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Speaker 1: Imagine this for a second. You're looking up at the

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deepest night sky, completely dark, and then suddenly there's this

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this searing point of light. It gets brighter, much brighter

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than the sun itself. But it's definitely not a star, No,

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it's not. It's a rock, maybe the size of a

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football stadium, and it's just tearing through our atmosphere, moving

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at something like sixty times the speed of sound.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the speeds are just incredible.

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Speaker 1: And what we found looking at the sources for this

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deep dive is that scenario, even with a moderately sized

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object like that, it translates instantly into the energy equivalent

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of four thousand Hiroshima bombs all going off at one

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four thousand.

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Speaker 2: It's hard to even picture that's enough kinetic energy localized

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to just flatten major cities, wipe out millions of people

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in an instant.

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Speaker 1: And the scary part, the really key thing here is

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that this isn't just some grim theoretical exerciser, not at all.

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Speaker 2: We are right now living in what you could call

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a cosmic shooting gallery. And the tension, the urgency it

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comes from understanding how often we nearly get hit by

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these things, objects big enough to cause, you know, regional disasters,

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I just don't see them coming often, not until the

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very last minute.

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Speaker 1: Those near misses, they really hammer home why we need

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to talk about this. You don't even have to look

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far back. Remember asteroid Okay, that was twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, that was a close one.

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Speaker 1: It was about the size of a thirty story building,

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not stadium size, but still huge. And we only spotted

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it one day before it zipped past, one single day,

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closer than some of our own satellites. And if it

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had hit, the energy release would have been like three

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thousand Hiroshima bombs.

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Speaker 2: It's just staggering. And that wasn't even the last one.

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Just last year, twenty twenty three, we had Asteroid MK.

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Speaker 1: Even bigger, wasn't it?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Larger still, yeah, And we spotted that one just

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thirteen days out, thirteen days before it flew past, closer

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than the moon orbits us.

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Speaker 1: Thirteen days and potential impact that.

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Speaker 2: Was calculated at around nine thousand Hiroshima bombs nine thousand,

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averted purely by luck by cosmic.

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Speaker 1: Chants nine thousand. It just highlights this terrifying vulnerability we have.

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I mean, we have pretty good systems right for tracking

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the really massive, multi kilometer stuff, the ones that could

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end civilization.

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Speaker 2: We do for the most part. The big ones, the

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planet killers, we generally have a better handle on their

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orbits years or decades in advance.

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Speaker 1: But these smaller ones, the city killers, the ones maybe

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one hundred meters across like that stadium, they're the tricky ones.

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They often only get spotted when they're basically, you know,

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right in our backyard, days or weeks away.

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Speaker 2: And that's when the clock really starts ticking, isn't it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And that brings us right to the core problem

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we need to unpack in this steep dive. Despite these

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incredibly close calls, humanity doesn't currently have a reliable, ready

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to go plan for that kind of short notice intercept.

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Speaker 2: Exactly if we get that two week warning, that critical

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heads up, what can we actually do with the technology

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we have right now? And maybe more importantly, why do

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all the classic solutions, the common sense ideas, why do

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they completely fall apart when time is the one thing

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we don't.

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Speaker 1: Have right So we're diving into the architecture of planetary

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defense today, or maybe the terrifying gaps in that architecture Okay,

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let's start with those classic ideas, the scientific proposals that

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seem well sentible on the surface, the sort of elegant

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soft touch approaches, methods designed to just nudge the asteroid

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away gently.

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Speaker 2: Right, the deflection approach, not destruction, just pushing it slightly

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off course.

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Speaker 1: What are some of those and why are they basically

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useless if we only have say two weeks.

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Speaker 2: Well, you've got a few main categories there. They all

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focus on applying a really tiny but consistent force over

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a long period. There's the kinetic impactor, basically crashing a

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spacecraft into it to give it a small push. NASA's

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Dart mission was a test of that concept.

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Speaker 1: Right, Dart that work. Didn't it change the orbit slightly?

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Speaker 2: It did. It was a fantastic proof concept, but it

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hit a small moonlet of a larger asteroid. And the

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key is they planned that mission for years. They knew

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exactly where Dimorphous would be, and even then the change

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in its orbital period was measurable but small.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So kinetic impactors are one idea. What else?

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Speaker 2: Then you get into more nuanced stuff like painting one

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side of the asteroid white or.

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Speaker 1: Maybe black, painting it. How does that help?

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Speaker 2: It uses something called the Arkovski effect. Basically, sunlight heats

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the asteroid and as it rotates, it radiates that heat

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back out into space. If one side absorbs or radiates

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heat differently because you've painted it, that creates a tiny, tiny,

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almost imperceptible thrust.

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Speaker 1: Huh.

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Speaker 2: Clever, it is clever. Or you could land thrusters on it,

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small engines to steer it gradually, or even use lasers

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maybe station nearby, to scorch one side, causing material to

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blast off and create a tiny push similar to the

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Arkovski effect, but maybe stronger.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So these all sound like very long term, very

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low energy strategies, gentle ledges.

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Speaker 2: That's exactly what they are, and they all suffer from

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what the source material we looked at calls the cargo

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ship and potatoes problem.

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Speaker 1: To create analogy, actually, cargo ship and potatoes explain that.

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Speaker 2: Imagine a massive cargo ship sailing along. That's your asteroid, millions,

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maybe billions of tons, moving incredibly fast. Now imagine trying

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to change its course by standing on the dog and

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throwing bags of potatoes at it.

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Speaker 1: Right, each potato has a tiny impact, but against the

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momentum of the ship.

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Speaker 2: It does basically nothing in the short term. These methods

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that painting, the lasers, the small kinetic impactors, they're designed

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to impart an incredibly small change in velocity we call

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delta V. We're talking millimeters per second, maybe even.

