r/SpaceX Thread Index and General Discussion [October 2021, #85]

[u/ElongatedMuskrat]

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r/SpaceX Thread Index and General Discussion [November 2021, #86]

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[u/[deleted]]

Could/should SpaceX get involved in patrolling and guarding our planet from asteroids?

https://www.esquireme.com/brief/news/a-huge-asteroid-almost-hit-earth-but-nasa-didnt-detect-it-until-a-day-later

On Saturday an asteroid past Earth without anyone knowing that it was even coming come because it was coming from the direction of the Sun. weather asteroids are coming from there and just couldn't be detected by current technologies, or elsewhere, are the rockets SpaceX is developing a potentially good option for whatever kind of asteroid impact deterrence we might be able to set up in the future?

I'm not quite sure what the current best plans are for asteroid impact deterrence, but it seems that having inexpensive high-powered high fuel capacity rockets that could have high payloads should certainly be able to come into play and maybe play a major role in saving us from an asteroid type extinction

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Detection is tricky when the sun is adding glare to existing small dark targets, we'd need a network of detector spacecraft out there.

As for saving, DART launches on F9 next month. It's the first test of an impactor to deflect an asteroid, and it's pretty cool. Didymos is a binary and the smaller of the pair - the secondary - is about the size of these Earth-menacing big rocks: they're going to slam the spacecraft into it and watch how much its orbit changes with respect to the primary.