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

"David V. Loewe, Jr" <daveloewe@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:c0qdt3tkf2bmdt2l5kmp7vmov5b2b1uhmp@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:49:42 -0500, "Joel Olson"
> <joel_olson@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>>"David V. Loewe, Jr" <daveloewe@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>> 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?
>
> Side to side, front to back.
>
>>Oh! If it's that easy to deflect ...
>
> It's amusing how we've gone from "total accuracy" of the impact to
> "easy to deflect."
> -- 

You don't read sarcasm well, do you?

If the comet is moving away from the sun, it's less likely to outgass
than if its moving into a warmer regime.

I'm not claiming total accuracy, just that a reasonable risk zone can be
defined.

You're saying its impossible?