Submitted by Soupjoe5 t3_ym13y6 in Futurology
Comments
spydersens t1_iv3p7kq wrote
Pragmatically speaking national defense and military threat are of mus=ch more use to anyone than asteroids. Humans are a threat, asteroids are a possible threat.
PandaCommando69 t1_iv2locr wrote
Now that there's a space force, expect more money to be funneled into this area.
IAmAStory t1_iv2xf11 wrote
Indeed. The space force will require ample air conditioning.
drklunk t1_iv44wxu wrote
Funny enough, a giant asteroid could save the US trillions in weapon manufacturing and war efforts
FireWireBestWire t1_iv3bdax wrote
I mean, if you want the military to have computers, they need air conditioning
Jacob_181 t1_iv32yld wrote
Well, if you accomplish very little for 5 decades straight, eventually your budget is going to get cut.
Fastfaxr t1_iv485de wrote
Is going to the moon the only thing you would consider an accomplishment?
Jacob_181 t1_iv4bdii wrote
Pretty much,
People are trying claim telescopes and rovers are some kind of an accomplishment,
FYI, we wouldn't be sending these things into space if we were still sending people more that 250 miles up.
N00B_Skater t1_iv51hmy wrote
lol, the telescopes weve sent have given us much more knowledge than 20 Moon missions or manned landings on Mars could ever have.
They‘re not as flashy but much more useful.
Jacob_181 t1_iv54baq wrote
Funny thing is we could have had both.
N00B_Skater t1_iv5qpi7 wrote
Yes we probably could have, im not even trying to argue that the US budget isnt leaning to far into the Military or that Nasa shouldnt get more.
Im just saying that Telescopes, probes and Rovers are very much accomplishments and they have brought us a wealth of knowledge at a fraction of the cost of actual manned missions.
shesgoneagain72 t1_iv1mghy wrote
I think this exercise was an excellent idea and preparedness. I wonder what's with all the sudden interested though. This exercise along with them sending up DART recently. I hope they don't know something we don't know.
Whitey98 t1_iv2cb3c wrote
Fuck it. Let it happen. This place isn’t getting any better
laminarstasis t1_iv2eusy wrote
....I'm with Whitey on this one
Words_Are_Hrad t1_iv2tacx wrote
I wanna be near the impact zone so I can compare it to our CGI renditions.
Whitey98 t1_iv2wnog wrote
I’d rather be a pile of cosmic dust most days. Lol
…oh wait I am. Nm
JeffFromSchool t1_iv35hpe wrote
Yes it is lol but okay.
Night_Sky_Watcher t1_iv3tu1n wrote
"Sudden interest"? We geologists have been screaming about the risk since we figured out what killed the dinosaurs. Possibly NASA has reached the critical mass of geologists internally due to their planetary research programs. We've got opinions on the governmental approach (or lack thereof) to other natural hazards, too.
borrowedstrange t1_iv435yk wrote
They know we can’t get shit done during a crisis.
Jacob_181 t1_iv3319k wrote
>I wonder what's with all the sudden interested though.
They need money
Astrocreep_1 t1_iv1ypl6 wrote
Does anyone remember how well the USA government responded to hurricane Katrina? I remember, because I was there.
Can we handle an asteroid impact? Lmao, that’s a knee slapper.
virusofthemind t1_iv21wtx wrote
If there was an asteroid heading for earth the entire planet would be in agreement and the cost would be immaterial even if it was the entire economic output of earth to stop it from hitting.
Substantial_Bend_656 t1_iv26h8s wrote
You are funny, in reality half of the planet would believe the asteroid is a lie, or that it won’t be so bad, or that it will change it’s mind and make a u-turn.
RedditWaq t1_iv2hrrn wrote
Yeah nope. We've done collective action plenty of times against actual threats no matter how grim and soft the pessimists make us look
Alternative-Sock-444 t1_iv33s2t wrote
Have you forgotten about that whole pandemic thing?
RedditWaq t1_iv35nxh wrote
It may be news to you, but the world survived the pandemic quite well.
It was actually one of the lesser deadly epidemics in history and global teamwork got the world vaccinated with an unprecedented campaign at an astonishing speed.
