NASA Downgrades the Risk of 2024 YR4 to Below 1%
universetoday.com
universetoday.com
Do people really think like this? Fairly small probabilities of catastrophic events don't generally result in a negligible expected value.
To put another way, the expected value you should be evaluating isn't something like the megatons of a strike but the difference in outcomes of a strike or miss vs your actions. I would guess there are few meaningful actions you could take (you have no control over or knowledge of where it would strike, if it strikes). With the delta in outcomes close to zero, no alarm is reasonable.
You might review your emergency evacuation plan (or create one if you don't have one). It's very unlikely to be needed in this case, but for all causes over your lifetime, the chances it turns out useful are probably not negligible.
Here's Scott Manley from two weeks ago.
There's nothing to do now or for the layman, though, as you said. Also, this opens the fun possibility that people could redirect an asteroid into a city, but unless they can do it secretly or deniably, nuclear weapons are probably easier.
Its more like a monty hall problem, each door either contains an asteroid collision, or proof that its not going to hit earth. But we dont have perfect information on the size, albedo, spin or orbit of the asteroid so most doors are closed. Each time we open a door and do not find the asteroid, the probability of finding proof of an earth collision AND a proof that its going to miss will go up.
Calculating a spacecraft/asteroid trajectory is already precise enough to land a mars rover in the correct target area. But we know the exact properties of the spacecraft so all the doors are open.
I still think the odds of something more destructive happening is higher - earthquake-tsunamis, hurricanes, nuclear warfare, large volcanoes, covid25, etc.
I didn't spend the energy stressing over the initial wave of media hype surrounding the first published probability.
A few days of waiting for rational thought to prevail helps.
I've argued here about the importance of becoming multiplanetary and had many people disagree. Even at just a .28% risk of possibly getting hit with a little rock like this, it's a great argument for building a space faring civilization.
there is not even a global "we"
But he is 100% correct about the need to become an interplanetary species. On a long enough timeline, it's the only option to keep our future selves in existence. While I'd certainly prefer to have some wholesome, highly decorated astronaut with an honest streak and a perfect temperament be the one who started SpaceX and enabled multi-planetary travel, I still believe it's better that Musk is doing it than no one at all.
That should have been enough reason for everyone to dismiss Musk, but unfortunatley too many uninformed people in charge.
Mars is -60 celcuius on average, and lack an atmosphere. Youd die off cancer from radiation exposure within a year IF you had every other life supporting system in place.
Then theres the seasonal explosive eruptions, no soil and countless other reasons this is a moronic enterprise.
This aint fashionable, its facts. The sad part is that I think Musk actually knows this but his fans too dumb to see the charlatan for what he is.
Thats where we at now. I suppose you’re just another climate denier who cant read the writing on the wall.
Speaking of running out, we are fast approaching peak oil and peak copper.
PFAS is polluting our drinking water and destertification is spreading. Wildfires and hurricanes are destroying cities. Then theres major wars and countries who transitioned to war economics and western countries run by oligarchs and gangsters.
All while you dream of space exploration for the ultra rich.
Unfortunatley for humankind, there is no second earth to move to. We need to care for the planet we inhabit, as its the only one capable of supporting life in our solar system, and interstellar travel is probably hundreds of years away.
Even if we could move elsewhere, the chances any one of us would be rich enough to go there is a rounding error to zero.
How many would stay in the case of an asteroid?
We could throw 100s of billions of dollars into it.
But it’s harder to sell to investors than language models
Obviously we don’t send a group without making it not certain death first. But the person I was responding to said that it would be reliant on Earth, which, yeah, you can’t realistically develop a fully self reliant economy without making a reliant economy first.
My first question is: would you be enthusiastic about the concept of a lunar colony?
My second question is: what kinds of things do you think are viable for a colony made within the next 50 years?
I think Starship makes colonies a whole lot more viable, once they iron out the issues, but I generally don't know enough to answer your second question.
How long do you think it takes to plan a trip to the moon?
> I think Starship makes colonies a whole lot more viable
Why?
Starship’s goal is to drop cost of mass to orbit by a couple of orders of magnitude, if they pull that off, it would drop the cost of supporting a colony by quite a bit.
In the states we're dismantiling our research and development infrastructure (will the last person at Stennis or JPL please turn out the lights) but China has been making strides and the ESA has a pretty decent record of launching things, so maybe there's enough time for them to plan, launch and execute a DART-like impact mission on 2024 YR4.
We will know we're living in a simulation if North Korea puts a nuke on a large rocket and successfully deflects it.
The show-runners had to get so explicit in the later seasons (Pizzagate), that it effectively ruined the show.