NationStates Jolt Archive

The recent resolution "Space Defence Initiative", calling for increased security, recognized the "calamitous consequences of an asteroid striking the Earth".

Don't you think the levels of security are adequate, considering that many past resolutions considered the topic of defence? Even in the resolution of the UN Education Committee April 9 2004, proposals were even made to improve "school systems (that) lack sufficient security systems" instead of actually aiming directly at education, which was the main aim of that resolution.

Also, the chances of a asteroid coming that close to Earth again are extremly slim.

It seems that the proposals put forth have been mirroring the actions taking place in the real world for increased security. However, we, the nations of NationStates,have not been experiencing the "calamities"of the real world, such as the war on terror, attacks etc. Therefore, why is it that we have had so many calls for international security in NationStates?

Of course the idea of a defense line against asteriods and other foreign objects would be good, but it is always impossible to attain total security as no one, now or in the future, will ever be totally prepared against future events.

I am open to comments.

Well, yes, a lot of past resolutions have addressed international security issues. And it is misguided to assume that, just because there's terrorism happening in the real world, it's happening in the NS world too - if you're going to make proposals about terrorism, you should refer to terrorist incidents being RPed in the International Incidents forum, not to al-Qaida or Ariel Sharon.

But this is a different issue, really - it's only given the effect of increasing military expenditure because that's the closest game-mechanic effect to increasing scientific expenditure, which is what its effect would really be.

And so it makes no sense with regard to this issue to say that "levels of security are already adequate" - there's nothing in place to deal with asteroid strikes, regardless of how much money UN resolutions have given to the military or counter-terrorism agencies.

:roll:
Rather than defending us from some outer space asteroid, I think this initative is designed to override the UN's emphasis upon spending for social welfare in favor of spending for war-making and defense.

Good points Florestan.

And if you view such an initative outsidde NS with the U.S., then you'll see it is just a quest for world domination -- not a defense of it.

All nations will be vulnerable to whatever group ends up controlling this weapon, and there will be immediate attempts to usurp control you may be sure.

But this is a different issue, really - it's only given the effect of increasing military expenditure because that's the closest game-mechanic effect to increasing scientific expenditure, which is what its effect would really be.

And so it makes no sense with regard to this issue to say that "levels of security are already adequate" - there's nothing in place to deal with asteroid strikes, regardless of how much money UN resolutions have given to the military or counter-terrorism agencies.

But, really, what are the chances of an asteroid hitting NationStates? If it was really high and threatening, then, yes spend more on defence against asteroids and other foreign objects.

This is something we should all think about.

All nations will be vulnerable to whatever group ends up controlling this weapon, and there will be immediate attempts to usurp control you may be sure.

Well, true. This "weapon" will have to be based and built in very few neighbouring, if not one, country/countries and I think so too that there could be chaos deciding about this. Interesting point...even I didn't think about it..,

But, really, what are the chances of an asteroid hitting NationStates? If it was really high and threatening, then, yes spend more on defence against asteroids and other foreign objects.

I suggest you read the main thread, where Mikitivity's coming up with facts and figures on the subject. Yes, the risk is low, but the potential damage is so enormous as to make action worthwhile.

Well, yes, a lot of past resolutions have addressed international security issues. And it is misguided to assume that, just because there's terrorism happening in the real world, it's happening in the NS world too - if you're going to make proposals about terrorism, you should refer to terrorist incidents being RPed in the International Incidents forum, not to al-Qaida or Ariel Sharon.

But this is a different issue, really - it's only given the effect of increasing military expenditure because that's the closest game-mechanic effect to increasing scientific expenditure, which is what its effect would really be.


*clapping*

That is exactly the point. We are attempting to start a long process.

For those in the camp that the game is perfect and should be played in a certain way ... today my government had the euthanasia issue. Technically speaking the UN already has a position on that. And yet my government (as will yours) was given the choice to do whatever.

There are problems with the game. Arguing that you don't want military expenditures to increase is fine, but I would suggest that you name a different way to reach the same means, assuming that is your primary objection.

10kMichael

But, really, what are the chances of an asteroid hitting NationStates? If it was really high and threatening, then, yes spend more on defence against asteroids and other foreign objects.

I suggest you read the main thread, where Mikitivity's coming up with facts and figures on the subject. Yes, the risk is low, but the potential damage is so enormous as to make action worthwhile.