Its wild to think people were getting vaccinated December of the same year we started our lockdowns. No vaccination campaign in the history of the world has been so efficient.
Sugar__Momma t1_iv3vvge wrote
I think people forget perspective. We need to remember how grim things were at the beginning of 2020. While bad, it could’ve all been MUCH worse
whybepurple t1_iv50x2n wrote
When it comes to world ending situations getting a B+ Needs Improvement doesn't cut it.
Notaflatland t1_iveaq9t wrote
Well actually it did. There are 400 million more people now than when covid hit...
stackered t1_iv1pw6e wrote
Asteroids are a liberal hoax and thus we shouldn't prepare for them until they've impacted already. At that point, we just need to continue to deny that the apocalypse is happening as it happens.
Soupjoe5 OP t1_iv17cte wrote
Article:
1
A trial of how government, NASA and local officials would deal with a space rock headed toward Earth revealed gaps in the plans
On August 16, 2022 an approximately 70-meter asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere. At 2:02:10 P.M. EDT, the space rock exploded eight miles over Winston-Salem, N.C., with the energy of 10 megatons of TNT. The airburst virtually leveled the city and surrounding area. Casualties were in the thousands.
Well, not really. The destruction of Winston-Salem was the story line of the fourth Planetary Defense Tabletop Exercise, run by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office. The exercise was a simulation where academics, scientists and government officials gathered to practice how the United States would respond to a real planet-threatening asteroid. Held February 23–24, participants were both virtual and in-person, hailing from Washington D.C., the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL) campus in Laurel, Md., Raleigh and Winston-Salem, N.C. The exercise included more than 200 participants from 16 different federal, state and local organizations. On August 5, the final report came out, and the message was stark: humanity is not yet ready to meet this threat.
On the plus side, the exercise was meant to be hard—practically unwinnable. “We designed it to fall right into the gap in our capabilities,” says Emma Rainey, an APL senior scientist who helped to create the simulation. “The participants could do nothing to prevent the impact.” The main goal was testing the different government and scientific networks that should respond in a real-life planetary defense situation. “We want to see how effective operations and communications are between U.S. government agencies and the other organizations that would be involved, and then identify shortcomings,” says Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA headquarters.
All in all, the exercise demonstrated that the United States doesn’t have the capability to intercept small, fast-moving asteroids, and our ability to see them is limited. Even if we could intercept space rocks, we may not be able to deflect one away from Earth, and using a nuclear weapon to destroy one is risky and filled with international legal issues. The trial also showed that misinformation—lies and false rumors spreading among the public—could drastically hamper the official effort. “Misinformation is not going away,” says Angela Stickle, a senior research scientist at APL who helped design and facilitate the exercise. “We put it into the simulation because we wanted feedback on how to counteract it and take action if it was malicious.”
Several key differences set this practice apart from previous ones in 2013, 2014 and 2016: First, this trial gave NASA’s Planetary Defense Office a chance to stress-test the National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan, released by the White House in 2018. The plan lays out the details of who does what and when within the federal government, which allowed this year’s exercise to involve more governmental agencies than in previous years—including state and local emergency responders for the first time. The simulation was also the first to include not just an impact but its immediate aftereffects.
Events started with the “discovery” of an asteroid named “TTX22” heading toward Earth. Participants were presented with a crash course in asteroid science and told everything that was known about the asteroid and the likelihood of an impact. Each meeting jumped ahead in the timeline, with the final installments set just before and after the asteroid’s impact near Winston-Salem.
Soupjoe5 OP t1_iv17dk8 wrote
2
The short but realistic timeline from discovery to impact highlighted major problems from the start. TTX22 was small and fast. By the time it was seen, it was too late to put together a mission to study, deflect or destroy it. NASA has no garages full of rockets on standby just in case an asteroid shows up. Shifting the rock’s trajectory would require at least 12 kinetic impactors, each like NASA’s DART mission that recently altered the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos and which took more than five years to move from concept to rock-puncher. The recommendation from the after-action report on this front was blunt: develop these capabilities.
At the same time, the asteroid’s velocity, unknown composition and policy ramifications in the brief timeline ruled out hitting TTX22 with a nuclear bomb. However, late-in-the-game nuclear disruption remained an intriguing last-ditch option for some participants. “If you send up a nuclear explosive device, you could disrupt an asteroid just as it enters the atmosphere,” Stickle says. “In theory.”