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Speaker 1: Less millimeters per second.

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Speaker 2: That's tiny, minuscule. But the idea is, if you apply

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that tiny push early enough, years or even decades before

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the potential impact, that tiny change in speed accumulates over

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the vast distances of space.

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Speaker 1: Ah I see, so over millions and millions of kilometers,

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that millimeters per second difference eventually adds up to missing

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the Earth by thousands of kilometers exactly.

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Speaker 2: It's all about the accumulation time. But if you only

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have two weeks, applying that same tiny force for just

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two weeks, well the total miss distance you create might

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only be a few hundred meters, maybe a kilometer if

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you're lucky.

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Speaker 1: So the cargo ship barely even notices the potatoes in

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that short timeframe. It's still heading straight for the dock.

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Speaker 2: Precisely. All these elegant, gentle solutions, they require patients, They

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require lead time that the universe, especially with these smaller

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harder to spot objects often just doesn't give us.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So nudging is out for the short notice scenario,

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which leaves while the brute force option doesn't it. The

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one we always see in the movies, the nuclear bomb,

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Hollywood favorite. Yeah, just launch a nuke, blow it up. Simple.

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Except it's not simple at all, is it? Why does

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that fail when you really look at the physics?

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Speaker 2: Right, the nuclear option seems obvious, but it's riddled with problems,

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especially on a tight deadline. Let's think about the most

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direct approach first, just sending a missile with a nuclear

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warhead to collide head on with the asteroid. Okay. The

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problem is the speed these things could be approaching us

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at say seventy thousand kilometers per hour. That is blisteringly fast,

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fast enough to cross the Atlantic Ocean at about five minutes.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so you launch your messle what happens at impact?

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The kinetic energy of that incoming asteroid, just its sheer

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mass and velocity, completely overwhelms the warhead structure.

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Speaker 1: You mean, the asteroid destroys the bomb before it can

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even detonate.

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Speaker 2: Exactly the force of that seventy thousand kilometer collision pulverizes

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the missile, the casing, the detonation mechanism, everything turns into

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useless shrapnel before the nuclear chain reaction can even properly start.

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We literally crash our own weapon before it has a

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chance to work. The asteroid wins that kinetic battle every time.

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Speaker 1: The physics turns our ultimate weapon into basically a fragile

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egg hitting a speeding truck. Okay, so direct impact is out.

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What about the other movie trope exploding the bomb near

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the asteroid to push it like an air burst, but

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in space.

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Speaker 2: That seems like the logical next step, right, avoid the

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direct impact, detonate nearby, use the blast wave to push it.

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And scientists have actually modeled the optimal distance for this,

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maybe tens of meters above the asteroid surface for the

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best deflection effect.

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Speaker 1: Okay, sounds plausible, but you're.

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Speaker 2: Forgetting where this is happening. It's happening in the vacuum

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of space. Ah, no air, No air, And what does

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a nuclear explosion need to create that massive, devastating shockwave

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we see on Earth?

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Speaker 1: Air atmosphere a medium to travel through.

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Speaker 2: Precisely on Earth, the explosion rapidly heats and expands the

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surrounding air, creating a powerful mechanical wave, the shockwave that

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carries immense force. In a vacuum, there's nothing to heat and.

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Speaker 1: Expand, So what happens to all that energy from the bomb.

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Speaker 2: Most of it just radiates away uselessly as thermal energy,

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X rays, gamma rays. It flashes the surface of the

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asteroid with intense heat. Sure, some surface material might vaporize

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boil off in a space. That's called ablation, and that

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ablation does create a tiny push, like a very weak

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rocket engine, but it's not enough, nowhere near enough. You

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get a dramatic flash, maybe a carbon nice crater on

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the surface, but the actual change in the asteroid's trajectory

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is minimal. You might deflect it by a few kilometers maybe.

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Speaker 1: So still heading for Earth, just slightly off its original path.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like hitting that cargo ship with a washing

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machine instead of potatoes. A bit more noticeable, maybe makes

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a dent, but ultimately still useless for avoiding the collision

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in two weeks.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so head on fails, stand off detonation fails. Because

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of the vacuum. That seems to leave only one nuclear option,

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the really complicated one, the one where they land, drill

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a deep hole and bury the bomb inside the asteroid.

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Speaker 2: That's the one that method does solve the vacuum problem.

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If you detonate the bomb deep inside the asteroid, the

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energy isn't radiating into empty space. It's contained by the

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rock and ice around it.

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Speaker 1: So the asteroid's own mass acts like the air transmitting

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the shockwave internally exactly.

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Speaker 2: It forces a catastrophic internal disruption. The energy is trapped

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and channeled, potentially shattering the object or giving it a

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much more significant push.

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Speaker 1: But the logistics on a short timeline.

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Speaker 2: The logistics are an absolute nightmare. Think about landing anything

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on another celestial body. It's incredibly difficult and risky. Even

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landing probes on Mars, a planet we've studied for decades.

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A place is relatively large and slow moving compared to

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an asteroid. The historical failure rate for landings is something

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like seventy percent.

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Speaker 1: Seventy percent failure rate on Mars are well known neighbor.

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And now we're talking about landing not just a probe,

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but a crew potentially and a heavy, delicate nuclear.

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Speaker 2: Device onto a small, possibly tumbling, fast moving rock that

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we only discovered two weeks ago and know almost nothing

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about the Chances of successfully landing in that scenario are

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astronomically low. It's almost certainly impossible on that timescale.

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Speaker 1: Okay, but let's play Devil's advocate. Let's say miracle happens.

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They stick the landing. Now they have to drill, and.

