[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: starship-design: Am I missing something?
Steve VanDevender wrote:
>
> Curtis L. Manges writes:
> > The following quote was taken from the article, >>"Richter Scale" of
> > Asteroid Impact Threats Announced<< released on Spaceviews, here:
> > http://www.spaceviews.com/1999/08/
> >
> You can obtain the approximate historical probability of the
> Earth being struck by asteroids based on geological evidence of
> previous impacts. So it may not be as silly as it sounds to talk
> about the probability of the Earth being struck by undiscovered
> objects, although it would be nice to know more about how they
> came up with the numbers.
I would assume you count all the impacts made and date them.
Add in a fudge factor for the ones you missed and try to sort them
by impact size and age. Since the last big impact was 65 million years ago
I think mankind has a very small chance of death by impact as opposed to other
things. This does not count mankinds stupidly like mining asteroids and trying
to
place on in orbit.
Ben.