You're enjoying watching a meteor shower one night, thinking about humanity's place in the Universe. Then one of the meteors keeps getting bigger. Uh oh.
“So far, humanity has been spared large-scale catastrophe as was visited upon our previous tenants, but counting upon being “lucky” is a poor strategy in the longer term,” Philip Lubin said in 2021.
But what if time is short? What if we find out too late? What if we’ve launched a kinetic impactor, but it missed or failed somehow? That’s where Lubin’s PI idea could come into play. PI’s idea is to design an impactor that’s not only kinetic but explosive. The impacting device would be fitted with penetrating rods to pierce the asteroid. Explosives would fill some rods, and the resulting explosion would pulverize the bolide into smaller chunks, hopefully 15 m or less in diameter. The pieces would form a cloud of debris. Depending on the size of the bolide, the size of the device, and the distance from Earth when detonated, some of the debris might strike Earth.
ACCORDING TO LUBIN, the PI System could be in orbit around Earth or even housed on a lunar base. “Compared to other threat reduction scenarios, this approach represents an extremely cost-effective, testable, and deployable approach with a logical roadmap of development and testing. Pre-deployment of the system into orbit or a lunar base allows for rapid response on the order of less than a day if needed,” Lubin said.
Launching a large explosive impactor from Earth is becoming more feasible over time, too. Heavy launch vehicles like SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, NASA’s Space Launch System, and others are heralding a new age of powerful rocket technology. The system could also work when it comes to massive asteroids like Apophis. Apophis will pass near Earth in 2029, but it won’t impact Earth. However, if it passes through what’s called a “gravitational keyhole” during its 2029 flyby, it could be nudged enough that it could strike Earth on the subsequent flyby. Apophis is about 370 meters in diameter, and its yield is about four gigatons.
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