On Thu, 25 Jul 2002, Rodent of Unusual Size wrote:
> Doesn't apply to this one; you're off by three orders of magnitude.
> Only 2km diametre, this one.  Of course, that's still a lot of mass
> to hit the planet even if it *is* in the form of dust and gas.
Antimissile defense is designed to operate in ~LEO environment, and knocks
out stuff by kinetic kill or nearby nuking (damage by neutron flux
impacting the fissibles). It is *not* designed to apply a 100 MT warhead
(we don't have these, and synchonous impact is even more out of question)
detonate-on-impact to a 28 km/s rock or rubble target. A 100 MT warhead
most assuredly will scarcely fragment a 2 km target in the few seconds
left before the impact. This is so obvious it doesn't even to need to be
modeled.
> Even if Shrub's wrist-rocket managed to vaporise it, we'd still get
> transference to the Earth's energy balance, only to the atmosphere
> rather than the litho- or hydrosphere.
The anti-missile defense is about worse than useless in this case. The
only way to protect is determining orbits at high precision and deflecting
long-term. Decades for targets this size.
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> I don't think a ballistic missile defense system will be much help
> against a rock a couple thousand kilometers in diameter.
Doesn't apply to this one; you're off by three orders of magnitude.
Only 2km diametre, this one.  Of course, that's still a lot of mass
to hit the planet even if it *is* in the form of dust and gas.
Even if Shrub's wrist-rocket managed to vaporise it, we'd still get
transference to the Earth's energy balance, only to the atmosphere