[Scenario] We have 4 years.

[ZetaX]

In a lot of areas, especially research, you cannot just throw ten times as many people at it to get it done in a tenth of the time. It may even take longer with more people (evaluation of the results, diffculty of communication, such things).

It gets worse if you account for the obviously limited number of researchers and engineers of a specific specialisation. You can't turn all those guys that did car manufacturing for 20 years into space ship builders in a couple of weeks.

[Megalodon 720]

Could we redirect asteroids and comets at Pallas to change it's trajectory?

[Jouni]

In a lot of areas, especially research, you cannot just throw ten times as many people at it to get it done in a tenth of the time. It may even take longer with more people (evaluation of the results, diffculty of communication, such things).

It gets worse if you account for the obviously limited number of researchers and engineers of a specific specialisation. You can't turn all those guys that did car manufacturing for 20 years into space ship builders in a couple of weeks.

Reseach is actually one of those areas, where you could get more done just by throwing in more money. Universities have been training far too many PhDs for a long time. Most of the new PhDs have ended up doing something else than research, because nobody needs that many researchers.

There's just one catch. Right now everyone wants to fund the researchers with the best track records and the best funding applications. As a result, there are always a lot of researchers with too little funding and some researchers with too much funding. If you just throw in more money, the guys with too much funding will get even more of it, and the money will be spent inefficiently. Research is fundamentally breadth-first searching. Many independent teams with adequate funding will get more done than a few big teams with a lot of funding.

[dryer_lint]

"There's only one solution. Nuke it. Even if it doesn't work, just keep on nuking it. More nukes. Keep sending nukes at it. Bam bam bam. Pew pew pew pew. Call in Michael Bay. Just keep on shootin' them nukes. Nukes for the win. Even when it's miles away from us, keep nuking it. At least we can go out in a bang. Oh, and give everyone red countdown clocks!"

- The President's Final Speech

[EzinX]

Research is fundamentally breadth-first searching. Many independent teams with adequate funding will get more done than a few big teams with a lot of funding.

I strongly disagree. Finding low hanging fruit is certainly breadth first - low hanging fruit being defined as a breakthrough idea or technology that can be developed cheaply and quickly by a small team with a small budget. However, at this point, the low hanging fruit pluckers have already been searching for decades.

There's a raft of ideas that all known, accepted theories of science say will work. Atomically precise manufacturing, human brain emulation, etc. All these ideas have 2 elements in common :

1. All accepted theories of science say that if the technology is constructed and works, it will lead to revolutionary increases in human capabilities

2. A rough development plan for how to develop the ideas into working form requires billions or trillions of dollars

Instead of going for the low hanging fruit that can only result in marginal benefit to extant humanity, maybe moonshots are a better use of resources. Conquering death itself, or getting the technology that would let us tear apart entire planets with self replicating factories are a lot more useful than finding a marginally better material for making a cell phone screen.

[LABHOUSE]

Send the falcon nine up with some ions and a large solar sail and solar panels as a payload. Dock to the asteroid, make solar sail probe go off to the opposite side and use ion and solar sail at the same time for as long as possible.

[Frozen_Heart]

Send the falcon nine up with some ions and a large solar sail and solar panels as a payload. Dock to the asteroid, make solar sail probe go off to the opposite side and use ion and solar sail at the same time for as long as possible.

You don't understand how big Pallas is do you? Its approaching the realm of a dwarf planet rather than just an asteroid.

[Jouni]

Instead of going for the low hanging fruit that can only result in marginal benefit to extant humanity, maybe moonshots are a better use of resources. Conquering death itself, or getting the technology that would let us tear apart entire planets with self replicating factories are a lot more useful than finding a marginally better material for making a cell phone screen.

You're thinking like an administrator. If you just allocated the resources in the right way, all those unimportant, easily interchangeable PhDs working in cubicles would do the menial work and get the results you want, fulfilling your master plan.

Research doesn't work that way. Almost all groundbreaking results are unexpected, because nobody can guess in advance, what lies behind all those unexplored questions.

[ZetaX]

Send the falcon nine up with some ions and a large solar sail and solar panels as a payload. Dock to the asteroid, make solar sail probe go off to the opposite side and use ion and solar sail at the same time for as long as possible.

You are now the x-th person suggesting something that is rididulously underpowered in regard to something like Pallas.