Risk vs. Hazard

Risk is simply the probability or likelihood of an event occurring. Here are a few simplified risks (naturally the more personal the scale, the more variable the risk will be):

(http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/asteroid_impact_010906.html)
Large Asteroid Impact: 1 / 100,000

(http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/impact_debate_part1_030211.html)
Car Crash: 1 / 100
Asteroid hitting the United States: 1 / 20,000
Plane Crash: 1 / 20,000
Death by Bug Bite / Sting: 1 / 100,000

NOTE: I need to look back to see if the plane crash and auto crash are fatalities or just accidents. I'll double check on the worlding of the asteroid hitting the US too.

Worthy quote:
Historically, society has not spent equally to mitigate various hazards, in terms of dollars per life saved or damage averted. The comparisons I have cited do not necessarily require that society must spend the same amount on NEO searches and mitigation measures as we do, for instance, on tornado research, but policy-makers ought to at least seriously examine the impact hazard.

(http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9803/12/collision/)
Asteroid / Comet Collision: 1 / 10,000


Another interesting read:

http://www.nesfa.org/reviews/Olson/CometAndAsteroidImpactsOnAnInhabitedEarth.html

Lewis has produced a model where the Earth is bombarded randomly by bodies of all sorts, the frequency of each sort of body being what has been measured (or extrapolated sometimes) in nature. Each body follows an orbit randomly selected from the natural range of orbits for that kind of body and has a mass and composition randomly selected from the naturally-occurring population. In other words, his model bombards Earth with a rain of bodies which reproduces the natural flux in orbit, frequency, mass, and composition.

He then has it fall on a model Earth with a proper probability of hitting over water or land, and, if on land, over various densities of 20th century population. Wherever it hits, he computes the effects combining the effects from its orbit, its angle of striking (a shallow angle tends to produce more airbursts, a steep angle more cratering), its composition and its mass and the population below it to estimate casualties.

The results are interesting. Over about 100,000 years of simulations, he finds that fatalities are consistently dominated by the largest events (the worst-case event in all of those runs - a large chondrite airbursting over a heavily-populated area like Japan - caused eleven million deaths). (I should note that his model was not designed to reproduce events like that which killed the dinosaurs, and the chance of an event like it appearing in only a few hundred thousand years of simulation is small.)

Anyway, people are going to tell you that the station / platform is expensive to build. They don't know that.

People are going to tell you that an asteroid hitting the Earth is unlikely. I promise you that for most of these people, it is just a guess. While I can't prove they aren't doing research, I think you can look at the tone of their replies and see that they are just having what is at best knee-jerk reactions to this.

The key to all of this lies in two things:

(1) your contribution is whatever you want (big or small),
(2) the logical way to decide what you can contribute is relative to your countries HAZARD (Hazard = Risk * Cost of Damage).

I've looked for estimated costs associated with an impact, and there really isn't any easy to find data. But the large quote above at least shows that this is a real problem (not imagined like some of the naysayers will cry about) and that real work has been done to model the impacts probabilities and address crude "Hazards".

10kMichael

Also, the chances of a asteroid coming that close to Earth again are extremly slim.

No, they're not. The fossil record shows pretty explicitly that Earth has been hit by a great many asteroids - some extinction-level events, many certainly big enough to wipe out entire cities.

An object like the one that struck Tunguska in central Siberia in 1908 hits us, on average, every 1,000 years or so. That object had an energy equivalent to 10 megatonnes of TNT. If such an object were ever to strike an inhabited area, millions of people could be killed.

However, the estimate on how likely this is has been changing back and forth a lot lately - the previous estimate was something like once every 250 years. The Tunguska asteroid was only about 50 metres across - an object about a kilometre across could wipe out between half and a quarter of the world's population, and dramatically affect climate for years.

If this proposal fails, we suggest a weaker resolution to instate a program with no defence capabilities, focussing heavily on the ability to spot and track major asteroids. We feel the possible military application of this proposal has soured many against it - although measures to merely track the things wouldn't be so effective, it would be a lot less controversial
(All this going on about how evil powers would take over the thing confuses us, though; why they wouldn't take over another extant platform that was actually designed to target the Earth?)

If this proposal fails, we suggest a weaker resolution to instate a program with no defence capabilities, focussing heavily on the ability to spot and track major asteroids. We feel the possible military application of this proposal has soured many against it - although measures to merely track the things wouldn't be so effective, it would be a lot less controversial
(All this going on about how evil powers would take over the thing confuses us, though; why they wouldn't take over another extant platform that was actually designed to target the Earth?)

