Over at The Guardian, Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik returns to the subject whence he first came to public attention: the threat to the Earth of an asteroid impact. Here’s an excerpt:
The discovery of what appears to be a large crater caused by an asteroid impact on Jupiter provides a graphic illustration of the destructive potential of this type of cosmic event. Sixty-five million years ago, the reign of the dinosaurs was brought to a fiery end by a cataclysmic impact with a 10km-wide asteroid. It will happen again – we just don’t know when. However, for the first time in earth’s history, one species – the human race – can to do something about it. …
The haunting reality is that if we don’t invest what I estimate to be £120m to search for these objects, and up to £50bn to divert them, we face the very real possibility of going the same way as the dinosaurs. It’s sobering to think we could save the world from Armageddon for less than it cost to save RBS from bankruptcy. But at present, the political will simply isn’t there.
The Voice suspects this is one spending proposal that is destined for the Lib Dems’ ‘aspirational’ pile. Anyway, you can read the article in full HERE.
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9 Comments
£50bn to divert a asteroid?
Surely we can get Bruce Willis to fly up there and drill the shit out of it for £25bn.
These kind of events happen over geological timescales. It is theoretically possible that this could happen during our lifetimes, but we would be hugely unlucky. It may be worth spending £120million which is not a lot of money in terms of the overall national budget. It really depends on what the scientists say on the matter, and I am not aware that any are particularly concerned about this. I do not know if that is my fault or theirs.
I would suggest to Lembit that he should instead consider selling his private jet, buy a less energy intensive television and pay more attention to global warming which really is a considerable danger to us all.
I don’t think Lembit’s got a jet? The thing he flew to Nottingham had propellors.
OK, helicopter. Please correct my message if you can do that.
“These kind of events happen over geological timescales.”
Depends on their size. I don’t think we have any real estimate of the frequency of a Tunguska scale event as it wouldn’t leave much of a trace, none if they landed in the oceans. Those wouldn’t have been detected before the advent of widespread radar systems
This is one of those risks which is very unlikely, but where the consequences if it DOES happen are extreme. As such, it does not justify huge expense to mitigate it, but it does justify the smaller but still large cost of detection – and of doing so in time for something to be done if a large object is coming our way. That’s why NASA tracks objects in space – but at present they don’t find them all, soon enough. It probably needs global cooperation to do that.
While the odds on a 10km asteroid hitting us during my lifetime are very long, they’re less than the chance of my winning first prize in the National Lottery – and lots of people think they might do that! Odds of a smaller object that could destroy a city are much lower – Tunguska was only 101 years ago and a similar event hitting a city would kill millions. Far worse than likely deaths from swine flu, that the Government is currently spending – I guess – far more than £120M on.
Refs: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event and also last year’s near-miss http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_DD45
Whoops – DD45 wasn’t last year, it was last March. And it was only detected three days before its closest approach to Earth, which was about 40,000 miles.
Geoffrey,
I hate to sir up an argument, but I think it was a turbo-prop ;o)
As for Lembit, I think he has no understanding of timescales and probablility. The planet-killing event he is talking about is so unlikely to happen in our lifetime that we would be serving our children better by saving the money and growing our economy so that if and when they decide to put a big anti-rock gun in space it’ll cost them the future equivalent of peanuts.
There’s a case for spending a few ‘000 m £ spread world-wide via the UN on research – but as a one off and NOT at the expense of other much more immediate needs.
Pushing this forward is up to you, Lembit – you have the contacts – but please don’t forget, dear friend, the HERE AND NOW!
The Party needs you among its top spokesmen – the media loves you and you have that clear voice of reason.