Chinese authorities are planning to send giant rockets into space that will travel for years and then bounce asteroids off Earth.
In China, they decided to create a space fleet to eliminate the threat of asteroid collisions with the Earth. On the basis of the heavy Chinese launch vehicles “Changzheng-5” (CZ-5), dozens of nuclear-free strike means of changing the orbits of asteroids will be created. Completion of the program will make it possible to be ready to eliminate the threat from asteroids within ten years after the discovery of mortal danger.
A new study, funded by the government, says China could launch 23 rockets (weighing nearly 900 tons) to destroy rocky objects in our solar system. Some asteroids are no larger than pebbles, while others are hundreds of kilometers across. At the same time, an asteroid just 500 meters wide can kill millions of people.
Although the likelihood of one of them hitting the Earth is currently low, one of them – Bennu – could collide with the planet in about 100 years.
According to the HAMMER (Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response) project previously proposed by NASA specialists, it is possible to change the orbit of asteroids without the use of nuclear weapons. It is necessary to launch several dozen rockets, which, due to the kinetic energy, will be able to change the trajectory of asteroids by jerks. A nuclear detonation of an asteroid, as it is easy to understand, will turn the asteroid into shrapnel, which will only aggravate the situation of earthlings.
