About a month (One decade in coronavirus-time) ago it was reported that an asteroid was travelling unnervingly near the Earth’s path. If for some unfathomable reason you do not want all life on the planet to face a premature extinction, what follows are some ideas to stop our deserved destruction. Or at least avoid one means of extinction in favour of another.
1. Create a large baseball glove to catch the asteroid before impact
I will preface this by declaring that I am no physicist. But I do know for certain that when I have a ball thrown with ferocity in my direction, I can catch it. Sometimes it hurts so I wear a baseball glove and you know what happens? No pain whatsoever. One could imagine that when faced with an asteroid hurtling towards us – akin to a ball thrown by an overenthusiastic teammate/opponent – we could come together, construct a large baseball glove and place it in front of us, thus protecting the precious goods. Us. We are the precious goods.
2. Cover every inch of the planet with trampolines
With minimal research I have come to the conclusion that the damage inflicted upon us by this asteroid could be bounced off using the best quality trampoline available. Certainly this prompts a few fairly necessary questions. Firstly; where exactly would we place this trampoline? Considering the size of the asteroid, the safest solution would be to put them all over the Earth’s surface. Secondly; wouldn’t this cost a fair amount? Can we settle for second-grade trampolines at least? The answer is a resounding “Nope”. When it comes to our survival we cannot afford to scrimp. Finally; what if we bounce the asteroid towards the Moon, destroy that and suffer through yet another shower of debris? Nowhere did I mention that this was a perfect solution. But one would imagine that the trampoline would work again for Moon parts. Would this lead to an endless cycle of asteroids creating more asteroids? Possibly.
3. Shoot(?) the asteroid/ “Beat the crap out of it” – Muthu
Must we resort to violence? When reached for solutions, a dear, old friend suggested we pummel our assailant into dirt. We need to stand strong against our enemy. A bulldozing rock is plummeting towards us. It does not care about us. It has no regard to the sanctity of life that we have created. We must destroy it. By any means necessary. Now, Muthu never suggested guns. What he suggested was we each physically train and beat the crap out of it. But that seems far too much work, what if we got a gun and shot the damn thing? The gun needs to be really big. Really, really big.
4. “Train oil rig workers to become astronauts and drill the asteroid. Also we give Steve Buscemi space dementia for the hell of it. Also we get Steven Tyler to perform while Ben Affleck seduces(???) his daughter (Tyler’s) ” – Trevor & also Michael Bay
Auteur Michael Bay has long been prepared for a situation such as this. A visionary. Ahead of his time. True artistry and a master of the craft.
The film is a great reflection of modern day society. For instance, much like in real life, there is an asteroid shower threatening our very existence. Amongst other more pressing matters. But how did the characters in the film deal with the pickle in which they found themselves?
First, we train oil rig workers to become astronauts so they can fly into an asteroid and drill into it. Then one of the makeshift astronauts gets space dementia. I have yet to verify whether or not that is a real thing. If it’s not then I suppose we will have to make it a real thing. We cannot afford to stray too far from the source material. We cannot miss a thing.
My former roommate and current friend – Trevor J. K. brought forth this suggestion to me and I appreciate how seriously he took this situation.
5. Place a magnet outside the Earth to pull us out of the asteroid’s path
If I recall correctly from my old science classes, the word ‘magnetic’ was thrown around a fair bit.
As it stands, the asteroid’s and our own path will intercept. If we can’t knock the asteroid off path, why don’t we alter our own? How we do this is we create a ginormous magnet, tie it to the end of a gigantic fishing rod and toss the magnet outside of our surface. This will attract us away from the asteroid, thus saving us all. Will this have a negative impact weather-wise? We defer to the scientists to sort out that problem.
In the meanwhile, time is of the essence, we really have to pick one of these options.
The Ipe Collection 