[Starlink] Hitting an atira asteroid with a spacex starship?

[Bruce Perens]

If you own a 50 ton spaceship, please do not intentionally hit any
asteroids or other objects with it. What you get is smaller objects heading
in different directions at different velocities, none of which are all that
predictable, and in total more danger to objects in space than before and
still significant danger to ground objects. What you want is to turn it
harmless. This is done by gently attaching to it and then giving it a
controlled push.

I've been curious about what one could do over time just using the pressure
of light from the ground, or enough light to gassify material to add delta
V, however high power devices for this would also be effective weapons.

    Thanks

    Bruce

On Thu, Nov 3, 2022 at 5:28 PM Dave Taht via Starlink <
starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> So, what would happen if we hit one of these (3 new ones discovered
> yesterday) with 50tons of starship, at 15 klicks per second? [1]
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atira_asteroid
>
> the three new ones, discovered and announced a day or three back:
>
>
> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/three-near-earth-asteroids-were-hiding-in-the-suns-glare-180981055/
>
> (Atira class are rocks within earth orbit. They are very hard to see,
> probably overly baked (low on volatiles), and get bright sun all the
> time)
>
> [1] I'm very inspired by DART, but afraid to do the math for this
> tonnage and speed. (anyone? there's a LOT of zeroes... ) I have
> project ploughshare on my mind, except kinetic, and it's less
> deflection on my mind than reducing a rubble pile to rubble,
> identifying the good pieces, and bringing them back.
>
>
>
> --
> This song goes out to all the folk that thought Stadia would work:
>
> https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dtaht_the-mushroom-song-activity-6981366665607352320-FXtz
> Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
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>


-- 
Bruce Perens K6BP
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