That option, however, leans toward Hollywood, not reality. “There’s this tendency to think, ‘I saw this in a movie—they just launched ICBMs and blew it up,’” Johnson says. “The point of including this option in the simulation is to get them to understand that it’s not as simple. Using a nuclear explosive device in the terminal phase of an impact is a situation we don’t ever want to get ourselves into.”
Blasting an asteroid in space may result in a cluster of smaller but still-dangerous, fast-moving rocks. And an upper-atmosphere detonation of a nuclear weapon has unknown but most likely dangerous effects. The explosion may not fully disintegrate the rock, forcing portions of it down somewhere else. Radiation could persist in the upper atmosphere at levels making traveling through it on your way to space prohibitive.
With no way to stop the asteroid from hitting Earth, the exercise was all about mitigation—what must be done leading up to the impact and in the immediate aftermath. Organizations at all levels needed to be in contact, emergency plans had to be developed and enacted, and the public informed.
Within the simulated timeline, misinformation was constant. Many online news stories about the asteroid were factually incorrect, while “asteroid deniers” and claims of “fake news” grew unabated. Misinformation was a regular source of frustration for participants, who recognized that they would need to address it head-on in a real-life situation.
Johnson explained that his office is attempting to play the long game against misinformation. “We want to establish NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office and those that work with us as the authorities when it comes to these situations,” Johnson says. “The plan is that the media and public understand that a group at NASA tracks and manages these types of things.”
But as participants pointed out, there are limited strategies to deal with a constant flow of lies from dozens or hundreds of outlets in a short time frame. In this case, misinformation yielded a deadly toll. “When we discussed evacuation, we were told that 20 percent of people would not leave because it was all fake news or the government was lying or some other reason,” says August Vernon, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County emergency management director. “That was about 200,000 people, all spread out. So here I am, not sure we’d even be able to evacuate the hospitals and prisons, and then we have people that can leave, refusing to leave.”
Soupjoe5 OP t1_iv17e9a wrote
3
The news had a somber effect on the participants as they waited for the revelations of the simulation’s final “day,” August 16. After academic participants explained the energy release the region would experience, Vernon was blunt. “There would be collapsed buildings,” he says, “we’d lose our hospitals, a lot of our infrastructure would be gone, there was a chance this could take out cell phone reception for at least 50 miles, and the whole region would lose power.”
The simulation presented a final misinformation gut punch. Post-impact, an individual calling themselves “National Expert T.X. Asteroid” claimed the explosion released toxic materials from outer space into the atmosphere. As a result, residents should expect symptoms similar to radiation exposure. The baseless claims were all over social media, and “T.X” was giving interviews to news outlets.
On the positive side, NASA’s ability to disseminate information received high marks from participants, given the agency’s widespread credibility. In addition, the framework established in the White House plan also appeared robust enough to manage the flow of information between federal and state agencies and activate all necessary communication channels.
The conversations between federal and local officials provided some of the best results of the exercise: decision-makers at all levels reached new understandings regarding who would coordinate the post-impact rescue and recovery efforts and what they needed to do their jobs. One finding was that sometimes at the fine-grain levels, less is more in terms of communicating the science. “We couldn’t keep up sometimes, and that’s something they need to consider,” Vernon says. “I have mayors, fire chiefs and other folks to explain this to. We may not need to know all the science behind it, but we need to know what, when and where because we need to start making big decisions as early as possible.”
Participants also discovered that the face of the “expert” should change from the federal to the local level. “At our level, we asked who our lead spokesperson would be,” Vernon says. “Who would people respect, trust and believe when we find out it’s headed towards us? That might not be the same person NASA puts out there.”
Ultimately, the participants and the simulation’s facilitators agreed that the biggest thing they lacked was time. The asteroid destroyed Winton-Salem because of the narrow window between its discovery and impact. Widening that window is critical. “A decade is a fairly comfortable timeframe to be able to do something that would be effective,” Stickle says. “Thirty years would be ideal. That’s enough time for detailed observations, planning, building a spacecraft and getting something big to move. You’d even have time to send up a replacement if something goes wrong.”