[EzinX]

You're thinking like an administrator. If you just allocated the resources in the right way, all those unimportant, easily interchangeable PhDs working in cubicles would do the menial work and get the results you want, fulfilling your master plan.

Research doesn't work that way. Almost all groundbreaking results are unexpected, because nobody can guess in advance, what lies behind all those unexplored questions.

Again, we know certain things are physically possible. We know to get to those things, we need to do other things on a vast scale or those things will remain unobtainable.

In the two examples I gave : for nanotechnology/APM, we know that we need equipment that can move individual atoms around and detect the positions of individual atoms before we can even think about developing the tech. We also know that any "nanofactory" would need thousands of unique designs for all the intricate molecular parts such a factory would need. Finally, we know that until a complete factory is assembled, you get no real benefit from the technology. There is no rational way giving a 1 million dollar grant to a PI and a few grad students will result in these kind of results. It would require a coordinated effort between thousands of people.

For scanning human brains, we know that if you don't scan an entire brain, or at least the majority of it, you have not captured enough neural circuitry to even theoretically mimic what that brain does. Similarly, if you do not pay for a big enough supercomputer to emulate the whole thing as a single integrated system, you do not have any chance of ever mimicking human sentience via emulation.

Look, the Manhattan project wasn't unexpected, either. Everyone who planned and executed it knew they needed to pay for enough fissionable materials for a critical mass, or they would not have a bomb.

[Starman4308]

Send the falcon nine up with some ions and a large solar sail and solar panels as a payload. Dock to the asteroid, make solar sail probe go off to the opposite side and use ion and solar sail at the same time for as long as possible.

Well, if every single human being on Earth did that, there might actually be a chance with enough lead time to give the solar sails time to work.

Sadly, not every man, woman, and child on Earth possesses a Falcon 9. In fact, ownership of Falcon 9s is rather selective, to the point at which this plan is simply infeasible.

[Jouni]

Again, we know certain things are physically possible. We know to get to those things, we need to do other things on a vast scale or those things will remain unobtainable.

The fact that something is physically posssible (in an ideal world, where things such as computational complexity don't exist) is mostly irrelevant. In order to determine whether such things are really possible, we need to resolve many other questions first. In order to resolve those major questions, we need to answer a vast number of lesser questions, many of which are completely unknown to us and unrelated to the main goal. In order to get answers to those lesser questions, we need to try countless of small, incremental ideas first in many unrelated fields.

Look, the Manhattan project wasn't unexpected, either. Everyone who planned and executed it knew they needed to pay for enough fissionable materials for a critical mass, or they would not have a bomb.

The Manhattan Project was a short applied R&D project long after the main breakthroughs were made. The breakthroughs themselves were quite unexpected, at least to people such as Einstein.

[sndrtj]

Would it be possible to send some self-replicating 3d printers to it and have them coat the entire surface in some kind of inverse solar sail: a huge "mirror" that slowly pushes the entire asteroid to a different orbit? That would have the benefit if generating the trust on-site. Just two things to solve: design 3d printers that can so rapidly self-replicate as to coat the entire surface in mere months, and find a way of converting regolith into highly reflecting material.

[Starman4308]

Would it be possible to send some self-replicating 3d printers to it and have them coat the entire surface in some kind of inverse solar sail: a huge "mirror" that slowly pushes the entire asteroid to a different orbit? That would have the benefit if generating the trust on-site. Just two things to solve: design 3d printers that can so rapidly self-replicate as to coat the entire surface in mere months, and find a way of converting regolith into highly reflecting material.

A, that technology is very implausible. We aren't even close to von Neumann machines, there's no reason to try "3D printer" when all you would need is a coat, and it'd probably be more practical to have a factory converting regolith to reflective material (then spread by robots) anyways.

B, Pallas is simply not large enough to be its own solar sail by at least an order of magnitude. The square cube law works against you for trying to move large objects: you would need absolutely colossal solar sails to move Pallas, much larger in area than Pallas itself.

EDIT: This raises interesting questions on how one would support such a solar sail. You might need something which looks more like a space elevator than a tower.

Edited December 11, 2014 by Starman4308

[xXIndestructibleEVAXx]

Easy: send a NUKE!!!!!!1!

Seriously though, mass evacuation, redirect attempt, and if all else fails nuke it and take as many people as you can

[Jouni]

Would it be possible to send some self-replicating 3d printers to it and have them coat the entire surface in some kind of inverse solar sail: a huge "mirror" that slowly pushes the entire asteroid to a different orbit? That would have the benefit if generating the trust on-site. Just two things to solve: design 3d printers that can so rapidly self-replicate as to coat the entire surface in mere months, and find a way of converting regolith into highly reflecting material.

