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Unread 3 Mar 2003, 00:55   #1
Makain
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Killer Asteroids kept secret from public as World Leaders flock to space station!

Thats how I interept it at least.

Killer Asteroids - Public Will Not Be Alerted

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(CNN) -- If scientists detect a killer asteroid shortly before it slams into Earth, should the public be informed?

One researcher, Geoffrey Sommer of the Rand Corp., a Santa Monica, California-based think tank, believes the best answer in some cases is no.

Should an alert come too late to make a difference in the outcome of a global catastrophe, Sommer suggests governments should remain silent.

"If you can't do anything about a warning, then there is no point in issuing a warning at all," Sommer said earlier this month at an American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Denver.

"If an extinction-type impact is inevitable, then ignorance for the populace is bliss," he said.

Other space researchers were highly critical of Sommer's views.

"I find Geoffrey's whole idea both irrational and unrealistic," said Benny Peiser, a U.K. scientist at Liverpool John Moores University who monitors asteroid threats.

"The advocated secrecy, far from being cost-effective as Geoffrey claims, would most certainly preclude any attempt at impact mitigation," he told CNN.com.

Regardless, Peiser said, any attempt to keep a killer asteroid quiet would be futile.

"Professional and amateur astronomers from around the world can easily access and confirm observational data and calculations of any discovered NEOs [Near Earth Objects]," he said.

Scientists estimate more than 1,000 asteroids 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) in diameter or larger -- big enough to cause global devastation -- lurk near the Earth's orbital path.

NASA expects to finish a census of the so-called NEOs in 2008 and has already identified more than half of the predicted population.

One particularly sizable space boulder is thought to have unleashed global climate changes that hastened the end of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Yet collisions with such monster rocks are rare. They take place about only once every 1 million years or so.

Smaller asteroids the size of whales collide every few centuries. Most plunk in oceans, but they could spark regional disasters if they were to hit near a populated area, according to astronomers.

Last edited by Makain; 3 Mar 2003 at 01:13.
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Unread 3 Mar 2003, 01:03   #2
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Unread 3 Mar 2003, 01:13   #3
Makain
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Unread 3 Mar 2003, 01:59   #4
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If everyone on Earth was going to die, what would be the point of running to a space station? Who are they going to control after the heat dies down(hehe)?
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Unread 3 Mar 2003, 02:47   #5
Makain
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Well Bush would bully Blair into opposing Saddam's right to have a suite on the station, and of course Chirac would be pro-suite, and the Turkish leader would be sympathetic to Bush, but stand by his ethnic association to Saddam. China and Russia will veto a anti-suite resolution and then of course there will be a riot as they all fight to see who will control what when they get back to Earth.
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Unread 3 Mar 2003, 09:40   #6
Terra Australis
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On reading this i am sure that such preperations would be made on Earth to house people in underground caves, until the dust settles so to speak after an Asteroid impact.

After all in Australia there is bunkers hidden around cities that would allow people to survive, i am sure that we are not the only nation that would have such procedures in place.

After all nuclera bomb shelters would be a perfect place to survive such an impact, they are well stocked with food and other provisions.
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Unread 3 Mar 2003, 13:34   #7
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Quote:
Originally posted by WorkMonkey
:/
Surely if a big asteroid hit it would tear into the ground and cause huge earthquakes, this would shake apart any bunker yes?
Yes, that's damn likely. If it shreds a hole to the core, there'll be nothing saved here .

I believe a herd of penguins would survive though. Penguins rock.
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Unread 3 Mar 2003, 13:35   #8
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It depends where it lands and how big it is.
Anyway, even an asteroid 40 miles wide or so would produce the equivilant of nuclear winter worldwide for a year or more - it's not just a case of running to caves and "waiting for the dust to settle".
What do you think is going to be left alive when you get out?

Btw, 'old'.
Saw an article on this the best part of a month ago.

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Unread 3 Mar 2003, 15:44   #9
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I would definitely want to know so I don't waste my last few days (or hours) going to work and ****. I would want to just spend my last few days having the craziest sex imaginable for countless consecutive hours. Of course, I can also understand that some people would wish that the information was never released, for example, whoever i was busily raping probably would prefer that I was never informed.
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Unread 3 Mar 2003, 23:04   #10
Bloomers III
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I wouldn't want to know
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Unread 3 Mar 2003, 23:27   #11
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Considering the ISS needs regular resupplying from earth, and the fact they will eventually end up eating each other or suffocating as apposed to our quick deaths, i say go for it
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Unread 9 Mar 2003, 03:10   #12
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Quote:
Originally posted by WorkMonkey
:/
Surely if a big asteroid hit it would tear into the ground and cause huge earthquakes, this would shake apart any bunker yes?
Depends on how large the asteroid is, and also where the asteroid hits.

After all asteroids have hit Earth before, and the large caves that are present around the earth have not been destroyed.

But a bunker would survive if these caves can survive.

As for the person that stated that how would people be able to feed themselves, well then you could make a self sufficient biosphere...... after all this technology is being practiced now, in preperation for the eventual coloniation of mars.

If we can grow goods using hydroponics, then this could be adapated to an underground situation, ensuring that when it would be safe for survivors to return to the surface there would be stocks of plants and animals ready for the re- colonisation of Earth.
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Unread 9 Mar 2003, 03:44   #13
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I like penguins
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Unread 9 Mar 2003, 14:59   #14
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what the **** good would world leaders do in space i d want all the top physicists chemists biologist and mathmaticians up there

so when these clever people figure a way to go back to earth they d re educate a population

i d want to know so i could hang out with m friends and family, commit crime etc
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Unread 9 Mar 2003, 18:18   #15
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heh

if there was an asteroid that was going to kill us all and there was nothing we could do about it, i'd like to be told so i could go and sit where it was going to land and have it over with quickly
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Unread 9 Mar 2003, 18:31   #16
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I'd like to be informed for (a) the reasons acropolis mentions and (b) so I can be involved in numerous Slashdot type efforts to the save the world involving Lego.
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Unread 9 Mar 2003, 18:37   #17
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Putting a group of middle aged to old men and women into space to continue the human race is just flawed.

Its pretty obvious in what way heh.
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