Explosive data mining robots could be sent to hazardous asteroids

Sending robotic creatures into space has become somewhat of a worldwide pastime, but sending explosive robots to take care of multiple acts of business is what Dennis Ebbets of Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado has on his mind. In a recent presentation given to the American Astronomical Society, Mr. Ebbets described a fleet of robotic probes small and cheap enough to "investigate a near-Earth asteroid's composition and structure." The devices would be battery-powered and would only be useful for a matter of days, but during the time it was on the asteroid, it would collect data of the surface, explode, and allow other still-in-tact siblings to "listen for vibrations that could reveal the object's inner structure." Considering that NASA has compiled a list of over 800 asteroids that could be potentially dangerous to our planet due to their orbit, these exploding bots would serve a dual purpose as they erupted on the surface to break up the asteroid or veer it off course, all while collecting precious data about the "inner structures" of these mysterious rocks. Although funding still isn't guaranteed for the volatile critters to take off just yet, as many as six of the 12-kilograms probes could loaded onto a single spacecraft and launched to its destination "relatively cheaply," and if things go as planned, we could see the first of these gizmos gettin' dirty by 2011.

[herrProf @ Jan 22nd 2007 2:43PM]

Data mining? Lots of credit card accounts on asteroids now?

[Brad @ Jan 22nd 2007 2:49PM]

In space, no one can hear the boom of the dynamite.

[matto @ Jan 22nd 2007 3:02PM]

I can't wait for a disgruntled engineer working on this project to send one of the robots to his ex-wife's house

[Henry @ Jan 22nd 2007 3:22PM]

But the odds are that the one that hits us will come out of nowhere. If we're lucky we'll find it a couple days in advance, but with our current technology, we'll have about 30-6 seconds warning.

[Marco dela Torre @ Jan 22nd 2007 3:40PM]

Can't shoot Ben Affleck to one of them asteroids instead can we?

[noxious @ Jan 22nd 2007 3:49PM]

when are people going to learn that blowing up an asteroid could potentially be worse than leaving it alone. Does anyone watch the science channel or is it just me?

[jdog @ Jan 22nd 2007 8:46PM]

It'd be better to send a rocket out to an approaching asteroid, depending on its size, and detonate a very powerful nuke just in front of its path. It could then shove it off course or bring it to a screeching halt, maybe send it back where it came from.

[Matt B @ Jan 22nd 2007 4:17PM]

It may surprise them to find remains of other civilizations that thought blowing up asteroids for science was worthwhile.

[sendeth @ Jan 22nd 2007 4:55PM]

2011??? that's the problem with the government. screw that, get nasa to work out the math and send it out next year. at this rate, it will take us centuries to get past the moon if ever. could you imagine if other things were run like our governments???

"doctors appointment??? sure, we have an opening in march of 2009. of course we will have to run it through several committees that don't know anything about medicine, and then there will be the matter of funding..."


in space, vin diesel can hear you scream....

[DT Jacobs @ Jan 22nd 2007 6:59PM]

This is a major step forward for the Palestinian Space Program!

[BatteryAcid @ Jan 22nd 2007 8:40PM]

Great now we can find out loads about and astroid then blow it up! This is almost as good as NASA find ing evidence of life on mars but killing it (http://digg.com/space/NASA_killed_life_on_Mars, http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/01/07/mars.life.ap/index.html, http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/07/2319247&from=rss).

[noxious @ Jan 22nd 2007 7:35PM]

I agree, but the statement was to blow up on the surface of the asteroid. But yeah I'm a fan of splash damage(Q3), hehe.

& to sedeth
I agree, I am tired of NASA getting shit. All that money wasted on the war should have went to NASA. I mean at the rate of Global Warming and all these threats from space and stupid wars, we should already be colonizing other planets.

[Eric @ Jan 22nd 2007 9:12PM]

The submitter should read more carefully before hitting "submit".

This article says nothing about these bots being used to "break up the asteroid or veer it off course". They would be used to collect data about the structure of the asteroid in order to devise the proper means to push or pull the asteroid off its collision path with Earth.

Blowing up an asteroid would be no small feat, and you can't blow something up by exploding a charge on its surface--at least not something THAT big. All you'd be able to do is make a crater and give it a little nudge.

This entry needs to be on http://www.badastronomy.com

[Susan @ Feb 22nd 2007 12:24PM]

Learn more about Asteroids, Information and Impact Events. Near Earth Misses and Science Information on Asteroids and the Asteroid belt.
You can check it out here:
http://www.susansdesign.com/asteroid.htm