Out of Pod Experience

This whole issue was cleared up in my post #32.

EDIT: Also, to be fair, as the object was a surprise arrival, totally unexpected, a few hours lapsed where it was obviously unclear where it came from exactly.

Members of the Russian Kremlin are claiming that what occurred over Russia was not a meteorite, but was a new American weapon test.

You hear that? We now control mofuggin' SPACE ROCKS. Go HAARP! \o/

Amount of (registered) injured is more that 1140, more than 40 people in hospitals, 2 with very serious injures, buildings damaged in 6 towns, power of explosion was between 300 and 500 kilotons (> 20 bombs used in Hiroshima), explosion was at height of ~20km, meteorite mass ~7000 tons, speed around 50-60k km/h.

News article in Russian: http://lenta.ru/news/2013/02/16/power/

I was just in utter awe of nature's display of power. Amazing.

All my goals and aspirations in life are nothing compared to such a display of power and all I can say is I'm happy I got to see it (if second hand) and I'm glad the impact to those people in that region of Russia wasn't worse (let's face it, if the angle of approach had been more perpendicular it could have been terrible)

I'm not sure people can understand me correctly when I say this, because any loss of innocent human life is a tragedy.

After seeing those videos, can you imagine how awesomely humbling it would be to see a planet cracker hit? There is a beauty that would come with an ELE/near-ELE behind the horror and the finality. To witness the end of our planet's 6B y/o experiment (or at least the reset button?) ?

My father was talking to me last time I was at home. He's as crazy as I am, but he has his insights. He is of the opinion that our current generation is more fatalistic and obsessed with the end of the world/civilization than any before it. And he's wondering what the driving motivations are behind that. He says it started with the same old stories, but it keeps getting hashed over and over to the point the profits (public demand) for these types of movies seem to be driving the creation. And he tied in obsession with zombies and other stuff to this fatalistic theory.

I wasn't sure what to say about that except I thought he was wrong and that it's just another manifestation of our fascination/fear of the mystery of death. I also suggested people are much more vocal about fears as our society seems to be driven (top down) by a culture of fear today.

He's a man of faith (but not religious) and dismissed this (he like that channel that is all fear 24/7) and thinks all this comes back to a basic spiritual bankruptcy... that we obsess over the physical and not the allegedly much more important spiritual. That back in the day if something like this happened they'd just thank their lucky stars and move on with life, but we obsess over the event and what-if scenarios... it's hard to find argument there.

yeah, I think he's wrong... but it's hard to be completely objective when I have to admit I (obviously) have my own morbid curiosity on the subject

and I haven't been exposed to past generations as he has to make a comparison. I can certainly see enough precedent in various works of art to support my theory, so it comes down to a question of popularity/obsession. Are we obsessed with this topic?

Maybe if a true Planet Cracker was found to be headed our way, they should actually keep quiet about it ?

Really, what could be done right now about it? And why cause so much grief, panic, and terror ? Better I think to just let the inevitable happen.


EDIT: See Greg Bear's "The Forge of God" for a great example of people's behavior when they know ahead of time that the world is going to utterly end soon.

Sure, but the explosion power from the meteor in Russia was 20 times bigger than the Hiroshima bomb.

That's not common at all.

picture a giant net, 100 km across and at each end in a circular pattern there are giant nuclear explosives. When the asteroid hits, the explosives will curl in and blammo!

also, if everyone on earth prayed at exactly the same moment, the exact same prayer... for the asteroid to miss earth... I am sure that s/he would step in and move the earth a few million kilos ahead in orbit.

That's probably what "Indian Summers" are, God just moving earth around in space to avoid giant asteroids.

Nuclear weapons don't do jack in space as there's nothing to push against... so instead of a cold piece of rock coming at you you have a hot piece of rock coming at you

Indeed the infamous never realized Orion Project used tiny nuclear bombs to propel a spacecraft to near light speed. This idea is also used in Neal Stephenson's "Anathem" novel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion

http://www.flickr.com/photos/xeni/272457783/

In times like these, I remember reading Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle and be awestruck.