NASA Spends $325 Million On 'Bug Hitting Semi Windshield' Test To 'Save Earth'

Agreed...but that's a HUUUUUUGE 'Maybe'.
I don’t know that it’s even an especially large “maybe.” The larger the force applied, I guess we could expect a larger change in the trajectory (including speed) of the big old space rock.

But when you factor in some of the massive distances involved, a small change in speed and or direction of travel (or both) could have major significance on where that object will end up at the time it otherwise might have been expected to collide with Earth.
 
It is actually an important experiment. An asteroid strike on Earth is truly a civilization, if not life ending catastrophe.

This experiment is to see if kinetic energy strikes can have an effect.

The smaller the mass the less effect so it IS vitally important to know how much mass is needed to affect a orbital shift.

One thousandth of a degree, 3 AU away, equals a planetary miss.
This asteroid was classified as 'non-threatening'. It would be truly ironic - and tragic - if what NASA just did alters the course, and years from now it slams into the earth...

:rolleyes:
 
I wish you would have posted the story before it happened. I drove a tractor-trailer for nearly 30 years and I would have only charged them a million or two and give them all the information they wanted. :eusa_shhh:

Years ago I had a coworker that worked for NASA here in Cleveland. He told me they look for ways to waste money. One summer they ripped up all the sidewalks and replaced them. The next year they did the same thing. They used to take office supplies home all the time like pens, copy paper, electric pencil sharpeners. For the stuff they kept track of like computers and typewriters, they'd replace them, throw the perfectly good ones away, and the employees would take them out of the trash.

It was no secret what they were doing, everybody including the supervisors allowed it to go on. The security guards never checked vehicles or the trunks of their cars. If they didn't spend the government money, they would lower their spending for the following year.
Your level of scientific knowledge ranges from "I drove a truck" to "I know a guy who knows a guy"

STFU moron
 
I don’t know that it’s even an especially large “maybe.” The larger the force applied, I guess we could expect a larger change in the trajectory (including speed) of the big old space rock.

But when you factor in some of the massive distances involved, a small change in speed and or direction of travel (or both) could have major significance on where that object will end up at the time it otherwise might have been expected to collide with Earth.
And this was a test of that theory. We'll know in a few weeks how successful it was
 
I don’t know that it’s even an especially large “maybe.” The larger the force applied, I guess we could expect a larger change in the trajectory (including speed) of the big old space rock.

But when you factor in some of the massive distances involved, a small change in speed and or direction of travel (or both) could have major significance on where that object will end up at the time it otherwise might have been expected to collide with Earth.
Exactly. This was just a test of the theory. Now we know we can precisely deliver a huge force to alter the direction of an asteroid that threatens earth.

I am definitely going to sleep better tonight. :)
 
This asteroid was classified as 'non-threatening'. It would be truly ironic - and tragic - if what NASA just did alters the course, and years from now it slams into the earth...

:rolleyes:



Ironic yes, but it also won't happen. Unlike NASA's Goddard climate change bullshit, which IS a tremendous waste of money, the planetary science side is money usually well spent.

Artemis is proving to be a problem, they should have dusted off the Saturn V plans, and updated that basic design instead of reinventing the wheel, but other than that most of the planetary science money is well spent.
 
Your level of scientific knowledge ranges from "I drove a truck" to "I know a guy who knows a guy"

STFU moron
Actually, that's how many government agencies are funded. I saw this while in the Army. I was TDY'd to Special Services, which is run by civilian government employees. Current materials requisition allowances were based on the previous requisition allowance. We were forced to 'buy' stuff we had no use for or lose our 'purchasing' power. Once reduced it was nearly impossible to increase it again regardless of need.
 
Actually, that's how many government agencies are funded. I saw this while in the Army. I was TDY'd to Special Services, which is run by civilian government employees. Current materials requisition allowances were based on the previous requisition allowance. We were forced to 'buy' stuff we had no use for or lose our 'purchasing' power. Once reduced it was nearly impossible to increase it again regardless of need.
That's govt in a nutshell - no incentive to SAVE . SPEND it all, whether there is an actual need or not, or get your budget reduced the next year.
 
Your level of scientific knowledge ranges from "I drove a truck" to "I know a guy who knows a guy"

STFU moron

You don't have to be a scientist to know how government wastes our taxpaying dollars. You think one would have to be but that's why you're a Democrat.
 
That's govt in a nutshell - no incentive to SAVE . SPEND it all, whether there is an actual need or not, or get your budget reduced the next year.
On the bright side the money doesn't remain in Washington very long before it's back in the general economy.
 
That money would have been spent on other NASA projects anyway.

Don't you believe it. Years ago I had a job teaching music at a music store. One of my students worked for a machine shop that made bolts and had a government contract. He told me each and every bolt for the space shuttle had to have a 300 page document for the government. If they didn't like the document, they couldn't change a paragraph or sentence, they wanted an entirely new document.