A fundamental question here is whether self-replication is even possible to that extent, at least in an environment as simple as an asteroid. The only examples on nontrivial self-replication we've seen so far work, because they're part of a huge and ridiculously complex ecosystem. Surely life began somehow somewhere in the distant past, but we still don't have any idea how it happened.

[EzinX]

A fundamental question here is whether self-replication is even possible to that extent, at least in an environment as simple as an asteroid. The only examples on nontrivial self-replication we've seen so far work, because they're part of a huge and ridiculously complex ecosystem. Surely life began somehow somewhere in the distant past, but we still don't have any idea how it happened.

Actually, it's in no way an open question. We have self replicating equipment right now*, it just needs a biological component to operate that we don't have full replacements for yet. An asteroid has all of the elements needed to make the self replicating equipment we already have.

The catch is that it's far too heavy to launch into space.

*Add up enough of the factories in China, such that you have a minimum set for self replication. Don't forget to include the support structures for the human workers.

[Jouni]

Actually, it's in no way an open question. We have self replicating equipment right now*, it just needs a biological component to operate that we don't have full replacements for yet. An asteroid has all of the elements needed to make the self replicating equipment we already have.

The last time I checked, we didn't even know how to build a Mars colony that could survive with the occasional resupply shipments from the Earth. Building a self-sustaining, self-replicating colony is a much harder problem, and nobody in the world has even the faintest idea how to do it.

This is basically the difference between what's physically possible in an ideal world, where you don't have to worry about things such as computational complexity, and in the real world, where you do have to take complexity into account.

[peadar1987]

You're thinking like an administrator. If you just allocated the resources in the right way, all those unimportant, easily interchangeable PhDs working in cubicles would do the menial work and get the results you want, fulfilling your master plan.

Research doesn't work that way. Almost all groundbreaking results are unexpected, because nobody can guess in advance, what lies behind all those unexplored questions.

Depends what kind of research you're doing. If you're building an Orion, for the most part you're trying to build and optimise various systems based on well-understood engineering and physics. You don't really need a massive breakthrough, and throwing lots of PhDs (or non-PhDs) with vaguely relevant qualifications at it would yield results.

If you need something ground-breaking and revolutionary, you need luck and inspiration. A couple of million of me could probably eventually build an Orion using today's technology. No number of me could ever make the breakthroughs Einstein, Curie, Rutherford, Walton or even Mendeleev did to allow that technology to be initially developed.

[cicatrix]

If we throw sci-fi out of the window the only way we can survive such an event is to try to redirect it.

Prepare two or three independent missions (plan A, plan B and plan C). Theoretically it is doable - sending a thermonuclear charge with a yield powerful enough to do the job. Send three.

Ok, as we saw with Rosetta - we can do this. The problem is time. Rosetta traveled 12 years, we have 4. This means we have to use much more energy-cost route in order to be in time (say 2 years). So we have 1, possibly 1.5 years to develop and build 3 tugs capable of reaching the target in 2 more years + automated landers that will deliver the charges.

I think, if we lucky, we could do this.

[NFUN]

Oh, I've played this game before! You need to beam Megaman.exe up to the magical Internet asteroid and kill the boss guy up there, somehow redirecting it. The plot didn't really make sense, and 3 was much better, but whatever.

[Starman4308]

If we throw sci-fi out of the window the only way we can survive such an event is to try to redirect it.

Prepare two or three independent missions (plan A, plan B and plan C). Theoretically it is doable - sending a thermonuclear charge with a yield powerful enough to do the job. Send three.

So you have a nuke powerful enough to redirect what amounts to a planetoid, massing 2.11*10^20 kg?

Come on, at least try to run some basic numbers first. Tsar Bomba would barely even scratch the thing. The entire world's nuclear arsenal would barely scratch it. Mighty Pallas laughs at your puny mortal efforts to move it.

[trekkie_]

This is the best case scenario:

All humans on earth, non essential to producing the essentials like food and energy, will have to work together to create one massive ship, or a series of massive ships. These ships don't have to go far, all they have to do is get to a suitable distance in orbit around earth to not be affected by the blast. How many ships, or how much of the population we could save, I don't know.....but it would really all depend on how much we can get done in the allotted time. It may even be possible to save the entire earth population if we used our time and resources wisely.

