DAY 1
“Folks, we’re here at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to see what scientists anticipate from their effort to hit an asteroid with DART, which stands for Double Asteroid Redirection Test. Launched last year, the spacecraft is about to strike the satellite asteroid of Didymos, which is in a near-Earth orbit. DART will hit the asteroid’s companion called Didymoon at a speed of 6.6 kilometers per second, or about 4 miles per second. It’s hoped that the collision will change Didymoon’s orbit enough for the scientists here to measure the change.*
“So, why do we want to fire an object into Didymoon. Well, the whole idea began several decades ago when scientists began to consider what might happen if an asteroid were to hit Earth. Would it wipe out civilization? Cause worldwide extinction as happened 65 million years ago when an asteroid killed off the dinosaurs? Could an Earth-bound asteroid be deflected?
“DART will give us an answer to that question. It’s what we have seen in movies like Armageddon and Deep Impact, the idea that we can save ourselves from an asteroid. After about a year’s journey to catch Didymos and Didymoon, DART will hit the little moon today.
“Here’s Dr. Tané Remington whose been at the forefront of the planning for this mission. Dr. Remington, what do you think you’ll accomplish today when DART hits Didymoon?”
“Well, Charles, as you know, this is just an experimental phase to test whether or not it is possible to move an asteroid by hitting it with a spacecraft. We’ve looked at other methods of deflecting one, such as the ideas we’ve seen as fictionalized versions in the movies like Armageddon. We have some pretty sophisticated software modeling this. It’s a good field test, but it will take a while to assess its effectiveness.”
Day 2
“Dr. Remington has reported that DART impacted Didymoon yesterday evening at 8:07 Eastern, completing its 11 million kilometer or almost 7 million-mile journey. There he is now. Dr. Remington, Dr. Remington, a word, please.”
“Charles, yes, of course.”
“Was the test successful? Were you able to divert the asteroid?”
“Well, as I said yesterday, it will take some time to assess the results. The impact was only designed to move the asteroid by less than one percent of its orbit.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“Well, we would never know the efficacy of crashing a spacecraft into a Near Earth Object to move it unless we try. We can do all the modeling we want, but the true test comes in the field, or, should I say, in space.”
“You’ve spent a lot of money in this project. When will Americans know that the effort has been worth the expense, worth the sacrifice of materials and tax-supported hours?”
“Charles, Americans need to be patient. Science doesn’t work on the schedule of the impatient. It isn’t just a matter of ‘See we have a problem. Why hasn’t the government solved it yet?’ It isn’t as though we had vast stockpiles of asteroid-crashers and the rockets to deliver them.”
“Oh! Right. But there are many Near Earth Objects that could hit Earth. Remember that thing that hit Russia a while back. Came out of nowhere. Shouldn’t we have had something in place to intercept it, to kill it before it injured so many people and damaged infrastructure?”
“Charles, let me give you a situation, and you tell me how you would handle it: Say you go to the bakery at 10:00 a.m. and ask for glazed donuts, but the baker says he doesn’t have any more donuts because several office groups bought them for parties. Now, what are you going to do? Demand the baker immediately give you donuts he doesn’t have? You realize that he wouldn’t necessarily have known that several offices were going to need dozens of glazed donuts on the same day, don’t you? The parties pretty much ‘came out of nowhere,’ so as prepared as he was for ordinary business, he couldn’t have anticipated the need for making extra donuts just so you could have one when you wanted one.”
“Um…”
“Think back two years ago, to 2020, Charles. Donuts are ventilators. Donuts are asteroid-killing spacecraft. Understand? And we won’t know if the test to alter the vector of the asteroid works until we know it works. Nothing is immediate in careful science. And when we are trying something new for the first time, we have to experiment. Maybe we’ll need another modification on the next DART. When you think about what we have accomplished, you should be able to give some credit, not that trying means succeeding, but there’s no succeeding without trying or experimenting. And as far as having extra asteroid-killers on hand, know that once we figure out how to handle a single asteroid emergency, we will be better equipped to handle such emergencies as they threaten.”
“Um…”
“Sorry, Charles, that’s all the time I have to talk. I want to check to see whether what we tried is working, and that’s taking all my time right now.”