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Speaker 2: Drilling in microgravity is another huge challenge. Here on Earth,

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gravity helps pull the drill down, keeping the bit seated

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and allowing you to apply pressure. In microgravity, there's no down.

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Speaker 1: So pushing on the drill just pushes the astronauts and

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the lander away from the asteroid pretty much.

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Speaker 2: You have to anchor yourself somehow, and the drilling process

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itself becomes incredibly slow and complex. You simply can't drill

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fast enough. You need to get that bomb very deep

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to be effective. How deep are we talking depends on

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the size and composition, but likely tens, maybe hundreds of meters,

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and trying to drill that far in microgravity on an

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unknown surface with maybe only days or hours left.

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Speaker 1: Time runs out. The clock ticks down before you even

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get close to the required depth.

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Speaker 2: Exactly the Hollywood solution land drill plant the bomb, it

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gets completely choked by the sheer impossibility of the logistics

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and the physics of working in microgravity under extreme time pressure.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so this is getting a bit bleak. Gentle nudging

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fails because it's too slow. Brute force nukes fail because

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you either can't hit it right the vacuum neuters the blast,

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or you can't physically drill into it fast enough.

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Speaker 2: It does seem like we're running out of options using

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conventional thinking, which.

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Speaker 1: Means we have to shift our thinking entirely. The research

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we looked at suggests we need to think less like

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I don't know a missile defense engineer, and more like

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maybe a lumberjack, someone who understands the material they're dealing with,

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finding the asteroid's secret weakness.

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Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it, because there is

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a fundamental misunderstanding, or at least an outdated view in

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the popular imagination about what asteroids actually are.

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Speaker 1: We tend to picture them as solid lumps of rock

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and metal, right like giant boulders floating in space.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, and some are, especially the very large ones formed

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early in the Solar System, but many, perhaps most, of

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the near Earth objects that pose a threat, particularly these

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stadium sized ones, we might only get weeks notice of.

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They're not solid at all.

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Speaker 1: They're what planetary scientists call.

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Speaker 2: Rubble piles precisely. Think of them less like a solid

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bowlder and more like a giant back loosely filled with gravel, pebbles, dust,

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maybe some bigger rocks mixed in, all held together only

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by their own very.

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Speaker 1: Weak gravity, A giant cosmic gravel bag. Okay, that changes things.

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If it's not solid rock, maybe you don't need to

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push it or blast it from the outside, right.

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Speaker 2: If it's just a loose collection of stuff, maybe the

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goal shouldn't be deflection, but disintegration, pulverization.

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Speaker 1: Break it up, turn that incoming gravel bag into a

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harmless cloud of scattered dust and pebbles before it reaches

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Earth exactly.

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Speaker 2: And if that's the goal, perverization not nudging, then the

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tool changes too. It's not a nuke, not a laser,

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not paint. It's something much simpler, in a way, a

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super dense kinetic weapon, something called a penetrator.

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Speaker 1: A penetrator okay, sounds serious, like a cosmic bullet.

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Speaker 2: That's essentially what it is, an engineered hypervelocity bullet designed

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to tear through that rubble pile.

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Speaker 1: So describe this hardware. What does a penetrator look like?

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What's it made of? Typically we're talking about something relatively

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simple in design, a long, slim, dark shade, maybe a

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few meters long. And the key is the cial. It's

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made almost entirely of tungsten. Tungsten.

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Speaker 2: Why tungsten because tungsten is incredibly dense. It's nearly twice

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as dense as lead, which makes it exceptionally heavy for

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its size. And it's also extremely hard, much much harder

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than any rock or ice it's likely to encounter in

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an asteroid. It's just very very good at punching through things.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so a heavy hard dart. How fast does it

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need to go? Do we need some super advanced propulsion

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to get it up to speed?

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Speaker 2: That's the elegant part. You don't actually need to accelerate

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the penetrator to incredible speeds itself. You just need to

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place it accurately in the asteroid's path.

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Speaker 1: Wait, you just put it there and let the asteroid

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run into it exactly.

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Speaker 2: Remember the asteroid is already moving it potentially seventy thousand

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kilometers per hour. That's the energy source. It doesn't really matter.

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Kinematically speaking, whether the bullet hits the target or the

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target hits the bullet, the relative velocity is what counts.

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Speaker 1: So the asteroid provides its own destructive energy when it

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slams into this incredibly dense stationary tungsten object.

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Speaker 2: Right, It maximizes the momentum transfer and the destructive force

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of the impact. When that speeding rubble pile hits the

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tungsten core, the energy releases instantaneous and incredibly violent. But

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there's a really critical constraint here, which is we absolutely

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cannot let this pulverization happen too close to Earth.

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Speaker 1: Right. You mentioned this earlier. Even if we break it

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up into small pieces, if it happens too close, it's

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still catastrophic. Why exactly the compounded shockwave.

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Speaker 2: Thing, Yeah, it's about the physics of atmospheric entry and

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pressure waves. If you break the asteroid into say thousands

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of fragments, even if they're just pebble sized or maybe

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fist sized, but they all enter the atmosphere over the

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same region at roughly the same time.

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Speaker 1: They're still carrying immense kinetic energy collectively.

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Speaker 2: A huge amount, and as they hit the atmosphere, they

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create individual shock waves and released intense heat. If thousands

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of these events happen almost simultaneously in the same large

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volume of atmosphere, those pressure waves and thermal pulses combine,

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they compound.

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Speaker 1: Creating one massive atmospheric blast effect. Even without a single

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large impact or hitting the ground exactly.

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Speaker 2: It's like setting off thousands of bombs high in the

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atmosphere all at once. The resulting over pressure wave hitting

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the ground could still be devastating over a huge area,

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potentially killing millions through the shockwave alone, even if no

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large fragments actually land.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so distance is key. We need to break it

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up far enough away that the fragments have time to.

