
Russia's improved ballistic missiles to be tested as asteroid killers - rbanffy
http://tass.ru/en/science/855968
======
mabbo
Part of me gets that you can't "kill" an asteroid, and that a giant rock
moving towards the earth would just be turned into many smaller rocks moving
towards the earth... but that said, I think this sort of thing still might be
useful, and I'd love someone to explain to me otherwise.

First, small rocks more easily burn up on their way down. So smashing a big
rock to pieces increases the surface area enough that maybe that can make it
safer for humans.

Secondly, perhaps the energy hitting the big rock would 'deflect' it ever so
slightly. Fire it early enough, and you can make it completely miss the earth.

Thoughts?

~~~
mapt
You can use a nuke in multiple ways.

As a deflector (launched years or decades from impact), you can nudge the
impactor out of its present orbit by gently ablating one side from a distance;
You can do this iteratively until the impactor's orbit changes enough to miss
Earth.

Decades is sufficient for some of the continuous-thrust alternatives, though,
depending on scale.

As a point defence weapon (launched weeks or months from impact), you can send
the nuke in as close as possible and detonate in order to break up the body.
Yes, this would cause lots of smaller impactors, but over some size ranges
it's preferable because ablation is insufficient. If 99% of the smaller
impactors miss Earth, we win... in some cases.

Just breaking up a large impactor (at the very last minute, launched minutes
or hours before impact) doesn't help so much if everything still hits Earth,
because a planet-killer turns into hundreds of city-killers randomly spread
out.

On the other hand, a small impactor could be dramatically affected by a nuke,
with plausible amounts of vaporization going on. There's quite a lot of risk
surface in small impactors, and they would be hard to spot until very close.

\---

Bong Wie is working through a NIAC grant on the problem:

[http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/space-hazards/asteroid-
hi...](http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/space-hazards/asteroid-hitting-
earth/innovative-hypervelocity-nuclear-interceptor-spacecraft-mitigating-
impact-threat-asteroids/)

One interim observation: a nuke which detaches from a small cratering round
which hits first, digging a hole for the nuke to fit in, would multiply its
effectiveness severalfold.

It's a very different problem in each different size class of impactor (as
well as orbital classes). 10m, 100m, 1000m, 10000m are all of concern in
unique ways; each order of magnitude increase in diameter raises mass by three
orders of magnitude.

~~~
gherkin0
> Just breaking it up (at the very last minute, launched minutes or hours
> before impact) doesn't help so much if everything still hits Earth, because
> a planet-killer turns into hundreds of city-killers randomly spread out.

Wouldn't smaller objects burn up a greater proportion of their mass in the
atmosphere (due to the increase surface area) and kick up less of a dust cloud
once they impact? Could hundreds of city-killers leave some areas unscathed
and still populated and habitable?

I think it would be a great help if a planet-killer could be downgraded to a
civilization-killer or even a species-killer.

~~~
ethbro
Oooh, think of the lawsuits after that one...

------
cm2187
That's a great way to reintroduce nuclear tests discretely (well, sort of
discretely). The cold war is back!

~~~
DominikR
There is no indication in the article that a nuclear weapon will be used in
the test.

I doubt that Russia or the US needs to really test nuclear weapons at this
point, it is all about the delivery mechanism.

~~~
valarauca1
If you believe this you are pretty naive. The space program was initial
started to support Starfish Prime type high altitude nuclear tests.

All launch vehicles until Apollo were ICBM's. The moon landing was originally
planned to be a diplomatic stunt by JFK who wanted a peaceful mission to open
a larger diplomatic dialog.

Space programs have always, and likely will always be a way to project power.
And test high end military weapons under the guise of peace and science.

~~~
DominikR
First of all it would be great if you didn't insult me to bring across your
point.

The second thing I'd like to say: I never contradicted any facts you state
here. Likely they will be using the data to improve their ICBM's, it would be
an enormous waste of resources if they didn't. (and so does every other
country that has ICBM's)

I said: nothing indicates that they will use a nuclear weapon, "it is all
about the delivery mechanism" -> they will use ICBM's but without the warhead,
which does not break any treaties to my knowledge.

------
mattybrennan
This is obviously just target practice for the military, right?

------
ck2
What could possibly go wrong.

[https://www.baycitizen.org/news/japan-
disaster/radioactive-r...](https://www.baycitizen.org/news/japan-
disaster/radioactive-rain-falling-us/)

[http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/13/us/in-idaho-anger-
over-195...](http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/13/us/in-idaho-anger-
over-1950-s-nuclear-tests.html?pagewanted=all)

------
dschiptsov
Satellite killers.

~~~
vlehto
If USSR would get capability to kill GPS satellites, U.S. nuclear subs could
not target their missiles anymore. The rest of U.S. nuclear arsenal is in B2
bombers in known airfields and ICBM's in known silos. So by using their ICBM's
to knock off airfields and silos, USSR could theoretically kill U.S. nuclear
cabability withouht being hit.

This would mean that "pre-emptive" strike is suddenly lot sweeter deal for
U.S. Alternatively restart midgetman program. Yay, more nukes.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM-134_Midgetman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM-134_Midgetman)

This would be "destabilizing" technology. I hope it goes nowhere.

~~~
maxerickson
I have a real hard time believing that US missile subs must have GPS to launch
missiles.

It's obviously not as applicable to a ballistic launch, but here's an example
of publicly known missile guidance that doesn't care about satellites:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERCOM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERCOM)

I expect even without improvements like that they are prepared to launch and
hope that the inertial navigation system in the missile is good enough.

~~~
vlehto
GPS was created for U.S. nuclear subs. The problem is about knowing where the
sub exactly surfaces, because after launch, the trajectory is ballistic. Subs
have very good inertial navigation, but the accuracy deteriorates with time
and movement.

TERCOM is very nice, but only applicable for cruise missiles flying close to
ground and able to change their course.

~~~
maxerickson
Yes yes, the cruise missile thing was just pointing out that there are some
quite advanced non satellite capabilities.

The more important point is the question of whether GPS is actually required
for a launch or if it merely improves the process (accuracy, speed, etc).

------
scrumper
This is potentially a powerful statement for Russia, though the article
doesn't make it clear if the weapons are designed to break up the asteroid or
redirect it. If the latter, it's extremely threatening: if you have the
capability to deflect an asteroid to miss the earth, you can just as easily
deflect one to hit.

------
fsiefken
The article describes the asteroid Apophis as coming dangerously close but
doesn't mention that it's not deemed a threat anymore. It's good PR for
Russia's military power though if it could be done.

~~~
ethbro
Thankfully, there's no possible way nuking an asteroid that's coming close but
definitely already going to miss Earth could turn out badly. /s

------
stephenr
Asteroids aren't living things, they can't be killed.

Same applies for phones/tablets/watches, next time you want to write an
article about a Samsung device.

~~~
dangerpowpow
metaphorical

------
ascotan
obviously no one over there ever watched the movie:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon_(1998_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon_\(1998_film\))

------
dkarapetyan
Russian millitary commander (rmc): Hey uhh... so we haven't used these things
ever since we built them. Kinda a waste don't you think.

Russian scientist (rs): I guess. I mean against international law anyway so we
couldn't use them even if we wanted to.

rmc: Can we come up with an excuse.

rs: I guess we could say they're good against asteroids.

rmc: Great, do it!