Once in orbit, these ships will become our new home until the earth recovers, which could be a long time. They will need to be as self sustainable as possible, but it may be possible to have return ships to go back to earth and bring back raw materials as needed.

See, the truth is, in a doomsday scenario for earth, earth will still always be our best bet to recolonize, rather than colonizing another planet. It would take us much longer to terraform mars, than it would to recolonize the earth. And orbiting the earth, is going to be a lot less trouble than traveling to another planet. Once it's safe enough (as in the earths temps aren't too hot or too cold) regardless of atmosphere composition, we can colonize the earth much like we would on mars anyways.....we'd just go back down there to build bases.....but these bases would have to be solely for energy and resource extraction, unless we have a way of also landing the main ship(s), then we'd just land back on the earth and live inside of those instead.

Technically, the moon could be a good prospect too. We could technically fit the entire planets population in an area the size of texas, with enough room for everyone to have the same living space as your average apartment or home. That means there's plenty of space on the moon for humans to wait out the disaster.

But the real hurdle, will be organizing the effort.

We may not even need space ships....if the devastation is only limited to the surface of the earth to a certain depth, our resources would probably be maximized by creating underground cities deep in the earth. it's like creating a space ship....except without having to expend the energy to lift it off. when it comes down to it, it's all about pure energy expenditure in the allotted time.

But when you get down to pure energy expenditure, destroying or redirecting an incoming object might be an even easier task. I mean after all, if we could move the entire earths population into space......well then it would probably be easier to just create a massive ship that flies to the object and pushes it out of the way.

Texas for example, is about 700K sq KM (the land mass needed to save the entire human race comfortably). If the incoming object is only 580KM across, it could be much easier to deflect the object than to send the entire human race into space....and considering we'd be saving the earth in the process, the savings would be even more tremendous over a protracted period of time.

I think it's all do-able, as long as we use our time wisely. Even if we run into issues like material strength being unable to support the mass of an object.....well we just build smaller objects. if a ship can't hold under its own massive weight....well then you build smaller ships. technically, it would still take the same relative amount of energy to put 1 massive ship into orbit....or 1,000 less massive ones that equal the same total mass as the large one. we could build and fly thousands of ships designed to land on the object and push it out of the way, while also employing other methods in conjunction, depending on the effect they will have.

the most dangerous thing is to think that we can't save the earth. many will try to convince people of the easier route....a 'small' colony ship with a few thousand people.....but that's just because they'd rather save themselves and start over, than save everyone. they don't want to take the chance of failure, so they'd rather let billions perish to save themselves. for some, it will be their dream to start over and lord over the few remaining humans in a lifeboat, so they will convince people to sacrifice the earth to live that future, or not even bother with a solution to saving the earth, even if it is very much possible albeit difficult.

Edited December 11, 2014 by trekkie_

[cicatrix]

So you have a nuke powerful enough to redirect what amounts to a planetoid, massing 2.11*10^20 kg?

Come on, at least try to run some basic numbers first. Tsar Bomba would barely even scratch the thing. The entire world's nuclear arsenal would barely scratch it. Mighty Pallas laughs at your puny mortal efforts to move it.

No, no, no.

Tsar bomba was a test to prove a theory. Theory proved to be valid: the yield can be scaled up without any practical limits - just add canisters of deuterium/tritium (whatever they used there). You can make 100 Mt, 200 Mt, even 1000 Mt or more. Yes, it could stretch our capabilities of obtaining so much thermonuclear fusion material but it's not impossible.

And besides, I'm not talking about destroying the thing, I'm talking about redirecting it. I'm too tired now to do the math, but I doubt the figures would look all that impossible.

[ZetaX]

No, no, no.

Tsar bomba was a test to prove a theory. Theory proved to be valid: the yield can be scaled up without any practical limits - just add canisters of deuterium/tritium (whatever they used there). You can make 100 Mt, 200 Mt, even 1000 Mt or more. Yes, it could stretch our capabilities of obtaining so much thermonuclear fusion material but it's not impossible.

And besides, I'm not talking about destroying the thing, I'm talking about redirecting it. I'm too tired now to do the math, but I doubt the figures would look all that impossible.

Then throw your 1000Mt at it, heck, let it be even 10Gt. Pallas is still laughing.

You seem to have no idea about the size of that thing.