There are promising signs that with enough warning, humanity could mount a successful response. The DART mission, for instance, already showed that a spacecraft’s impact can alter a space rock’s trajectory. Multiple surveys of near-Earth objects, asteroids and comets are ongoing, and NASA received $55 million more for planetary defense from Congress than it asked for.
“It’s going to take time and money to detect and characterize everything out there,” Rainey says. “As well as having the ability for missions that can get underway rapidly and be effective against something like this. But ultimately, that’s much cheaper than rebuilding a city.” But just in case, Vernon says, “At least now, we have a plan. Hopefully, it never has to be used.”
GoogleyEyedNopes t1_iv194iv wrote
Very interesting. Proof that the DART mission was a good initial study. But we're a long way from a fully effective protection strategy. Glad to see this area of study is continuing to get funding.
Snax_Attax t1_iv1g72a wrote
Yeah learning lessons from drills is the whole point. I’m interested that there seems to be such interest in this thing in particular when our space programs on the whole are still so young. Is it really that likely of a threat? Better safe than sorry I suppose. And also, new challenges breed innovation so I am for it.
GoogleyEyedNopes t1_iv1l1uz wrote
Yeah, well, just the sheer madness of hitting the bullseye with the factors that need to factor in is mind-blowing. And proving you can hit the mark is a good stepping stone for other ideas like asteroid capture and mining. And there's conceivably money to be made there, so maybe that's part of the motivation.
gohan9689 t1_iv22g11 wrote
Ofcourse we aren't, Bruce Willis can't protect us anymore due to health reasons.
PracticalNihilist t1_iv34ym0 wrote
Well of course we have a documentary. Its called don't look up on Netflix
Unlimitles t1_iv3dn9x wrote
Anyone remember the plot of one of the recent Godzilla movies being that an Area was said to have been through a Nuclear meltdown and that the area was so radiated that no one could live there, but that was all a lie to cover up a Kaiju egg being discovered there?
yeah.....Good movie.
kujasgoldmine t1_iv4cs34 wrote
Instead of fighting each other, we could spend that money on defending the whole planet from asteroids.
dashtek t1_iv4n1z8 wrote
"NASA confirms we still haven't taken adequate vengeance for the dinosaurs. Vows to rectify this"
FuturologyBot t1_iv1ceap wrote
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Soupjoe5:
Article:
1
A trial of how government, NASA and local officials would deal with a space rock headed toward Earth revealed gaps in the plans
On August 16, 2022 an approximately 70-meter asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere. At 2:02:10 P.M. EDT, the space rock exploded eight miles over Winston-Salem, N.C., with the energy of 10 megatons of TNT. The airburst virtually leveled the city and surrounding area. Casualties were in the thousands.
Well, not really. The destruction of Winston-Salem was the story line of the fourth Planetary Defense Tabletop Exercise, run by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office. The exercise was a simulation where academics, scientists and government officials gathered to practice how the United States would respond to a real planet-threatening asteroid. Held February 23–24, participants were both virtual and in-person, hailing from Washington D.C., the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL) campus in Laurel, Md., Raleigh and Winston-Salem, N.C. The exercise included more than 200 participants from 16 different federal, state and local organizations. On August 5, the final report came out, and the message was stark: humanity is not yet ready to meet this threat.
On the plus side, the exercise was meant to be hard—practically unwinnable. “We designed it to fall right into the gap in our capabilities,” says Emma Rainey, an APL senior scientist who helped to create the simulation. “The participants could do nothing to prevent the impact.” The main goal was testing the different government and scientific networks that should respond in a real-life planetary defense situation. “We want to see how effective operations and communications are between U.S. government agencies and the other organizations that would be involved, and then identify shortcomings,” says Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA headquarters.
All in all, the exercise demonstrated that the United States doesn’t have the capability to intercept small, fast-moving asteroids, and our ability to see them is limited. Even if we could intercept space rocks, we may not be able to deflect one away from Earth, and using a nuclear weapon to destroy one is risky and filled with international legal issues. The trial also showed that misinformation—lies and false rumors spreading among the public—could drastically hamper the official effort. “Misinformation is not going away,” says Angela Stickle, a senior research scientist at APL who helped design and facilitate the exercise. “We put it into the simulation because we wanted feedback on how to counteract it and take action if it was malicious.”