"Well, there you have it ladies and gentlemen, another government official who won't come clean about what's going on. Is this another coverup? Yet another scandal? Stay tuned because after the break, we're going to get responses from our experts, and we will hear from the candidates for President to see what they would do if an unexpected asteroid threatened Earth with yet another 'existential' event like global warming."
https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart
“Folks, we’re here at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to see what scientists anticipate from their effort to hit an asteroid with DART, which stands for Double Asteroid Redirection Test. Launched last year, the spacecraft is about to strike the satellite asteroid of Didymos, which is in a near-Earth orbit. DART will hit the asteroid’s companion called Didymoon at a speed of 6.6 kilometers per second, or about 4 miles per second. It’s hoped that the collision will change Didymoon’s orbit enough for the scientists here to measure the change.*
“So, why do we want to fire an object into Didymoon. Well, the whole idea began several decades ago when scientists began to consider what might happen if an asteroid were to hit Earth. Would it wipe out civilization? Cause worldwide extinction as happened 65 million years ago when an asteroid killed off the dinosaurs? Could an Earth-bound asteroid be deflected?
“DART will give us an answer to that question. It’s what we have seen in movies like Armageddon and Deep Impact, the idea that we can save ourselves from an asteroid. After about a year’s journey to catch Didymos and Didymoon, DART will hit the little moon today.
“Here’s Dr. Tané Remington whose been at the forefront of the planning for this mission. Dr. Remington, what do you think you’ll accomplish today when DART hits Didymoon?”
“Well, Charles, as you know, this is just an experimental phase to test whether or not it is possible to move an asteroid by hitting it with a spacecraft. We’ve looked at other methods of deflecting one, such as the ideas we’ve seen as fictionalized versions in the movies like Armageddon. We have some pretty sophisticated software modeling this. It’s a good field test, but it will take a while to assess its effectiveness.”
Day 2
“Dr. Remington has reported that DART impacted Didymoon yesterday evening at 8:07 Eastern, completing its 11 million kilometer or almost 7 million-mile journey. There he is now. Dr. Remington, Dr. Remington, a word, please.”
“Charles, yes, of course.”
“Was the test successful? Were you able to divert the asteroid?”
“Well, as I said yesterday, it will take some time to assess the results. The impact was only designed to move the asteroid by less than one percent of its orbit.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“Well, we would never know the efficacy of crashing a spacecraft into a Near Earth Object to move it unless we try. We can do all the modeling we want, but the true test comes in the field, or, should I say, in space.”
“You’ve spent a lot of money in this project. When will Americans know that the effort has been worth the expense, worth the sacrifice of materials and tax-supported hours?”
“Charles, Americans need to be patient. Science doesn’t work on the schedule of the impatient. It isn’t just a matter of ‘See we have a problem. Why hasn’t the government solved it yet?’ It isn’t as though we had vast stockpiles of asteroid-crashers and the rockets to deliver them.”
“Oh! Right. But there are many Near Earth Objects that could hit Earth. Remember that thing that hit Russia a while back. Came out of nowhere. Shouldn’t we have had something in place to intercept it, to kill it before it injured so many people and damaged infrastructure?”
“Charles, let me give you a situation, and you tell me how you would handle it: Say you go to the bakery at 10:00 a.m. and ask for glazed donuts, but the baker says he doesn’t have any more donuts because several office groups bought them for parties. Now, what are you going to do? Demand the baker immediately give you donuts he doesn’t have? You realize that he wouldn’t necessarily have known that several offices were going to need dozens of glazed donuts on the same day, don’t you? The parties pretty much ‘came out of nowhere,’ so as prepared as he was for ordinary business, he couldn’t have anticipated the need for making extra donuts just so you could have one when you wanted one.”
“Um…”
“Think back two years ago, to 2020, Charles. Donuts are ventilators. Donuts are asteroid-killing spacecraft. Understand? And we won’t know if the test to alter the vector of the asteroid works until we know it works. Nothing is immediate in careful science. And when we are trying something new for the first time, we have to experiment. Maybe we’ll need another modification on the next DART. When you think about what we have accomplished, you should be able to give some credit, not that trying means succeeding, but there’s no succeeding without trying or experimenting. And as far as having extra asteroid-killers on hand, know that once we figure out how to handle a single asteroid emergency, we will be better equipped to handle such emergencies as they threaten.”
“Um…”
“Sorry, Charles, that’s all the time I have to talk. I want to check to see whether what we tried is working, and that’s taking all my time right now.”
"Well, there you have it ladies and gentlemen, another government official who won't come clean about what's going on. Is this another coverup? Yet another scandal? Stay tuned because after the break, we're going to get responses from our experts, and we will hear from the candidates for President to see what they would do if an unexpected asteroid threatened Earth with yet another 'existential' event like global warming."
https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart
RSS Feed