So I asked what the difference was between the bolts that go into the space shuttle and the ones we buy at the hardware store? He said not a Fn thing. They are made the exact same way with the exception you can buy a bolt from the hardware store for about a buck. The ones they sold to NASA were $300.00 each.
 
Don't you believe it. Years ago I had a job teaching music at a music store. One of my students worked for a machine shop that made bolts and had a government contract. He told me each and every bolt for the space shuttle had to have a 300 page document for the government. If they didn't like the document, they couldn't change a paragraph or sentence, they wanted an entirely new document.

So I asked what the difference was between the bolts that go into the space shuttle and the ones we buy at the hardware store? He said not a Fn thing. They are made the exact same way with the exception you can buy a bolt from the hardware store for about a buck. The ones they sold to NASA were $300.00 each.
I have heard that as well.
 
Congrats to NASA - they successfully carried out anexpetiment in which they hit a football stadium-sized asteroid traveling 14,000 mph with a vending machine-sized spacecraft 'in the ‘world’s first planetary defense test.’

It was pretty much like a bug hitting a semi truck's windshield.

NASA will spend the next few weeks trying to determine if the impact caused any shift in the asteroids trajectory.

(When a bug hits the windshield of a semi, does the bug alter the truck's trajectory / heading? THIS observation cost nothing - NASA's cost us, in the middle of massive inflation - $325 million.)

:popcorn:


This actually is not as bad as some of the shit NASA blows money on . I would rather the Government give grants to private industry to do these sort of missions. It will employ more people and private companies have more of an incentive to protect the planet than the Fed does. No matter what catastrophe kills off us peasants, you know the elite in government and society will survive somewhere.
 
IF the asteroid's trajectory was altered, it was changed by inches at most.
Maybe, but it was hit by an object traveling over 20 times faster than a speeding bullet. Or 200 times faster than a june bug hitting a semi truck wind shield. That changes the speed & trajectory that will add up to thousands of miles after traveling over 750,000 miles.

A nuclear bomb don't weight much either, but the speed is devastating. The nuclear chain reaction neutrons propagate in fission at 20,000 to 50,000 kilometers per second.

As far as cost, it seems a bargain compared to $10 trillion war on terror, $75 billion border wall or $20 billion for a US based semiconductor FAB plant.
 
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THIS observation cost nothing - NASA's cost us, in the middle of massive inflation - $325 million.

Easy, 325 mill is nothing. They spent more putting a fence around Biden's house. Storms can affect the rotation of the earth. Keep in mind that this money "wasted" may be the best money we ever spent if it leads to an effective way mankind can stop the next killer asteroid which, when it hits the earth someday, will wipe everything out just like 66 million years ago with the dinosaurs.
 
So I asked what the difference was between the bolts that go into the space shuttle and the ones we buy at the hardware store? He said not a Fn thing. They are made the exact same way with the exception you can buy a bolt from the hardware store for about a buck. The ones they sold to NASA were $300.00 each.

Not quite. Those 300 dollar bolts have also gone through rigorous testing and documentation to ensure a higher success rate, what they call sigma quality. QC for something like a space mission must approach 100% quality control to all but eliminate failures due to material quality because if something goes wrong, there is no getting out there to fix it.
 
Don't you believe it. Years ago I had a job teaching music at a music store. One of my students worked for a machine shop that made bolts and had a government contract. He told me each and every bolt for the space shuttle had to have a 300 page document for the government. If they didn't like the document, they couldn't change a paragraph or sentence, they wanted an entirely new document.

So I asked what the difference was between the bolts that go into the space shuttle and the ones we buy at the hardware store? He said not a Fn thing. They are made the exact same way with the exception you can buy a bolt from the hardware store for about a buck. The ones they sold to NASA were $300.00 each.
That's total BS.

Hardware store bolts are soft grade 2 to 5.

Automotive bolts are hardened grade 6 to 8.

Commercial airline bolts are grade 8+, drilled for SS safety wires to secure them, stamped certified & also cost a hundred + dollars each & they are private companies.

Nasa rocket bolts are pushed beyond aircraft bolts to their extreme limits on launch & extreme cold of space. Every piece of the rocket must be designed as light & strong as possible because the best we can achieve is 4% payload to rocket weight ratio. So they must be tested & certified to those extreme limits. Do you want to see a $325 million rocket fail because of a cheap bolt?

I never saw an aircraft bolt at a hardware store!
Aircraft Bolt.jpg
 
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Easy, 325 mill is nothing.

Unfortunately we have been programed to believe this.

Currently we would have to pay off something like $30+ TRILLION just to be 'broke'..

While we are personally forced to.be good stewards of our own finances our govt continues to play with 'Monopoly' money...not that this endeavorv is one of those mind-numbing wastes of tax dollars like the 'Shrimp On A Treadmill' experiment from several years ago.
 

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