Could an asteroid be used as a weapon?

Anyone considred the possibilty of a small asteroid being used as a wepon. With space technology today it would be fairly easy to attach a lander to one and use rockets to bring it to earth for use as a weapon.
A country could even use a small asteroid as a weapon against another and they would probably never even know. It would just look like a big accident. Some crazy idiot also like off sci fi movies could hold the world hostage or some crap. I just thought of it after reading how much damage a small asteroid would cause.

Small asteroid used as a weapon? Yeah Right.

Not gonna happen so no use worrying about it.

[Edited on 4-3-2004 by Ocelot]

Great idea! Shows hat you are thinking out side of the box. Don't listen to people that will ridicule you for thinking out side the box!

I think the aliens from the movie Starship Troopers used asteroids as weapons. But if it were possible to harness and redirect a small enough asteroid, it'll do some damage. Like annihilate a populated city, kind of damage. Once again, I refer to the movie Starship Troopers.

It' not as if we dont have the technology to do it, so it cant be ranked impossible. Someone invented nukes so someone else will consider doing it at somepoint. Worrying stuff.

Point is, the same destruction can be achieved with existing weapons, so why would one go through the expense and effort of this? Easy, they wouldn't.....

No, due to the complex physics.

The Earth isn't standing still in space. The asteroid is moving. The Earth, in addition to running in its orbit around the sun is also rotating on its axis. Asteroids do not have a regular shape (spherical or cubic or whatever. They're terribly lumpy.) This means that when you apply a force to one side of them you may not be able to predict the precise orbit.

You would constantly have to adjust the velocity *and* the direction of the thrust.

And then there's the cost of getting rockets up there (and fuel) that have enough thrust to move something that's WAY heavier (more mass) than anything else we've moved in space.

There's easier ways to blow up half the planet.

In theory yes it can, although I doubt it has or will actually can. I've actually got a really good ariticle on this somewhere, I'll try and hunt in down and provide the info in it.

Gaz, the pro of using a meteorite e.t.c. as a weapon would be that the user would not have to worry about retaliation. Those attacked would only see it as a natural disaster, no blame would be passed (except maybe God.)

meteorite weapons (or "Mass Drivers") have been talked about before (but only in science fiction).

Yeah my whole point was the fact that it would look natural and no one would be the wiser. We recently used a satellite to capture dust from a comet I am sure this could done.
As for taking a lot of fuel I don't think so. In space something put in motion continues in that motion untill some force acts upon it. So just one shove to start it off and then its just about keeping it on course which requires little fuel.
Also you could quickly repopulate the area considering there would not be heavy levels of radiation, and wow instant economy come see the impact crater, t shirts 20 bucks.

In theory yes a country with competent space technology could in fact do this. So this is possible but unlikely. Like many members I agree that it is easier to simply use nuclear weapons. If you could slam an asteriod into a specific target on Earth it would be easier to simply load a nuclear warhead in the rocket you used to launch what ever device you used to control the asteriod. Plus its a little easier to find uranium or buy plutonium of some country like Russia.

Bogus === "meteorite weapons (or "Mass Drivers") have been talked about before (but only in science fiction)"

And more specifically in Babylon V. The Centari used a mass driver system to bombard a planet to ruble.

Its how they conquered the Narn.

/\/ight\/\/ing

As you said, it would be the ideal weapon to make it look like an accident, but what are the chances of landing it where you wanted?

But then again, I suppose if you drop a rock that big down, it really wouldn't matter where it hit...

Nice call on the B5 reference Nightwing. I had forgotten about that.

Meddled

Originally posted by Hoppinmad1
Yeah my whole point was the fact that it would look natural and no one would be the wiser. We recently used a satellite to capture dust from a comet I am sure this could done.

Massively different scenario there mate...

As for taking a lot of fuel I don't think so. In space something put in motion continues in that motion untill some force acts upon it. So just one shove to start it off and then its just about keeping it on course which requires little fuel.

Ugh, if you are going to base something on Newtons first law, it might help if you availed yourself of the other 2. Specifically the second one. The more massive the object, the more force needed to move it. As Byrd pointed out, the mass of any asteroid that would do any amount of decent damage is FAR greater than anything we have to-date moved in space. That coupled with the irregular shape and spin of the asteroids, coupled with the rest of the highly complicated orbital mechanics involved. Means we simply do not have the ability to do it today, or in the near future.

Hoppinmad1: I don't see why it can't happen or won't happen. Maybe it's already being setup in space using US space vessels.

I think that is likely a suicide purpose. Imagine a asteroid hit Earth.. time for a century winter.

I pulled my post from another thread, and yes this idea has been seriously considered after reading through it...

careful navigation through FAS.org and a link to a book being sold by the RAND institution which is called Space Weapons Earth Wars
www.rand.org...

here is a link to the meteor as weapon section

www.rand.org...

enjoy....

I've thought about this before. If you just put a single rocket on a large space rock, the time to impact may be a very long time and the point of impact (somewhere on Earth) may be a bit unpredictable. You wouldn't want to target an enemy country and then accidently nuke your country would you? Then it might take many years to nudge such a space rock to get the right trajectory with a single rocket propelling it. Therefore, someone would have to use a lot more rockets and resources to propel a space rock faster and to a more predictable trajectory. Given how NASA has crashed space probes on Mars, I don't think we would feel safe if someone was actually considering trying this. It would be a whole lot cheaper and quicker to use more conventional means to attack someone.

If a large space rock did impact the Earth, the collateral damage may include a global dust cloud blocking sunlight which would stop production of the food crops we all eat. Mass starvation on a global scale would make us all wish it had never happened.