333
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Speaker 2: Spread out spread out significantly. We need them to arrive

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at Earth not as a concentrated swarm, but as a

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diffuse cloud, hitting the atmosphere over hours or maybe even days,

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and over a vast geographical area hundreds of thousands of

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square kilometers, so.

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Speaker 1: They burn up individually harmlessly. How far away do we

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need to make this intercept happen for that dispersal, The.

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Speaker 2: Calculations suggest we need the intercept point to be about

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one full day of the asteroids travel time away from Earth.

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Speaker 1: One day's travel time. At seventy to thousand kilometers.

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Speaker 2: Per hour, there's nearly two million kilos away. For perspective,

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that's more than four times the distance.

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Speaker 1: To the Moon two million kilometers. Okay, that sounds far.

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Can we actually get a spacecraft carrying this penetrator out

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that far within our two week warning window?

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Speaker 2: Yes? Absolutely, that's the good news. A standard powerful rocket thinks,

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something like an Atlas V or a Falcon nine, maybe

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a Falcon Heavy for a larger penetrator, can cover that

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two million kilometer distance in about a week.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so the mission profile fits. Launch within a few

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days of detection, travel for about a week, deploy the penetrator,

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and let the asteroid hit it one day before potential

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Earth impact.

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Speaker 2: That's the plan. We send one relatively simple payload, maybe

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a two meter long, two point five ton tungsten penetrator,

358
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get it into position and wait.

359
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Speaker 1: Okay, let's visualize that impact. Slow it down. The asteroid,

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this bag of gravel moving at seventy thousand kilominator hits

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the stationary tungsten dart. What happens in that instant.

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Speaker 2: It's pure focus violence. That collision instantly unleashes the kinetic

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energy equivalent of about one hundred and twenty metric tons

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of TNT right into the heart of the asteroid structure.

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Speaker 1: One hundred and twenty tons of TNT just from the

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impact itself.

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Speaker 2: Just kinetic energy. The force is so localized and so

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extreme that the rock material it hits immediately vaporizes. The

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tungsten itself likely melts or partially vaporizes too. It carves

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this devastating wound, punching deep into the rubble pile.

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Speaker 1: And because it's a rubble pile, just loosely held together.

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Speaker 2: Right, it doesn't have the structural integrity of solid rock.

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It's only held together by its own weak gravity. That

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sudden massive energy input, that shock wave propagating through the

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loose gravel. The structure just can't handle it.

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Speaker 1: It can't contain the energy. It rips itself apart from

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the inside out.

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Speaker 2: Effectively, Yes, the asteroid is blasted into thousands, maybe tens

379
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of thousands of pieces. They scatter outwards, forming a rapidly

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expanding diffuse cloud.

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Speaker 1: And then a day later, when this cloud reaches Earth's position.

382
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Speaker 2: The fragments are spread out over that huge area hundreds

383
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of thousands of square kilometers instead of a single city

384
00:19:00,319 --> 00:19:04,599
destroying impact or a catastrophic atmospheric blast you get. Well,

385
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the source materials called it a mostly harmless show of

386
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cosmic fireworks.

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Speaker 1: Like a spectacular widespread meteor shower, as all those tiny

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fragments burn up harmlessly high in the atmosphere.

389
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Speaker 2: Exactly an apocalypse turn into a light show. Yeah, and

390
00:19:18,400 --> 00:19:22,319
this solution, the penetrator, seems genuinely feasible for that short

391
00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:26,559
notice stadium sized asteroid threat. Two weeks is enough time

392
00:19:27,319 --> 00:19:30,160
if if we have the system ready to go, the rockets,

393
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the penetrators, the targeting systems all on standby.

394
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Speaker 1: That's the crucial caveat preparedness. So okay, the penetrator concept

395
00:19:40,359 --> 00:19:42,799
seems like a solid Uh well, maybe solid isn't the

396
00:19:42,839 --> 00:19:45,200
right word, a viable strategy for dealing with those one

397
00:19:45,279 --> 00:19:48,359
hundred meter class rubble pile asteroids with a couple weeks.

398
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Speaker 2: Notice, right, it handles the city killers potentially, But we

399
00:19:52,160 --> 00:19:53,960
have to talk about the big ones, don't we, The

400
00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:57,759
truly existential threats, the cosmic mountains, the planet killers.

401
00:19:57,799 --> 00:20:00,720
Speaker 1: We do, because the penetrator solution, as elegant as it

402
00:20:00,759 --> 00:20:03,599
is for smaller objects, completely breaks down when you scale

403
00:20:03,680 --> 00:20:06,480
up to something truly massive. These are objects carrying the

404
00:20:06,519 --> 00:20:10,839
destructive power equivalent to tens of thousands of entire nuclear arsenals.

405
00:20:11,079 --> 00:20:13,839
Speaker 2: And often the sources point out these ultimate threats aren't

406
00:20:13,839 --> 00:20:18,400
actually asteroids. They're comets. Yeah, frequently they are, especially the

407
00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:21,200
ones that might give us relatively short notice, like months

408
00:20:21,200 --> 00:20:22,079
instead of decades.

409
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Speaker 1: What makes comets the top tier threat? What are their characteristics?

410
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Speaker 2: Well, they typically originate from way out in the Solar

411
00:20:29,559 --> 00:20:32,920
System to Kuyper Belt beyond Neptune or even the Ort Cloud,

412
00:20:32,920 --> 00:20:37,400
which is incredibly far away. They're essentially giant, dirty ice balls,

413
00:20:37,720 --> 00:20:42,079
mixtures of ice, dust and rock, often kilometers across, sometimes

414
00:20:42,079 --> 00:20:44,000
tens of kilometers mountain sized.

