China’s first planetary defence mission appears to be far more ambitious than Nasa’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart), according to a new paper outlining its plan to slam a spacecraft into an asteroid before 2030. Unlike Dart, a proof-of-concept that nudged one asteroid’s orbit around another, China is aiming for a more realistic planetary-defence test. It aims to directly alter an asteroid’s orbit relative to Earth, “or even break up its structure”, according to a team led by Li Mingtao,…
Mach 26 sounds a lot but that’s not that much in space. And what does that have to do with being unable to do the most basic safely operation of your rockets on low earth orbit?
Its possible they shatter the asteroid into a million extremely fast pieces that hit our orbits like a shotgun causing Kessler syndrome and trapping us here for thousands of years. Let’s hope they do their calculations right and don’t think so much about leapfrogging…
The distance at impact to reach Mach 26 in space would be immense. Also, the ability for them to shatter an asteroid is slim to none. Even if that were the case, the distance required??? This is like being concerned about getting hit by a shotgun at 1000m.
The main principle behind this approach is based on distance and small changes in trajectory… I am just simply pointing out that nothing you’ve stated matters at all, given the topic at hand.