Snip:
A team of scientists from the China Rocket Research Institute in Beijing is working on a method for destroying large asteroids that threaten Earth using a nuclear bomb, it said. The idea is as follows: first, a metal impact probe crashes into the asteroid and bores a deep hole, then a second spacecraft drops a nuclear bomb into this hole, which detonates inside the asteroid, the publication said.
According to the scientists cited by the newspaper, a three-megaton explosion, roughly equivalent to 200 Hiroshima bombs, could completely destroy an asteroid approximately 100 meters in diameter. The researchers also found that placing a bomb 30 meters below the surface can more than triple the change in an asteroid’s velocity compared to a shallow detonation, making this method “significantly more effective at altering an object’s trajectory.”
Who’s the Chinese Bruce Willis?
Works for SINOPEC.
See, this is really interesting because the problem is more complex than it seems. You can’t just fly it straight at it and blow it up because without air in space most of the blast would be lost to dust and ice long before reaching the center of mass.
That’s why you gotta train a bunch of roughnecks to be astronauts duh