415
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Speaker 1: Okay, so they're big. Are they structured differently than asteroids?

416
00:20:47,640 --> 00:20:50,920
Speaker 2: They can be. They're often more fragile structurally than a

417
00:20:50,960 --> 00:20:54,319
solid rock asteroid, more like pack snow and gravel than

418
00:20:54,359 --> 00:20:58,240
solid granite. But the key difference is their speed and

419
00:20:58,319 --> 00:21:02,720
trajectory faster than asteroids, much faster. Often because they come

420
00:21:02,759 --> 00:21:04,880
from so far out, they fall towards the Sun on

421
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these long elliptical orbits, picking up incredible speed. We're talking

422
00:21:08,240 --> 00:21:10,799
maybe one hundred and forty thousand kilometers per hour by

423
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the time they reached the inner Solar System, double the speed,

424
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which means four times the kinetic energy for the same mass.

425
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Speaker 1: And because they come from the outer darkness, harder to.

426
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Speaker 2: Track, incredibly hard. They're dark, they're distant. They only brighten

427
00:21:24,680 --> 00:21:26,960
up significantly when they get close enough to the Sun

428
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for the ice to start vaporizing and form a coma

429
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and tail. Often we don't discover them until they're already

430
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well on their way into the inner Solar System.

431
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Speaker 1: You mentioned commet Neowise earlier in twenty twenty. That was

432
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a good example, a perfect.

433
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Speaker 2: Example, a big, spectacular comet, beautiful in the sky, but

434
00:21:43,240 --> 00:21:45,559
it was only discovered about four months before it made

435
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its closest approach to the Sun and subsequently Earth.

436
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Speaker 1: Four months notice. And if Neowise had been on a

437
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collision course.

438
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Speaker 2: The calculations were sobering. Its size and speed meant it

439
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carried the energy equivalent of roughly six thousand all the

440
00:22:00,759 --> 00:22:05,119
nuclear weapons currently deployed on Earth combined six thousand cold

441
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:07,240
wars worth of energy in one object.

442
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Speaker 1: Good grief. Okay, So let's say we spot something like

443
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Neo WA's a planet killer comet maybe six months out.

444
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Why doesn't our penetrator plan work anymore? Just hit it

445
00:22:16,559 --> 00:22:17,559
with a bigger penetrator.

446
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Speaker 2: It's a matter of scale and the end goal. With

447
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the one hundred meter asteroid, the goal was pulverization, turning

448
00:22:23,759 --> 00:22:26,799
it into dust that burns up harmlessly. But a comet

449
00:22:26,839 --> 00:22:31,359
that's say ten kilometers across it has vastly, vastly more

450
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mass orders of magnitude.

451
00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:35,359
Speaker 1: More So, even if you hit it hard enough to

452
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break it into a million pieces.

453
00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:40,079
Speaker 2: Those million pieces are still huge. Each fragment might still

454
00:22:40,079 --> 00:22:42,920
be tens or hundreds of meters across. Individually, they'd be

455
00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:46,400
regional killers. And hitting the Earth's atmosphere is a swarm.

456
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Forget a light show. You'd essentially set the entire sky

457
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on fire globally.

458
00:22:50,279 --> 00:22:54,920
Speaker 1: Massive atmosphere heating, continental firestorms, tsunamis if they hit oceans,

459
00:22:55,079 --> 00:22:56,200
immediate impact winter.

460
00:22:56,400 --> 00:22:59,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, game over for most complex life on Earth. So

461
00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:02,880
for a plan killer, simple fragmentation isn't enough. You don't

462
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:04,599
just need to break it up. You need to ensure

463
00:23:04,599 --> 00:23:07,200
that the vast majority of that mass misses Earth entirely.

464
00:23:07,599 --> 00:23:09,720
You need significant deflection, not.

465
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Speaker 1: Just dispersal, And to get enough deflection enough spread for

466
00:23:12,599 --> 00:23:15,680
fragments that big, you need to hit it much much further.

467
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Speaker 2: Away, much further. We're not talking two million kilometers anymore.

468
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To give those massive fragments enough time and orbital distance

469
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:25,400
to spread out so they miss Earth. You need to

470
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intercept and destroy the comic way out, maybe as far

471
00:23:29,039 --> 00:23:30,160
out as the orbit of Mars.

472
00:23:30,279 --> 00:23:34,880
Speaker 1: Mars's orbit, that's hundreds of millions of kilometers away, depending

473
00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:36,200
on where Earth and Mars are.

474
00:23:36,279 --> 00:23:40,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, a vastly greater distance, and destroying a cosmic mountain

475
00:23:40,799 --> 00:23:45,000
at that range ensuring enough of it misses Earth. This

476
00:23:45,039 --> 00:23:47,440
is where the numbers just become mind boggling.

477
00:23:47,519 --> 00:23:49,279
Speaker 1: How many penetrators would that take.

478
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:52,160
Speaker 2: To reliably break up and deflect a large comet at

479
00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:55,960
Mars distance. The estimates suggest you'd need hundreds of thousands

480
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:57,519
of penetrators, maybe half.

481
00:23:57,359 --> 00:24:00,279
Speaker 1: A million, hundreds of thousands, okay, and launching that many

482
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:03,079
that payload mass, plus the need to get it all

483
00:24:03,119 --> 00:24:06,000
the way out towards Mars within that six month window, Yeah,

484
00:24:06,039 --> 00:24:09,720
you'd need an absolutely colossal fleet of launch vehicles. The

485
00:24:09,759 --> 00:24:12,759
calculations point to meeting something like twenty four thousand super

486
00:24:12,799 --> 00:24:13,920
heavy rockets.

