Russia may send spacecraft to knock away asteroid.
Russia is considering sending a spacecraft to a large asteroid to knock it off its path and prevent a possible collision with Earth, the head of the country’s space agency said Wednesday.
That’s cool.

aziz 8:45 am on December 30, 2009 Permalink |
wtf? perhaps Russian spacecraft are not bound by the laws of physics.
aziz 8:57 am on December 30, 2009 Permalink |
‘ feet
diam = 885
diam = 885
‘ feet^3
volume = (diam/2)^2 * 4 * Pi
volume = 2.460573906e6
‘http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/asteroid_masses
‘gm/cm^3
density = 1.3
density = 1.3
‘convert ft^3 to cm^3
convert_fac = 28316.8466
convert_fac = 28316.8466
‘pound to gms
convert_fac2 = 435.59
convert_fac2 = 435.59
weight_apophis_min = volume * density * convert_fac / convert_fac2
weight_apophis_min = 2.079441723e8
stil need to refine density estimate and find speed to get final calc of energy in joules, then momentum. density estimate is pretty low.
thabet 2:54 pm on December 30, 2009 Permalink |
Why the hell do Americans still use Imperial units?
I really hate using American standards for this reason!
aziz 6:33 pm on December 30, 2009 Permalink |
there was a argument for that actually somewhere, something really mundane like the retooling of the widget machines or something. thats an interesting question…
i was gonna expand on my analysis but got a little distracted. stil my goal is to end up with a momentum estimate that would give us an idea of how many Space Shuttle units we would need to actually influence the vector by 1 degree.