Earth Day all Month!
The New Scientist says this month they have plans to save the earth from the event of asteroid impact by use of a heavy enough ship of perhaps 20 tons that would have enough gravitational force to move the asteroid enough to miss the earth. The machine, which would be relatively easy to build, would have enough gravity if it just stayed beside the big stonehenge block to move it in a year, but this would only be with a massive asteroid. While our sensors would see the big behemoths with a 20 year advance notice, the plan wouldn't work for smaller blocks on the stars hollywood elevator of fame without enough time to reach it and move it. This means small asteroids of less than a thousand feet wide (we can't see them well) limit the use of the massive ship to save the earth by this means. Because of this on the New Scientist link some say we should just find ways to sound out small asteroids well with radar or other methods and then just use common evacuation methods to save the people who live where the impact would take place, this is considered the better value for the cost.
BEAMS IN BOOMS
A cheaper method as I've said may be to use just a laser or other beam to change the path of a small or medium asteroid that would then whizz by the impactor deflecting it rapidly and cheaply. Because there wouldn't be as much advance notice or way to move the deflection mass to meet it just at the right month, a problem with this might be to reach the impactor in time by this method of both beam and gravity (of my own authorship). Even so moving smaller asteroids is faster than big stones of this type because by F=ma the same force applied a smaller mass will move it with higher velocity. If this helps and moves the small asteroid to deflect the large or medium asteroid in time to stop the impact this plan may still have the problem of random motion of the stones of the asteroid, they might break loose, which are believed to be a hazard because the whole asteroid and the stones nearby are all on the same collision path towards earth and many of them might cause damage if they hit the earth. (An asteroid is often like a loose bag of stones and sand). This is a reason the heavy ship beside the asteroid to deflect it was believed to be of worth, it would just have a gentle force of the gravity of this ship to move the asteroid slowly.
SLICE OF LIFE
Another problem is about the high cost of boosting a 20 ton ship that far, as the people envision who favor just advance warning systems and evacuation over the heavy ship plan to move the asteroid by this method. A cheaper solution possible may be to use what I consider to be the general Equivalence of mass and inertia (not the same but close enough see My General Physics Synopses. Page for why I disagree with Einstein) so the machines that use an oscillating slice of wheel to aim the centrifugal force in just one direction instead of cancelling out all the way around the wheel could be used in place of what would have been the heavy ship as on the New Scientist site. This type of machine just exerts pressure on one side with the exhausts of the rockets and on the other side via the more controllable centrifugal force of inertia which would act much like gravity. The ship will move much lighter faster and cheaper, better than either the heavy machine or the advanced notice. The machine could be fine tuned with enough force to move it as fast as possible while being cautious to not move it so fast it would loosen the stones.
Another way to achieve low weight of the ship without loose stones may be to send a machine that has a low energy maser of the same or more energy than the 20 ton machine would use, of low enough power not to loosen the stones though of higher speed than by other machines, or even lasers that would sense where the stones are and exert pressure just on the more solid zones to move the meteorite or comet by computer actuation.
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Optimizing On Up
These plans could be used in optimal combination on a budget, if we could afford no more and a heavy asteroid was headed our way, a machine like this could be used to just move the asteroid somewhat. But with just a bit of force we would move a big impactor to one side perhaps from the land to the ocean or the north and south and then just evacuate the people who lived there. For big asteroids with more advance warning it may be most cost saving to just move a small asteroid with the beam to move the larger, or an optimal combination, If the change in the path of the asteroid were distant and there was more advance room, the loose stones would be safer.
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Got a lot of junk in your Post Office Box? Does the Sales team at the Auto Lot fill your box with memos for a breathbrush? Here's a solution; a Machine that converts all those annoying junk blurbs to paper, or rags. They've used junk posts to heat houses in a machine for years, so instead of burning the junk in a stove this would cleanse and recycle it, a good way to help the ecology. Resturants and county Auto memos for vehicles could earn a diploma in Mail Order with a Ma Bell cyber memo , Act As Save As If!
They say looking up to see the sky is calming, like with doctors who talk about the weather so they are paid the most. But we lived in the warmth of the low latitudes of the world for millions of years before the invention of fire, so it's not real evolution to go outside in much of the weather around December 35th or so. Rich relatives (yours, no doubt!) have had rooms with roofs that roll to see the shine. The ancient amphitheater in Rome had a roof of this type, and the ampitheater would even fill up with waves for sea fights by warriors in boats in the arena. What we don't want this weather or lions in the den of our room and want a roof like the rich? A good solution of the 21st century is a TV that beams up the star treck episodes live! It would light up your ceiling which reflects off the beam so they say may you see, not just the live vision of stars and moon and Venus at night, you can zoom anywhere in the cosmos, or use it as a learning or sleep learning machine, a giant computer so you would always be able to read mom's memos and it's easier to compute lying down (lying takes less energy than sitting or standing) or increase the hours of the day when you see the light and clouds or stars for more sleep like in evolution. If the roof is well reflective and the machine is on the wall it would be a much cheaper way to achieve this than a giant TV. The walls could also be with visions of anywhere in the world you'd want to visit (like the zoom on Wheel of Fortune).
They say trees reduce problems when they are planted on roads in urban realms, it sooths me when mom wins 30,000 more than the Wheel when jogging!
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