487
00:24:13,559 --> 00:24:15,440
Speaker 2: Twenty four thousand. Let's just pause on that number to

488
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:18,480
find super heavy rocket again for context. A super heavy

489
00:24:18,559 --> 00:24:22,279
rocket is the biggest class there is. Think NASA's Space

490
00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:27,400
Launch System, the SLS Moon Rocket, or SpaceX's Starship. These

491
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:31,000
are machines capable of lifting at least fifty metric tons

492
00:24:31,039 --> 00:24:36,519
into lower orbit. Absolute behemoths, the most powerful rockets ever conceived.

493
00:24:36,599 --> 00:24:38,680
Speaker 1: And how many of those do we as a planet

494
00:24:38,759 --> 00:24:39,480
currently have.

495
00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:44,799
Speaker 2: Operational effectively two types SLS and Starship. Yeah, and neither

496
00:24:44,839 --> 00:24:47,000
of them is flying regularly yet they're still in development

497
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:50,119
or early operational phases. We certainly don't have thousands of

498
00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:52,079
them sitting around. We barely have a handful of flat

499
00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:53,640
articles in existence right now.

500
00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:57,079
Speaker 1: So if we detected a planet killer comet today with

501
00:24:57,200 --> 00:24:59,119
six months warning, even if.

502
00:24:58,960 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 2: We dropped everything else, every car factory, every shipyard, every

503
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:05,400
aerospace company on the planet switched immediately to building nothing

504
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:08,400
but starships or sols rockets two hundred and four seven.

505
00:25:08,279 --> 00:25:10,440
Speaker 1: We wouldn't even come close to building twenty four thousand

506
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:11,640
of them in six months.

507
00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:15,680
Speaker 2: Not even remotely close. It's logistically impossible with current or

508
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:19,880
even foreseeable near term industrial capacity. If that scenario happened today,

509
00:25:20,559 --> 00:25:23,160
we would be utterly, completely helpless. We could track it,

510
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:25,759
we could watch it come, but we could not stop it.

511
00:25:25,799 --> 00:25:28,920
That's chilling, truly chilling. The science tells us how we

512
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:31,839
might stop it, hundreds of thousands of penetrators launched by

513
00:25:31,839 --> 00:25:35,319
tens of thousands of rockets, but the industrial reality says

514
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:35,880
no chance.

515
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:40,440
Speaker 1: The blueprint exists conceptually, the factory to build the tools

516
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:41,880
that the scale required does not.

517
00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 2: Okay, that reality check is harsh. Twenty four thousand super

518
00:25:46,039 --> 00:25:49,440
heavy rockets in six months is impossible. So if we're

519
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:52,880
faced with that nightmare scenario, the planet tiller comet spotted

520
00:25:53,519 --> 00:25:56,119
six months on the clock. Is there anything else? Is

521
00:25:56,119 --> 00:25:59,599
there any kind of last ditch hail Mary plan that

522
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:03,160
doesn't rely on impossible industrial scale up, something that could

523
00:26:03,319 --> 00:26:06,160
maybe work with say just one super heavy rocket, if

524
00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:06,759
it was ready.

525
00:26:07,039 --> 00:26:11,920
Speaker 1: There is one theoretical contingency. It's incredibly high risk, requires

526
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:15,720
technology push to its absolute limit and involves elements we

527
00:26:15,799 --> 00:26:18,160
previously dismissed but used in a very specific way.

528
00:26:18,279 --> 00:26:19,680
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm listening. What is it?

529
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:22,200
Speaker 1: It involves combining the precision of the penetrator concept with

530
00:26:22,279 --> 00:26:24,559
the raw power of the nuclear device. We talked about earlier.

531
00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:28,000
Speaker 2: Ah, so we're back to nukes. But didn't we establish

532
00:26:28,079 --> 00:26:30,519
they don't work well in space? They don't work well

533
00:26:30,559 --> 00:26:34,480
when detonated outside the object in the vacuum. This plan

534
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:39,000
uses the penetrators first, but not primarily for fragmentation. It

535
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:41,839
uses them to prepare the target for the nuke, essentially

536
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:43,960
to drill the whole we couldn't drill conventionally.

537
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:46,640
Speaker 1: I see use the kinetic energy of multiple penetrators to

538
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:49,519
create the buried cavity, then detonate the nuke inside.

539
00:26:49,559 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 2: Exactly, But this plan hinges entirely critically on one thing,

540
00:26:53,799 --> 00:26:56,880
extreme readiness. It only works if we already have a

541
00:26:56,920 --> 00:27:00,160
super heavy rocket in sols, maybe a starship sitting on

542
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:04,720
the launch pad, fully fueled, with this very specific complex payload,

543
00:27:04,799 --> 00:27:08,559
already integrated, ready to go immediately upon detection and confirmation

544
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:11,119
of the thread like launch within hours or days of

545
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:12,000
spotting the comet.

546
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:14,960
Speaker 1: Minutes ideally or hours at most, there's no time to

547
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:16,880
build anything. It has to be ready. If that condition

548
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:20,440
is met, we launch and then begins a long tense journey.

549
00:27:20,799 --> 00:27:24,119
How long about five months of travel time chasing this commet,

550
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:26,279
which is hurtling inwards at one hundred and forty thousand

551
00:27:26,319 --> 00:27:29,759
kilometers per hour, aiming for an intercept point far out

552
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:33,519
beyond the orbit of Mars. Five months just to get there.

553
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,680
Speaker 2: Okay, the spacecraft arrives near the comet. What happens then?

554
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:41,599
The precision required must be insane.