Several key differences set this practice apart from previous ones in 2013, 2014 and 2016: First, this trial gave NASA’s Planetary Defense Office a chance to stress-test the National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan, released by the White House in 2018. The plan lays out the details of who does what and when within the federal government, which allowed this year’s exercise to involve more governmental agencies than in previous years—including state and local emergency responders for the first time. The simulation was also the first to include not just an impact but its immediate aftereffects.
Events started with the “discovery” of an asteroid named “TTX22” heading toward Earth. Participants were presented with a crash course in asteroid science and told everything that was known about the asteroid and the likelihood of an impact. Each meeting jumped ahead in the timeline, with the final installments set just before and after the asteroid’s impact near Winston-Salem.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/ym13y6/nasa_asteroid_threat_practice_drill_shows_were/iv17cte/
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PaPaGoldfish t1_iv2d1x8 wrote
Hahaha well no shit, humans are the worst thing that has ever happened to this planet
RetiredCapt t1_iv2kog2 wrote
I disagree. We are ready if you mean being ready to die.
[deleted] t1_iv30p6n wrote
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Redditforgoit t1_iv3hvox wrote
What they need to do is install a few railguns in a space station.
AnoSayMoSaLongHairKo t1_iv429d9 wrote
The thing is, this should be a collaborative effort of all nations on Earth not just NASA (USA).
borrowedstrange t1_iv43106 wrote
We’re not ready? Really?? Are we absolutely sure?? If only we had some kind of practice round when it comes to dealing with global catastrophes…you know, like a climate crisis or a worldwide pandemic in the modern era. Surely an unprecedented event such as those would teach us to work together to resolve shit!
Anyway, don’t look up.
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Sandman11x t1_iv1ipd4 wrote
In what time frame would this occur? Interesting to know but not a realistic problem
darth_aer t1_iv3rgto wrote
It's too bad that we don't have these missile things called ICBM that could easily take care of an asteroid especially if it had a nice 30 megaton warhead. Maybe Nasa needs to go watch a film with Sean Connery called Meteor.
No-Arm-6712 t1_iv41wwq wrote
Yet another article to explain something that no one really needed a bunch of scientists to tell us. Why do these people have jobs?
cornerblockakl t1_iv24zm5 wrote
Shut down society. Get gov handout money. Social distance. Wear a mask. Get out in the streets and riot for the protection of thugs. I think you’re ready.
ratatatar t1_iv27xss wrote
Funny, from where I'm sitting, you're a thug. Hope no one extra-judicially executes you (seriously, because I give a shit about civilization and morality) but I'm not sure anyone would protect you.
cornerblockakl t1_iv2cckb wrote
You mean just like people were extra-judicially executed by thug-supporting rioters during the mostly peaceful protests? Lol. And at CHAZ. (From where I’m sitting you’re a thug supporter. Nah nah nah. Haha)
ratatatar t1_iv2ts3a wrote
No, it's just called homicide when it's not done by the state, so not quite like that. I can see how you might conflate something like automobile accidents with US military invasions because death is death, but surprisingly there are differences in context and policy.
I don't support you or violent protesters/looters/rioters so, wrong again. Weird that you think this is a laughing matter. I meant funny-weird not funny-haha, since you don't like being told basic hygiene lessons but you don't mind the government killing citizens in the street without trial.
It's almost like you're manipulated by major media corporations but don't realize. Hmmmmmm.
cornerblockakl t1_iv2uer6 wrote
Yup, you nailed it. That’s it. Ten four. Now go take a knee for/with the thugs. Goodbye Felicia.
ratatatar t1_iv31gmd wrote
I don't think anyone should be taking advice from someone whose entire personality is regurgitated media talking points.
The first step to getting help is admitting you have a problem, so I'm glad you've started your journey. Good luck to you.
thinkB4WeSpeak t1_iv1nzfx wrote
This explains why right here.
Air Conditioning The Military Costs More Than NASA's Entire Budget
If we invested more into space and science then we'd probably be further with a plan to stop asteroids.