My nation may be a step ahead of you, as we've drafted a PROPOSAL with weaker language to share information regarding the tracking of celestial objects and promote future international cooperation in the field of impact risk assessment.

But I'm talking just a step, as I only have on hand a few of the clauses and all of them were nothing more than amendments we suggested for this current proposal.

The bottom line is, this is an area worthy of international attention.

10kMichael

I believe that although those may be accurate figures, they show the risks of an asteroid hitting the "REAL" world. Have you got any proof to show that the risks are similar in the world of NationStates?

I wonder why the makers of this game would want to suddenly do away with it with some wierd asteroid?

[quote="Rehochipe(All this going on about how evil powers would take over the thing confuses us, though; why they wouldn't take over another extant platform that was actually designed to target the Earth?)[/quote]

Well, here's an example. (only an example, any reference to any existing regions/ events in NationStates is purely coincidental)

A asteroid is heading for the south of the world. It is big enough to devestate the southern regions. However the asteroid-blasting machine is located in the north. It happens so that the south is at dispute with the north. The north decides not to destroy the asteroid as the asteroid is only bad enough to get rid of southern cities, and will have no effect on the north. The south has to sacrifice whatever they were quarelling about in the first place quickly with the north to avoid being wiped out. The north manages to extort gifts from the south.

Check out the results of the poll here:

http://thewp.proboards25.com/index.cgi?board=UNR&action=display&num=1082090871

I would rather pay a bit to protect the Earth (not to mention peace of mind), then to pay for it with our lifes later on :!:

Well, I personally feel that we will not pay a bit, but a LOT :!: , as you see that a orbital defence platform, long range reconnaissance scanners, tractor beams and energy based cannons will cost a lot to build and also much more to maintain.

What a way to throw your money away. Imagine the cost of building and maintaining an array of space energy cannons and space weaponry NOT to be used for war! The President of Igloria has voted AGAINST this issue because of its overwhelming cost and the fact that the chances of a meteorite hitting the Earth are incredibly slim.

Well, I personally feel that we will not pay a bit, but a LOT :!: , as you see that a orbital defence platform, long range reconnaissance scanners, tractor beams and energy based cannons will cost a lot to build and also much more to maintain.

You are right. The expected cost in human lives (not accounting for economic damage) per year is 20 to 250 lives. Every year.

And it is true that little can be done in the short-term to remove this cost, except that these 20 to 250 expected losses can be avoided if we institute long-term management practices.

Obviously if we fear an impact, evacuation is an option for smaller events. But for the larger events, say an 1 km asteroid striking an ocean, the impacts would be felt world wide.

While the risks are low, the hazard of not acting is high.

I can understand dictatorships wanting to spend more money on themselves, but democracies have a moral obligation to protect their citizens. The way democracies decide what is worth protecting and what is too costly to protect is by using economic tools ... including expected value based decision making.

The expected losses, I've already calculated based on real world reports of risks and lost of human life. Nobody opposed to this resolution has yet to run any statistics, with a single exception: one noteable delegate has found information suggesting that the platform cost in dollars would be in the billions and take years to build.

Personally, I highly commend this UN representative for actually basing his nation's position on FACT.

But let's look a bit more at the numbers:

I've proven that the expected cost ranges between 25 - 250+ for small to large events. I've discounted K/T exitinction level events, because while we may be able to prevent them, frankly they'd completely skew the numbers such that we would neglect the more likely smaller costs / impacts, which we also will have a greater chance of preventing.

Is billions of dollars over the course of 10+ years too much to save 25 x 10 or 250 x 10 lives per year? 250 to 2,500 lives?

It sounds that way at first, but let's look at what that billions of dollars is compared to other costs: let's pretend a nation wants to invade an oil rich nation ... how much would the cost of that war be in days?

Look at the following link:
http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_money_021104,00.html

Unless you are ClarkNova and just like to make stuff up, then please ignore the above source and just make up facts ...

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker told the Senate Armed Services Committee the $38 billion he has for 2004 war operations will last only until the end of September, as he spends $3.7 billion a month in Iraq and about $900 million a month in Afghanistan. The Army has about 114,000 soldiers in Iraq and roughly 10,000 in Afghanistan.

