Essay/Term paper: Asteroid defense

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Science Research Papers

Asteroid Defense


When it comes down to developing a way to defend the entire planet from
destruction I am all for it. A large asteroid or comet hitting the earth is not
a common occurrence. But it has happened many times before and when it does
happen again the asteroid may wipe out all life, including humans. If our
government did develop an anti-asteroid defense system, it would not only have
to protect our country, but the whole planet.
If we had such technology we would first have to be very sure it would
work. We wouldn"t want to shoot a nuclear weapon at an asteroid just to have it
break into multiple pieces and have those pieces raining down on Earth. One of
the most important parts of defending our planet would be to find and chart
every asteroid that could threaten us. That would be a very tedious and never
ending job, but is necessary for the defense system to work. It would do us
humans no good to have some sort of defense against asteroids if we don"t know
when they will strike.
So after thinking about an anti-asteroid defense system, I think that
our government should look into constructing one. When one thinks about what an
asteroid could do to our planet it is usually a very scary thought. In the past
we have been very lucky with where asteroids have hit our earth. Back in 1908
in the Tunguska region of Siberia, an object from space hit there causing miles
of forest to be devastated. If that same object had hit New York, it would have
probably been like a 20 megaton bomb going off in Times Square. That would have
completely altered history. What makes it worse is that it is thought that a
small comet hit in Tunguska. What if a huge comet had hit there? These
examples are very good reasons why I think that humankind needs to come up with
a way to stop asteroids or any other type of object that could kill off all life
on earth.