Now this is a much more creative (and probably effective) way to herd errant asteroids than crude nukes.

Long time reader, first time poster. :-)

This solution is seems pretty complex in my opinion. I think my favorite pet asteroid moving project is Dr. Hermann Burchard's idea from Oklahoma State University. Essentially you fly an ion powered spacecraft next to the asteroid and it inflates a giant airbag. It then carefully bumps up against the asteroid again and again, slowly transfering momentum to the spacerock.

You want to launch *evil nuclear material* into the pristine, unpolluted environment of space?! What if the launcher exploded and the fuel rods landed in a playground? Don't you care about the children?

Hmmm, the "sarcasm" tags I included in the previous message didn't display. Probably not necessary anyway:-)

They should get an award for most grotesquely contrived acronym. Enough already, people. Just give it a purely symbolic name, or describe it accurately and use the acronym that emerges from that.

MADMEN? Yes, that certainly inspires confidence. I thought it was interesting that this is just a slightly refined version of the asteroid mover mass driver O'Neill was writing about in the seventies. I've often wondered about the possibility of a mini lunar mass driver - similar in concept to the O'Neill proposal, but far smaller. The original acceleration assumptions were very low, especially if the launch mass is much lower, say a gram at a time. At a moderate launch rate, that could supply a lot of oxygen, aluminum, etc. Later, more launchers could be added, or made larger.

It couldn't get much worse unless they named it something like DOOM (Deflecting Objects, Our Mission! :-).

Actually, if the goal is to break up the asteroid into fragments that are too small to cause damage on Earth, you don't even need a mass-driver robot, or a nuclear device.

Given enough time, a robot armed with a pickaxe could do the job. Picture a hundred very small solar-powered robots attaching themselves to an asteroid, and then start hacking at it with pickaxes... pick, pick... for years and years.

Of course, the suggestion implies that we know the asteroid's path and have decades before it impacts... :)

A.R. Yngve
http://yngve.bravehost.com/aboutargusproject.html

The goal is to change the trajectory of the asteroid so it doesn't hit the earth. Blowing or breaking up an asteroid is far more difficult and likely would make the situation worse. The mass of an asteroid/comet is the primary issue, the form that mass comes in is nearly irrelevent. A ten mile diameter ball of dust hitting the Earth will ruin your whole millennium . . .

This is hardly a new idea, nor is it all that effective. In terms of cost/benefit it's borderline with today's and the near future's technology. But having a solid, well put together proposal for any asteroid deflection concept is a step forward.

Anyway, as I've said before, the threat of impact from long period comets is such that we will need very high thrust asteroid deflection systems on call, and that means nuclear fission systems (explosives or close cousins) for the foreseable future.

If they put me in charge of the project, I'd just set up separate teams of engineers and go with the most efficient proposal.

One criteria I would have is to see if the asteroid could be safely orbitally captured.