Salim Aritu

Against the background of the latest scientific research joint flirting Rosatom and DOE nuclear weapons can be regarded as a lack of knowledge, or just childish, or ... something worse. Lifting of the ban on the use of nuclear weapons in space can provoke a variety of weapons initiatives that meteor threat will only serve to cover. Planetary defense has repeatedly used as an excuse for the implementation of the most shameful plans, but it was during the Cold War. As an example, Edward Teller, with its destructive project "Excalibur" and "Home Bomb". And then, and another was proposed in the framework of the Strategic Defense Initiative, but, thank God, are implemented, these proposals were not. These ideas Ed tried to promote at the end of the XX century. In particular, at a meeting of astrophysicists and gunsmiths at Los Alamos in 1992, Teller was again brought to the discussion of their crazy scenarios using powerful nuclear weapons, hoping to try them if not for military purposes, so at least on asteroids. Fortunately, while sensible for Astrophysics delusions Edward and his followers did not cling. But now Teller line bend gunsmiths larger -Ministry Energy and Rosatom. Let us hope that their attempts in this direction be limited to a couple-three or noncommittal meetings and discussions on unsubstantiated deal does not go down.

Of course, bang megaton explosives in space -vesma enticing option. However, it is possible that it's awesome nuclear show may be the last that we will see. Between effectively and efficiently wiser to choose the latter. And scientists are betting primarily on observation. Alas, astronomers kept in sight, not all asteroids that are a potential threat to our planet. Consequently, the system of nuclear interceptor will be absolutely useless against such unexpected, uninvited guests. According to David Morrison, now monitoring the air reduces the risk associated with asteroids by about 80%. Clearly, this figure should be increased, and it is aimed at initiatives already exist. In particular, the organization of V612 Foundation is developing infrared telescope Sentinel, which will be able to track asteroids in orbit of Venus. Combining the capabilities of Sentinel and ground-based telescopes, scientists can make more accurate predictions of a collision. The telescope will be launched in less than five years - in December 2016, and, according to its developers, the first weeks of monitoring, it will be able to discover more asteroids than have been identified to date. It is clear that the detection of cosmic "killer" is a just and gender affairs, and the problem of their destruction can not escape. But if nuclear strikes most scientists rejected, what would you suggest? Jay Melosh noted above, we have a huge source of energy that can be used for protection from space "bombing" - Sun. He proposed the creation of the unit, which acts as a giant mirror, directing the sun's rays on the asteroid. Under the influence of heat from the collector of such substances from the surface of the asteroid will evaporate, forming a kind of comet tail, and he slowly, but surely, will move from its dangerous course. It should be borne in mind that such an operation will inevitably be long: solar collector must be close to the object for many years. This idea was developed specialists at Texas A & M University, which offered just ... paint asteroids. Changing the color, you can make one side of a celestial body to absorb more solar energy and achieve the same effect as using a solar collector Jay Melosh. Alas, although such an effect in itself is simple enough, the fact that it has had a noticeable effect, again will take decades. If we consider more effective and short-term procedures to destroy dangerous space objects, that can be attributed to such an idea using a powerful laser or space tug. However, such development exist only as projects and are still far from practical implementation. However, some time we have - just a few decades. Even the famous and formidable 325-meter asteroid Apophis, which comes closer to the Earth in 2029-m, and then in 2036, the year, according to recent reports, will not face us. On the problem you might think, without haste, and perhaps, this time to find a way to do without nuclear missiles.