Re: Comet impact in the Eastern United States - Feasibility of Evacuation

"David V. Loewe, Jr" <daveloewe@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:3l3bt311liar51m3vsjfqduvfag8o56mpv@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Sun, 9 Mar 2008 16:45:10 -0500, "Joel Olson"
> <joel_olson@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>>"Joetheone" <joetheone@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>> "Matt Browne SFW" <matt.h.browne@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>> On Mar 9, 6:37 pm, jdnic...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (James Nicoll) wrote:
>>>>> Matt Browne SFW  <matt.h.bro...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> It is very unlikely that the Earth will be struck by a large enough
>>>>> object in the next five billion years.
>>>>>
>>>>>         In fact, even if we move the goal posts to mere mass
>>>>> extinctions, there's only one mass extinction that is thought to
have
>>>>> been caused by an impact and lots of large craters that are not 
>>>>> associated
>>>>> with extinctions at all. Your garden variety flood basalt seems to
be
>>>>> worse for the environment and any cooling event that leads to a 
>>>>> snowball
>>>>> or slushball Earth would also be very bad.
>>>>>
>>>> I'm actually not talking about mass extinctions here. Our species
will
>>>> survive. Most species will suvive this. I'm talking about a comet
>>>> which is larger than the meteorite that hit Tunguska in 1908, but a
>>>> lot smaller than Chicxulub. An impact that is far less dangerous than
>>>> the flood basalt events you mentioned. I'm talking about impacts
which
>>>> are quite possible in a timeframe of several thousand years. How
would
>>>> we deal with this? How can we prepare for this? Is evacuation an
>>>> option? Should FEMA have a plan ready when needed?
>
>>> If you do any map and compass work, you find that 1 degree=100 feet in
a
>>> mile. What's that work out to, say, from the Moon? They couldn't plot 
>>> the
>>> impact zone even to "Greater Pittsburg Area" with any real confidence,

>>> at
>>> best, hours before impact. You'd have just as good a chance of 
>>> evacuating
>>> people into, rather than out of the impact zone.And ther's still just
as
>>> good a chance of it hitting in the ocean or the desert, or the
Canadian
>>> tundra.
>>> The only thing to do would be to hope it hit someone else.
>>> Like the quote in your sig.
>>> Disaster movies, whether SciFi, Discovery or History channel are all 
>>> bull.
>>> There are more variables working on a body falling from space than
there
>>> are on a 30-06 bullet trying to hit a pie plate at 1000 yards. Not
many
>>> can predict how that will end up, either. And there's generally
somebody
>>> that cares about that outcome.
>>
>>I disagree. Given a reasonable time interval, the trajectory and mass
>>can be observed to almost total accuracy.
>
> Because, since it is a comet, there will be no randomly situated
> outgassings which will not produce random jinks and jukes in the
> motion of the incoming comet...
>
> Right.
>

Moving toward or away from the sun?

Oh! If it's that easy to deflect ...




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We turn the past into the present here in Hollywood
even before it's finished being the future.  - Harlan Ellison
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