The world will likely be a very different place in 2040.
Saudi Arabia may no longer be relevant and may not even exist by then even without death from the skies befalling it. Peak oil, regional wars, a new global war are all possibilities that could contribute to that.
The optimal outcome would be that the asteroid hits the Israel/Palestina area, thus forcing *both* populations to evacuate overseas and turning the "Holy Land" into a nice crater lake. Its just about the only way to get peace in the region.
Bad for arcaeologists, a blessing for everyone else.
-StevoR, by 2040 they may have cloning technologies for humans. Locate Muhammed's grave, create a couple of hundred clones and watch the fundamentalists' heads explode!
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I think we should slice off several hundred tonnes of useful regolith raw material from either this one or Aphopis, use atmosphereic braking to insert it into orbit and suddenly we have space habitats with all the silica and oxygen they need.
about this asteroid - and plans by Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweikart to possibly shift it out of the way. In case this is useful / interesting for folks which I hope it is.
Good. Let's hope it lands in Saudi Arabia thus solving several of our problems all at once.
Whoah! Poassible death from the skies - albiet 625 to one against if I live another thirty odd years. Curious not frightening really.
So what's that on the Torino scale? How does 2011 AG5 compare with Apophis -and how long until it gets a better more ominous sounding name?
@1.Vince Whirlwind :
The world will likely be a very different place in 2040.
Saudi Arabia may no longer be relevant and may not even exist by then even without death from the skies befalling it. Peak oil, regional wars, a new global war are all possibilities that could contribute to that.
Who knows what things will be like by then?
The optimal outcome would be that the asteroid hits the Israel/Palestina area, thus forcing *both* populations to evacuate overseas and turning the "Holy Land" into a nice crater lake. Its just about the only way to get peace in the region.
Bad for arcaeologists, a blessing for everyone else.
-StevoR, by 2040 they may have cloning technologies for humans. Locate Muhammed's grave, create a couple of hundred clones and watch the fundamentalists' heads explode!
--- --- --- -- ----
I think we should slice off several hundred tonnes of useful regolith raw material from either this one or Aphopis, use atmosphereic braking to insert it into orbit and suddenly we have space habitats with all the silica and oxygen they need.
The Bad Astronomy blog has now got a good post up here :
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/03/06/asteroid-2011…
about this asteroid - and plans by Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweikart to possibly shift it out of the way. In case this is useful / interesting for folks which I hope it is.