555
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:46,079
Speaker 1: It's almost unbelievable. The plan calls for deploying five massive penetrators,

556
00:27:46,079 --> 00:27:49,759
not small ones, but large tungsten darts. They have to

557
00:27:49,759 --> 00:27:53,079
be released in perfect sequence, perfectly lined up, maybe two

558
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:57,079
kilometers apart, all aimed at the exact same tiny spot

559
00:27:57,119 --> 00:27:59,319
on this mountain sized comet that we've only known about

560
00:27:59,359 --> 00:28:02,640
for five months and is tumbling through space at immense speed.

561
00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 2: Five sequential hits on the exact same point from kilometers

562
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,440
away at one hundred and forty thousand kilometer relative velocity.

563
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:11,279
The engineering challenge.

564
00:28:11,039 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 1: Is horrendous, astronomical, and you get exactly one shocked. There's

565
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:17,000
no room for air, no second chance. The timing, the

566
00:28:17,039 --> 00:28:17,880
alignment has to.

567
00:28:17,799 --> 00:28:21,079
Speaker 2: Be flawless, and the source material mentioned a human element

568
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:22,279
being necessary.

569
00:28:21,799 --> 00:28:24,599
Speaker 1: Here, yes, to achieve that level of required precision, to

570
00:28:24,599 --> 00:28:27,759
make the final micro adjustments in targeting to supervise the

571
00:28:27,799 --> 00:28:31,519
complex deployment sequence in real time and troubleshoot any glitches.

572
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:33,720
The model suggests it would require a small crew of.

573
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 2: Astronauts on the Intercept spacecraft. Yes, very brave, highly skilled

574
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:41,599
astronauts and given the mission profile, a five month trip

575
00:28:41,599 --> 00:28:44,960
out deploying the payload with no possibility of return.

576
00:28:45,079 --> 00:28:47,839
Speaker 1: It's a one way trip, a suicide mission, it would.

577
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:50,799
Speaker 2: Have to be. Their role is to ensure the sequence

578
00:28:50,839 --> 00:28:54,039
executes perfectly, that the penetrators hit exactly right. It's a

579
00:28:54,119 --> 00:28:57,640
level of sacrifice baked into this last resort blueprint.

580
00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:01,359
Speaker 1: Okay, assume the crew does their job, the deployment is perfect.

581
00:29:01,519 --> 00:29:02,880
Describe the impact sequence.

582
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:08,160
Speaker 2: Penetrator one hits Penetrator one, a massive tungsten dart slams

583
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:12,200
into the comet. The energy release is enormous, maybe equivalent

584
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:15,359
to two thousand tons of TNT just from kinetic energy.

585
00:29:15,799 --> 00:29:19,319
It vaporizes ice and rock punches deep, creating the start

586
00:29:19,359 --> 00:29:19,799
of a dunnel.

587
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:22,720
Speaker 1: Then number two hits the same spot milliseconds later.

588
00:29:22,599 --> 00:29:25,480
Speaker 2: Exactly followed by three and then four, each one hitting

589
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:27,400
the base of the crater created by the previous one,

590
00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:31,519
exploding the damage, smashing deeper, melting and vaporizing more material.

591
00:29:31,799 --> 00:29:36,200
They're essentially hypervelocity drilling this tunnel into the comet's nucleus.

592
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 1: How deep do the first four get?

593
00:29:38,079 --> 00:29:40,279
Speaker 2: The goal is to reach a depth of about one

594
00:29:40,359 --> 00:29:44,039
hundred meters, which on a comet maybe ten kilometers across

595
00:29:44,279 --> 00:29:47,559
is still just scratching the surface relatively speaking. But it

596
00:29:47,599 --> 00:29:52,480
creates a confined channel deep inside the structurally weak cometary material.

597
00:29:52,599 --> 00:29:55,359
Speaker 1: And then comes number five. Penetrator. Number five is different.

598
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:59,039
It's not just tungsten inside. It carries the primary payload,

599
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:05,000
a massive nuclear device. We're talking maybe three hundred megatons.

600
00:30:05,119 --> 00:30:08,000
Three hundred megatons, that's twenty thousand times the energy of

601
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:09,119
the Hiroshima bomb.

602
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:12,839
Speaker 2: An almost inconceivable amount of energy. And this penetrator follows

603
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:15,240
the others down that freshly drilled hundred meter.

604
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 1: Tunnel, and it detonates inside the tunnel.

605
00:30:17,359 --> 00:30:20,119
Speaker 2: Yes, likely time to detonate just before it hits the bottom.

606
00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:23,319
So the explosion happens while fully confined deep within the

607
00:30:23,319 --> 00:30:25,200
comets icy rocky structure.

608
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 1: That's why the nuke works here. It's not in a vacuum.

609
00:30:27,279 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 2: It's contained precisely. All that energy three hundred megaton's worth,

610
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:35,400
doesn't radiate uselessly into space. It slams into the surrounding ice, gravel,

611
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:38,920
and rock. The shockwave propagates outwards through the material. The

612
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:42,359
heat causes massive instantaneous vaporization, The pressure.

613
00:30:42,039 --> 00:30:46,799
Speaker 1: Builds, and the entire structure just fails catastrophically.

614
00:30:46,839 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 2: It shatters. That frozen world, billions of years old, is

615
00:30:50,759 --> 00:30:54,519
blown apart from the inside, not just chipped, but disintegrated

616
00:30:54,599 --> 00:30:55,960
into millions of fragments.

617
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 1: Fragments which, because the intercept happens so far out near

618
00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:02,880
Mars orbit, now have months and vast distances over which

619
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:03,799
to spread out.

620
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:07,079
Speaker 2: Ensuring that the vast majority of that mass, those millions

621
00:31:07,079 --> 00:31:11,359
of fragments achieve enough orbital separation that they completely miss

622
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:14,319
the Earth when they evidentally cross our orbit months later.

