The head of Russia's space agency proposed sending up a spacecraft to deflect Apophis, an asteroid that may have 1 in 37 chance of hitting Earth in 2029:
NASA thinks that the chance of impact is only 1 in 250,000.
Link via Geekologie | Photo: Asteroid Gaspra, via NASA
"People's lives are at stake. We should pay several hundred million dollars and build a system that would allow us to prevent a collision, rather than sit and wait for it to happen and kill hundreds of thousands of people," Perminov said.
Scientists have long theorized about asteroid deflection strategies. Some have proposed sending a probe to circle around a dangerous asteroid to gradually change its trajectory. Others suggested sending a spacecraft to collide with the asteroid and alter its momentum, or hitting it with nuclear weapons.
NASA thinks that the chance of impact is only 1 in 250,000.
Link via Geekologie | Photo: Asteroid Gaspra, via NASA
A better option might be for long slow thrust starting as soon as possible. Keep it in one bit and steer it into a near miss. If it already looks like it's going to miss, steer it a bit further just in case.
One day we might find an asteroid with greater odds of hitting us than this one, and on that day we might be glad that we took a bit of a practice swing beforehand, just to get our technique right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torino_Scale
Yay for Stargate sg-1 reference! :D
But with a slight twist though...it's mother russia to teh rescue....
IN SOVIET RUSSIA ASTEROID BLOWS YOU UP!!