About blinking time!
I hope they have a plan for determining whether the caves on the asteroid are really empty caves or inhabited by open-mouthed exogorths.
You’re thinking of Congress
I doubt they’ll make it that far. The possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1.
I like how they’re planning to have it orbit the Moon, just in case they fuck it up and accidentally drop the rock on it. Much better to put another crater in the moon instead of accidentally destroying Moscow or something.
“To hide the battleship from Gamilon radar detection, Sandor devises a plan to cover the hull with asteroid fragments”
My mind went right there.
Microsoft made a game called Allegiance that was based on this scenareo going wrong. They even produced an intro video where the asteroid “goes rogue” and smashes into the earth. Sadly the Free Allegiance community is not what it once was, although I heard there were still some games to be had at the weekend.
never tell me the odds!
The actual reason probably has to do with cost. Assuming a moon base has been built, it is massively cheaper to achieve orbit from the surface of the moon than it would be do to it from earth. The first stage of a Saturn V produced 7.5 million pounds of thrust each to leave the earth. The lunar ascent stage produced 3500 pounds total.
Even better, do all the refining on the moon, and you don’t have to waste cargo capacity carrying a bunch of useless rock to earth’s surface.
Yeah, from a PR standpoint it’s a win too, but I doubt it’s the main motivation.
Won’t happen if people keep voting for republicans.
Riiiight… “accidentally.”
I only used Moscow because it seems like Russia attracts all of the big meteor events in recent history.
These are not the movie quotes I was looking for…
Get your ticket to that wheel in space
While there’s time
The fix is in
You’ll be a witness to that game of chance in the sky
You know we’ve got to win
Here at home we’ll play in the city
Powered by the sun
Perfect weather for a streamlined world
There’ll be spandex jackets one for everyone
(Donald Fagen)
I’ve got a bad feeling about this…
Spandex? Cool!
I keep having this mad vision of using bits of asteroids as some sort of sunscreen to slow Global Warming (until the Oil guys die out…) I have done some minor calculations, and if we could decrease received sunlight by perhaps a couple of percent, it would offset the warming. Of course, we might try big balloons (think the early Echo satellite) tethered against the solar wind by our pet asteroid…
But Bolden said the plan could go forward only if the federal government could roll back the cuts made as a result of the recent sequester.
Welcome back to the present.
Plausible deniability. I like it.
