainment/things, or do you give all your money to to people without food ?

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

Even if he did would it amount to hundreds of millions?

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

The result of a coin flip is not determined by the past results. Just because all previous flips have been heads, does not mean the next flip will also be heads.

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

How is that relevant ?

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

Apparently it doesn't really matter. Accoring to Insulate Britain and Climate Extreme we are all going to die anyway so what's the point?

Oh, I forgot, we've got to save the planet. As if that would cease to exist...

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

The chances of it being heads reduces every flip to, we're probably over due a biggie by now anyway, the thing that has surprised me in the past is how close some of the near misses have got before we've even spotted them

Because we are about to spend hundreds of millions on it, actually we don't give all our money as a country to the poor either so it probably wasn't a very valid comparison to have tried to make anyway imo

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

No we aren't, NASA is. In case you didn't know NASA is funded by and based in the USA.

We also spent over £17 billion on aid to other "poorer" countries.

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

They don't really need to be 'big' to cause widespread damage/devastation, they just have to hit - or explode over - the wrong place.

Something half the size of the Tunguska one would cause a bit of a splash in the ocean, but hitting New York, London, Tokyo . . or a Nuclear power station . . or a critical point on the California fault line . . or kick starting Yellowstone etc.

It wouldn't kill us off, but the far reaching consequences aren't good.

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

Ofcourse I do. But I also give to charity.


I see your point. They can't be truly compared against each other.

---------- Post added at 09:53 ---------- Previous post was at 09:52 ----------




We may be living on another planet one day. Those remaining on earth get nuked and the others living on another newly established place take over.

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

This is the gambler’s fallacy. The outcome of one coin toss doesn’t affect the outcome of any future toss. Every coin toss still has odds of 50/50. Even if you get 10 heads in a row, the odds on the 11th toss are still 50/50.

The odds of a major impact event can be calculated by looking at how often these things have happened in the past, but that’s all it is - an estimate of how many times something will happen in the future based on how many times it has happened in the past. If a once-in-a-century event doesn’t occur for 5 centuries, then we don’t assume an event is imminent, but we do perhaps recalculate the odds.

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

I was talking about us as a species, in case you didn't know we are all human and exacting 17 billion isn't all our money like what was expected of Halcyon

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

Slightly off topic but.... Surely some coins have more weight to one side or the other. eg. the more embossed area of the queens head against whatever is on the flip side.
This could influence the toss.


As to asteroids....We are safe for another 100 years atleast.
I'd be more worried about heading up in a rocket and crashing into space debris.

Re: Nasa to crash spacecraft into asteroid in 'Armageddon' test of defences
 

The odds of the coin toss might be near to 50/50 each individual toss but in terms of probability you aren't going to toss 50 heads out of 50. That notwithstanding your second paragraph is probably a far better way of assessing it rather than flipping a coin!

---------- Post added at 10:57 ---------- Previous post was at 10:53 ----------

It's true I remember some egg head report saying similar, I'd try and find it but my eyesight isn't good at the moment, don't think they insinuated anything untoward like a weightier side or anything, just that heads wins slightly more often