Doomsday Asteroid: Can We Survive? - Hardcover

Cox, Donald W.; Chestek, James H.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1573920665 ISBN 13: 9781573920667

Publisher: Prometheus Books, 1996

Synopsis

Sixty-five million years ago, a gigantic asteroid collided with Earth. The resulting dust clouds and fire storm blotted out the sunlight, destroying much of the animal, plant, and fish life - most notably, the dinosaurs. What would happen if another giant asteroid found itself on a collision course with Earth? Doomsday Asteroid: Can We Survive? is the most comprehensive current book for general readers to address the threats and potential benefits of asteroids. Space experts Donald W. Cox and James H. Chestek explain the major differences between comets and asteroids and describe what might happen should the Earth suffer a collision with either one of them.
Cox and Chestek present a view quite different from that of astronomers: In particular, they cover the Earth defense problem in more detail than any of the other popular works on asteroids and they are critical of the science/astronomical community and its approach to asteroid danger. They also call for establishment of an International Spaceguard Command to oversee planetary safety.

About this title

From the Author:

This book is different that other recent ones.
The book, Doomsday Asteroid: Can We Survive? is different than any of the other recent books on this subject. It was written by a retired aerospace engineer and a space educator, rather than by scientists or science writers. This gives the book a perspective different from the others recently released. Unlike other books, this one is critical of the astronomical community and their approach to the asteroid danger for two main reasons. First, the scientists have expressed mainly concern about very large asteroids; the kind that may kill a BILLION people or so, and threaten our very civilization. These occur very infrequently, every hundred millennia or so. It is hard to become concerned about such a remote danger. But there are a thousand times more asteroids that can cause the destruction of a major metropolitan area if they should hit. This will not end civilization as we know it, but the result is still pretty frightening, and MUCH more likely to happen than the world destroyer that the astronomers worry about. Since these very large asteroids are such a rare danger, the astronomers feel comfortable using their existing ground based telescopes to search for these threats. Thy feel sure that they will find any danger long before hits us, and so they do not seriously concern themselves with seeking the smaller, more frequent threats. This book argues that we need to be concerned about smaller asteroids and many comets, and that we need space based telescopes to provide adequate warning of this danger. The current crop of asteroid hunters get indignant when space telescopes are proposed; they want to continue to use their present instruments. But this book presents a case that ground based telescopes may not even SEE incoming asteroids until too late to mount a defense. The other major difference in this book is that, besides pointing out the danger from asteroids (and comets), it looks at the positive benefits to be gained by exploring, mining and using these natural celestial bodies. Space flight does not need to remain forever difficult and expensive, the provence of highly skilled astronauts; it can become as popular as air travel, and the basis for pioneers to set out in their covered rockets to settle new homes in space, following a tested American tradition. Unlike any of the other books recently published on asteroids, about half of this book is devoted to the future benefits from asteroids.

Synopsis:

Sixty-five million years ago, a gigantic asteroid collided with Earth. The resulting dust clouds and fire storm blotted out the sunlight, destroying much of the animal, plant, and fish life most notably, the dinosaurs. What would happen if another giant asteroid found itself on a collision course with Earth? This is the most comprehensive current book for general readers to address the threats and potential benefits of asteroids. Space experts Cox and Chestek explain the major differences between comets and asteroids and describe what might happen should the Earth suffer a collision with either one of them, a distinct future possibility.

About this edition

• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 1573920665
• ISBN 13: 9781573920667
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 338