623
00:31:14,559 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 1: It's an incredibly complex, parifyingly precise plan, But the crucial

624
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:21,559
thing is the pieces exist.

625
00:31:21,839 --> 00:31:26,279
Speaker 2: That's the takeaway. The physics is understood. The engineering components,

626
00:31:26,319 --> 00:31:30,480
super heavy rockets like sls or starship, tungsten penetrators, high

627
00:31:30,559 --> 00:31:34,720
yield nuclear devices, precision guidance systems. They all exist, at

628
00:31:34,799 --> 00:31:38,240
least in prototype or operational form today. This isn't science

629
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:39,640
fiction for the twenty second century.

630
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:43,279
Speaker 1: It's theoretically possible with current knowledge and technology.

631
00:31:42,839 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 2: Yes, actionable even, but requiring a level of readiness, precision,

632
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:50,359
and perhaps sacrifice that is currently unprecedented and certainly not

633
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:50,839
in place.

634
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:54,319
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, so this deep dive, it's really taken us

635
00:31:54,319 --> 00:31:57,799
across the whole spectrum from realizing that, you know, gentle

636
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:00,559
nudging just doesn't cut it for short note threats.

637
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:02,559
Speaker 2: Right. The time constraint kills those ideas.

638
00:32:02,559 --> 00:32:05,880
Speaker 1: See the kind of elegant, almost surprisingly simple solution of

639
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:11,200
kinetic penetrators for those medium sized city killer asteroids, the

640
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:12,119
cosmic bullets.

641
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:15,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, exploiting the rubble pile weakness that seems genuinely promising

642
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:17,160
if we're prepared.

643
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 1: And then scaling up to the planet killers the comets

644
00:32:20,279 --> 00:32:23,759
where fragmentation isn't enough and we hit that terrifying logistical

645
00:32:23,799 --> 00:32:26,480
wall of needing thousands of rockets we don't have the

646
00:32:26,559 --> 00:32:31,319
industrial gap, leading finally to this incredibly complex, high stakes

647
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:36,240
nuclear assisted penetrator sequence as the absolute last resort requiring

648
00:32:36,279 --> 00:32:38,160
near instant launch readiness.

649
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:38,880
Speaker 2: The hail Mary Plan. Yeah.

650
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:41,319
Speaker 1: The core revelation for me throughout all this is that

651
00:32:41,359 --> 00:32:44,880
the fundamental technology, the science, the engineering know how it

652
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:47,839
seems to be largely there, or at least within reach

653
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:50,119
for dealing with boat scales of threat.

654
00:32:50,319 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 2: I agree. And what's really fascinating and frankly quite sobering

655
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:58,079
is that contrast. You highlighted the gap between what seems

656
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:03,920
technologically possible, like that incredibly precise five stage penetrator and

657
00:33:04,119 --> 00:33:05,680
nuke delivery sequence.

658
00:33:05,279 --> 00:33:07,839
Speaker 1: Which sounds like science fiction but apparently isn't from an

659
00:33:07,839 --> 00:33:09,400
engineering standpoint.

660
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:12,839
Speaker 2: Right, The gap between that and what is currently logistically impossible,

661
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:16,920
like building twenty four thousand super heavy rockets in six months.

662
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:20,759
It tells us the primary bottleneck isn't necessarily inventing new science.

663
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:24,359
Speaker 1: It's building the infrastructure. It's the industrial scale.

664
00:33:24,119 --> 00:33:27,720
Speaker 2: It seems to be for the largest threats. Yes, we

665
00:33:27,799 --> 00:33:30,440
have the blueprints for the ultimate Acts, as you put

666
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:33,160
it earlier, but maybe only one or two axe handles,

667
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:35,400
and they're not even fully assembled yet.

668
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:40,079
Speaker 1: So the knowledge to potentially save humanity from these cosmic threats,

669
00:33:40,119 --> 00:33:42,440
it seems to already exist. The concepts are on the

670
00:33:42,519 --> 00:33:45,240
drawing board based on current physics and engineering.

671
00:33:45,359 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 2: The blueprints are there actionable ones, at least conceptually, which really.

672
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:52,839
Speaker 1: Leaves us and leaves you the listener with a pretty

673
00:33:52,839 --> 00:33:56,359
profound final thought, doesn't it. If the science is mostly

674
00:33:56,400 --> 00:34:00,559
figured out, then the real challenge of planetary defense isn't

675
00:34:00,559 --> 00:34:05,000
primarily scientific anymore. It's industrial, it's economic, it's political.

676
00:34:05,200 --> 00:34:07,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, how do we make the transition as a species?

677
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:12,199
How do we go from being reactive scrambling frantically to

678
00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:15,159
build something only after the threat is confirmed in the

679
00:34:15,199 --> 00:34:15,639
clock is.

680
00:34:15,599 --> 00:34:19,360
Speaker 1: Ticket to becoming proactive to actually building and maintaining the

681
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:22,440
kind of ready state infrastructure. The launch capacity of the

682
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:25,679
stockpold hardware, the train crew is maybe even that single

683
00:34:26,039 --> 00:34:30,119
ready to go SLS with its contingency payload necessary.

684
00:34:29,639 --> 00:34:33,360
Speaker 2: To defeat an extinction level threat that might statistically only

685
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:35,480
show up once every one hundred thousand years or once

686
00:34:35,519 --> 00:34:36,599
every few million years.

687
00:34:36,679 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 1: When is that level of constant, incredibly expensive preparation actually

688
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:44,119
worth the cost weigh against all the other immediate challenges

689
00:34:44,199 --> 00:34:46,280
we face. That's the trillion dollar question, isn't it?

690
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:49,599
Speaker 2: It really is what price preparedness for the ultimate catastrophe?