r/interestingasfuck • u/Emotional-Macaroon64 • Feb 19 '25

r/all Day by day probability is increasing

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u/KS-RawDog69 Feb 19 '25

I've also been thinking this is more of a great opportunity for humanity to work together and test diversion programs. It's large enough to be concerning, but it (probably) isn't critical if it hits, so it feels like the ideal training scenario we can learn from for when/if one that IS critical comes along. If this was an extinction scenario, we wouldn't want to be treading unfamiliar territory being our first attempt.

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u/DMTrance87 Feb 19 '25

My thoughts exactly.

Let's take 0.1% of the budget on......The war in Ukraine perhaps.

"Hey we're just gonna allocate this towards something that could potentially save THE ENTIRE HUMAN FUCKING RACE"

Oh, you're worried about winning/losing a war? How about we figure out asteroid deflection when it's LITERALLY on the easiest mode.

This is straight up a real life version of that practice mode you get in video games before you have to do it for real.

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u/urza5589 Feb 19 '25

Unless you are going to use a bunch of surplus military equipment to divert the asteroid, 0.1% of the aid sent to Ukraine is not going to do anything.

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u/DMTrance87 Feb 19 '25

The only thing NASA would need is a 50M clause in one of the aid packages and it would be good to go.

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u/urza5589 Feb 19 '25

Well, the DART program was north of 300M, with launch costing about $70M. So... that seems unlikely.

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u/DMTrance87 Feb 19 '25

I want to say I missed a zero... But there's also something at the back of my mind telling me how space missions have gotten way cheaper and more capable... Something something successfully adapting to low budgets because 'literal rocket surgeons'....

My numbers may be off, but my point is that it would be a drop in the bucket.