- A TEAM of British space scientists has devised a plan
to nudge an asteroid out of its solar orbit and send it hurtling into the
centre of Telford.
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- The impact on the Midlands new town would trigger an
explosion the equivalent of 15 hydrogen bombs, wiping Telford - birthplace
of the Industrial Revolution and which now boasts "one of Shropshire's
larger shopping centres" - off the map. Most of the Midlands and part
of the North, including Birmingham and Manchester, would go, too.
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- The plot may sound like something dreamed up by an under-ambitious
James Bond villain but the researchers say their study is a serious attempt
to show how asteroids could be turned into weapons of mass destruction.
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- Nigel Holloway and David Asher, who insist that they
have nothing against Telford, will unveil their plans for the destruction
of the Midlands on Oct 16, 2023, at a conference at Charterhouse School,
Surrey,today.
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- Astronomers have repeatedly given warning that the risks
of an asteroid or comet hitting the Earth are greater than many people
realise. In 1908, an asteroid exploded in Siberia, flattening trees over
400 square miles. Comets probably finished off the dinosaurs 65 million
years ago and triggered mass extinctions 250 million years ago.
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- Now, Dr Holloway, of the astronomer pressure group Spaceguard
UK, and Dr Asher, from Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland, have demonstrated
that it is possible to turn an asteroid into a weapon. Using a computer
model, they have shown that it would take 15 small nuclear bombs to push
a rock on to a collision course. The impact would be accurate to within
a few hundred miles.
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- Because an asteroid could be deflected without anyone
on Earth realising, the devastation could be made to look natural. For
their simulation, they chose an asteroid a few hundred yards long called
1998 HH49. Telford was chosen because it was central. The team also happened
to have the co-ordinates of its observatory to hand.
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- Dr Holloway said: "It would totally wipe out everything
within 60 miles, and for hundreds of miles there would be serious damage
from blast winds and debris." Manchester, Birmingham, Leicester and
Nottingham would all be destroyed, killing 10 million people. Mr Holloway,
who works on risk assessment at the UK Atomic Energy Authority, likened
the approach to one of a bad golfer.
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- "It is extremely difficult to get a hole in one,
but even a bad player can get the ball in the hole if they take enough
strokes," he said. On its normal orbit, 1998 HH49 is due to miss the
Earth by at least 600,000 miles in October 2023.
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- The team proposed sending a 10-ton satellite on a nine-year
journey to within 6,000 miles of the asteroid. The satellite would carry
one-megaton nuclear missiles. In July 2022, while the asteroid was hidden
from view behind the Sun, a bomb would detonate every 24 hours, a few hundred
feet from the asteroid, nudging it into position.
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- The researchers say their plans are not science fiction.
The Russians have talked about deflecting asteroids, while America is considering
investing more in "planetary defence". Dr Holloway said: "The
point of this is to show how it could be done secretly. But the more asteroids
we know about, they harder it would be for a country to find one and use
it as a weapon."
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- Comment
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- From Ian Gurney iangurney@ukwriters.net 4-13-1
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- Dear Jeff,
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- Thanks for putting my piece on the earthquake up on your
website. As usual, I'm getting good feedback from your viewers and listeners.
AS you are aware, my book predicts Judgement Day sometime in 2023. Articles
in the UK press over the last two days seem to confirm that we DO have
a problem on October 16th. 2023 with asteroid 1998HH49 due to pass within
600,000 miles of earth IF it remains in it's in it's normals orbit. However,
there could be problems. Above is an article from the UK Daily Telegraph
od April 12th. Geuss I may just be right, or at least the datings in the
Bible are correct.
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- Regards, Ian. _____
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- Cosmic Golf Could Smash Cities
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- By Mark Henderson - Science Correspondent http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-113386,00.html
4-12-1
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- Asteroids could be used to destroy enemy cities in what
astronomers describe as a deadly game of "cosmic golf. Lumps of rock
weighing millions of tons could be nudged out of their normal orbit and
guided towards particular cities on Earth by a string of nuclear explosions.
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- The process is likened to golf because it takes several
nuclear "shots to hit the asteroid into its target "hole. The
final putt would cause an explosion 50,000 times larger than the Hiroshima
bomb and obliterate a region the size of Belgium. The perpetrators could
escape blame for an apparent natural disaster.
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- This novel form of star wars is within the scope of current
technology, according to research by David Asher, of Armagh Observatory,
and Nigel Holloway, a member of Spaceguard UK, an organisation that monitors
asteroids.
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- "It is a sort of deadly cosmic golf, played with
an odd-shaped ball, said Dr Holloway, a former military scientist at the
Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston. "It is very difficult
to get a hole in one, or even to make a par five, but it is a pretty simple
thing to get the ball to the hole in 15.
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- The astronomers, using a computer model, have calculated
that a rogue state or terrorist group could steer a known asteroid, called
1998 HH49, on to Telford, Shropshire, using an average of 15 nuclear explosions.
The operation, which would also destroy cities as far apart as Manchester
and Birmingham, would cost less than the $100 billion spent on the International
Space Station and Britain would never know that it was under attack.
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- First, nuclear weapons would be launched into space under
the cover of a civilian mission. The government responsible could later
claim that the satellite or Martian probe had been lost in an accident.
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- Next, the warheads would be stacked up in orbit around
an asteroid about 200 metres wide. Each weapon would be landed on the asteroid
and detonated over the course of 18 months to alter its orbit so that,
eventually, it was lined up with a target point on Earth. The final aligning
blast could be delayed until a month before impact. "A leader would
have a chance to abort the plan until almost the last moment, Dr Holloway
said.
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- Clever planning would ensure that no one on Earth would
know what was happening. The explosions could be detonated while the Sun
stood between the Earth and the asteroid, making the blasts invisible to
observers on this planet; a hitherto uncharted asteroid could be selected
so that its altered orbit would not be detected.
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- Dr Holloway said: "There are all sorts of ways of
covering your tracks. Everyone would assume this was an act of God, when
it was nothing of the sort.
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- "Who would disbelieve you if you said that your
latest mission to Mars had been an embarrassing loss, when it was actually
carrying a cluster of weapons ready to start the real job of diverting
a chosen asteroid to devastate an unfriendly nation? You would be squeaky
clean, with no risk of retaliation from your target.
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- The best way to prevent such a scenario, Dr Holloway
said, was to invest in better methods of tracking asteroids so that any
change in orbit would be swiftly detected. Nuclear weapons could then be
used to divert the asteroid away from Earth.
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- Such measures would also reduce the risk of a catastrophic
natural asteroid impact of the sort that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.
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- In their computer simulations, Dr Holloway and Dr Asher
managed to land asteroid 1998 HH49 on a spot within 100 miles of Telford
30 times out of 40 attempts, using no more than 15 nuclear "putts.
Five of the efforts that missed Telford still hit the United Kingdom, with
another five missing altogether. In one case, it took ten shots to hit
the target.
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- The resulting impact would have had a force of 1,000
megatonnes of TNT " 50,000 times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima,
and 15 times larger than the biggest hydrogen bomb ever tested. Everything
within a 60-mile radius would have been destroyed, with serious damage
throughout England and Wales and more than 10 million deaths.
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- "We have nothing against Telford, it happened to
be near the middle and we had its position on file, Dr Holloway said. "But
it demonstrates how easy this would be to achieve.
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