Asteroid Defense System
Yesterday, the following two movies came up in my feed.
| Movie | Release Date | Storyline | Other Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Day After | 1983 | Soviet and American nukes go off. The devastating effects are witnessed, focusing on a small town in Eastern Kansas. | Starring familiar faces like John Lithgow. In particular, I remember watching Lithgow on Harry and the Hendersons, which was a pretty cool and entertaining tv show. Also, Steve Guttenberg whom I recall from movies like Three men and a baby and the hilarious Police Academy Franchise. I had never seen Steve Guttenberg doing such a serious role before. |
| Super Comet : After the Impact | 2007 | A comet travelling at a super high speed, smacks earth near the Yucatan peninsula. I think, this documentary is actually hypothesizing, what were to happen if an event like Chicxulub were to happen again. | This movie/documentary is a German-American production. The acting and narration is in English. |
Related to the movie, The Day After. I am not very well versed with the history of the issue or topic of Nuclear Winter. But that’s one major side-effect that was not highlighted in this movie. I guess, this topic had yet to resonate with the wider public. Which kind of makes sense, as the research supporting the theory of Nuclear Winter had yet to be published or was in the works. (Source)
Also, the cold-war, which had been going on till the 60’s had taken more of a proxy hot-war form. With hands off the nukes. Till 1983 (when this movie came out) United States and it’s allies were fighting a proxy war with U.S.S.R in regions like Afghanistan.
From the Cuban Missile crisis during 60’s, till some point during the late 70’s. The threat of a cold-war going hot and eventually nuclear, was quite real. This dynamic between U.S.S.R and United States seems to have shifted during the 80’s. It seems like there were some pre-agreements in place. Again, by the 80’s it seemed like there was less of a probability that the two great powers were going to get into nuclear confrontation. As well, the coming dissolution of U.S.S.R during 1991 probably had something to do with this further waning away of the cold war.
By the mid early to mid 80’s the threat of two great powers going head to head in a nuclear confrontation seemed to be less and less likely. Both of the two great powers still had tons of nuclear weapons in their stockpile. Enough to destroy earth and every single lifeform on it, many a times over.
Growing up as a child and then a teenager. It seemed like countries like France were more likely to test nuclear weapons during the late 80’s and into the early 90’s. Often at some remote island in the Pacific. It looks like the data supports this observation, however that being said France was not the only country testing nuclear weapons during this era
Again, where as the threat of an all out nuclear confrontation between the great powers had become very low by the 90’s, nuclear proliferation was in full-swing.
I do not remember watching India testing their nuclear weapons. I grew up mostly in Karachi and during the 80’s and going into the 90’s there were only two tv channels. One of the was state owned and the other was privately run. However, I do remember watching one of the Chagai tests on TV. It looked like the nuclear weapon was placed inside of a mountain. Upon detonation, a portion of the mountain melted.
In a global dynamic and seeing how the collective psychology was going to play out in this realm. I would assume that during the 80’s and going into the 90’s, most nation/states wanted to get their hands on nuclear weapons. This must have been a decision driven by fear, because we have known about the real prospect of what a nuclear winter can do, going as far back as 1983 or even earlier, back to the 50’s.
For, Super Comet : After the Impact movie, here I am not a scientist. On one hand, the assessment from the various scientists involved seemed to be somewhat balanced. The different scientists hypothesized what the impact of such an event would be on earth and on the human civilization. So it wasn’t just the physics and climate. The scientists and experts also hypothesized what the impact would be on the ecology, on culture (dark ages and time to unpack knowledge), on the collective psychology and many other aspects in a post cataclysmic event like this. Also, I think these were real scientists. The story continually shifts between the movie element and then narration from scientists.
Continuing on and still on the topic of the sort of review for the movie/documentary Super Comet : After the Impact: On the other hand, the gist seems to be tilting overwhelmingly towards the side of optimism. Meaning: * After the fire and dust would have settled. The remaining humans would adapt to the changing conditions. Related to this point: Chicxulub triggered a mass extinction and it would take the next 65 to 66 million years for shrews to eventually evolve and become homo-sapiens. * On a 75 to 100k year era (Somewhat more recent): The Toba super volcano erupted some 75,000 years ago. The claim is that due to the eruption of this super volcano, human population had shrunk anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 breeding pairs. The reason being that, quote, a ‘volcanic winter of six to ten years and possibly a 1,000 year cooling period’ was to ensue.
Overall, my super uneducated guess is that the chances of human survival is somewhat better with regards to a super-volcano going off. There are just far too many variables with a major comet or worse, an asteroid striking earth. Also, in each one of these scenarios, we do not factor in situations like nuclear power plants and what were to happen if the plants cannot be shutdown in a safe and timely manner. From my super uneducated vantage point, it will only take one rock or some other event to sink an atomic/nuclear power plant into the ocean. There are 115 of these built near the sea-shore. Plus, many other variables like these, whereby the probability of that one event happening is low. But if it were to happen, it will bring an end to a lot of life and as we know it.
Going back to the movies. Co-incidentally, both of these movies came up in my feed. It wasn’t a search string that took me to these movies.
After watching the two movies I started thinking: * A big chunk related to our long-term survival would involve enabling mechanisms and not just technologies targetted towards tackling threats that could pose an existential risk. * A subset of these mechanisms would involve technological development on a mid to longer term time scale. There are a lot of risks that we have no shielding against. Like a rock of a particular size coming out way at a particular speed, a GRB (Gamma Ray Burst) * On the other hand, if we turn these very mechanisms on each other then that could also bring an end to our species. As well, all other lifeform on this planet.
Overall, the human and machine civilization is quite fragile. We will either turn the very mechanisms that we develop on each other and in the process of doing so, be the enablers of our own destruction. Or we may leverage these mechanisms in order to ensure our survival and then work towards increasing our quality of life.
It seems rather foolish to think and assume that the intelligence that we develop and intelligence that is substrate independent (generally referred to as A.I - Artificial Intelligence) is going to solve a whole series of complex problems for us. Once again, I am not a pro intelligence that is subtrate independent fellow or an anti “ “.
An Asteroid Defense System is a project, something that all nations should have an opportunity to be a part of and have a chance to contribute to. This is not a system that should be enabled in secrecy. Doing so, would only increase the chances that some group/extremist fringe/rogue nation state would want to weaponize such a construct. Which could be a precursor to a tyrannical rule.
Seeing where the arc of technology is going, it doesn’t seem like a project like this is going to cost trillions or even hundreds of billions of dollars (inflation adjusted values).
But one thing is clear and like one of the scientist had said in the Super Comet : After the Impact documentary. If the event is occuring, then it’s almost impossible to enable and then scale technology in hours/days/weeks. (Paraphrased).