From: gossg@gossg.org   
      
   Mikkel Haaheim  wrote:   
      
   >Just to be clear to everyone here:   
   >   
   >I am not arguing that redirecting an asteroid would be a useful, an   
   efficient, nor even a necessarily effective means for an attack. It will   
   likely take far too much time and a considerable amount of resources, and   
   trying to target the damn thing will    
   be next to impossible.   
   >My ONLY point, addressed in my second response, is that it WOULD be an option   
   available for consideration by a space-faring population that might not have   
   the material or intellectual resources required for buiding and deploying a   
   nuclear warhead.   
   >   
   >In short, I think it is as bad an idea as anyone else here... but going   
   nuclear might not be an option (the closest thing to a nuclear option for them   
   might be to steer one of the Earth-provided nuclear drives into the   
   atmosphere, protected with a    
   carefully calculated amount of material, and let it crash into the target,   
   letting the nuclear fuel spread into the wind and contaminate the local   
   habitable area).   
      
   Once you've got the mass driver ON the asteroid, I think a better   
   answer is Heinlein's "throwing rocks".  Take objects of a few hundred   
   tons and send them at high speed towards your target.  They get there   
   a lot faster than the asteroid itself, and still give you   
   nuclear-grade explosions.   
   --   
   We are geeks.  Resistance is voltage over current.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)