And what was the justification of doing all this? Supposedly (remember there is no USA, no Iraq, no Afghanistan in NationStates) the justifcation was that these two nations both supported terrorism.

Big deal. So what?

It is a big deal. The government called the USA, acted in order to reduce the hazard of terrorists attacking it. To save lives.

The question is how many American lives per year are saved at the cost of $3.7 billion / month? (That is a real number there.)

The money is out there. A billion dollars seems like a lot of money if you are a high school student having to baby sit kids down the street to get spending cash. A billion dollars seems like a lot of money if you are a college student who earns spending case by selling your plasma on the weekends at the blood whore center. ;) A billion dollars seems like a lot of money if you are a parent of 2 who will be paying off a mortage on a house for the next 30-years.

A billion dollars is nothing for a nation with a population of a billion people. My own nation is past the 400 million mark. If my nation provided 4 million dollars, and if every other nation that wanted to be part of this program provided 4 million or 4 billion or 400 thousand dollars (based on their population size), added together, an international space station is going to cost much less than that war in Iraq.

I urge everybody who is having a knee-jerk reaction to stop thinking like a high school kid without money. Stop thinking like a college kid without money. Stop thinking like a hard working parent of 2.

Think like the representative of a democratic nation who has a population of millions or billions to protect.

The cost of an international station is in my humble opinion justified. The math of the cost of lives has been calculated. The cost of other silly wars has been calculated. The cost of the platform has been estimated. The money is there. The need is there.

I challenge more nations to actually run the numbers. While I appreciate and completely respect the nation that did site the international space station costs, I encourage the rest of you to contact your nations and think about the real costs. Money and lives are too important to allow speculation to sway your opinion.

10kMichael

I think we should embrace the astroid! We should not blow it up just because it's different! That is descrimination and that is wrong! We should try to learn from the astroid and become it's friend. We shouldn't think that just because it is big and coming straight at us at such a powerful speed that it is sure to destroy the planet that it's mean. That is racist. Aren't we more civilized than that? We should be happy and have the astroid over for dinner. Then we could talk and get to know the astroid and maybe meet its parents and friends. Wouldn't we all be happier if we all just learned to . . . Get along? Doesn't that make a lot more sense? . . . . . . .Did I leave the iron on?

-Negro Land

P.S. Plus the idea of a space defence system is just frggin stupid in the first place.

Well, I personally feel that we will not pay a bit, but a LOT :!: , as you see that a orbital defence platform, long range reconnaissance scanners, tractor beams and energy based cannons will cost a lot to build and also much more to maintain.

You are right. The expected cost in human lives (not accounting for economic damage) per year is 20 to 250 lives. Every year.

10kMichael

How old is the earth? Scientists have cocluded that the general age is 4.55 billion years. During this long period of time, there has not been one occasion when the earth has been struck by a asteroid powerful enough to create effects felt worldwide.

Perhaps, as some people guess, dinasaurs have been wiped out by a similarly devastating steroid, but, now people follow more the ideas of evolution. Also dinasaurs were extinct 65 bmillion years ago, and ever since, there has been no cases, even suspected ones like the case of the dinasaurs, where asteroids have actually killed people.

As an object falls toward a planet, it is accelerated by the planet's gravity. The slowest possible impact speed for interplanetary material is the planet's escape velocity. Impact speeds for Earth range from 11.2 km/s to 72.8 km/s, and most asteroids do not fit this criteria.

It is rare that even a mere asteroid of diameter 1 km and of velocity 11.2km/s would collide once with the earth during your lifetime, as such colisions such as these only occur every 100000 years.

A colision big enough to threaten the whole world would require a asteroid of diameter 8 km at the minimum velocity of 11.2 km/s. Such collisions only occur once every 15 million years! I wonder if we shall ever live to see such colisions...

Asteroids have not been known to generally kill people as they land mainly in unhabited places such as deserts.

How about everyone who doesn't wanna pay just go ahead and get killed off, leaving the ones that want to live...well... alive :twisted:

First of all we all live on the same planet supposidly so nations cant just exempt themselves, but thats beside the point, this is a stupid idea, one country will try to get control and there will never be a unanimous vote for anything, even if its 2 feet away this is pointless, then if you for majority rules you run into other issues just scrap it and end the debate

You are right. The expected cost in human lives (not accounting for economic damage) per year is 20 to 250 lives. Every year.
Whereas spending this same amount of money on healthcare and welfare would almost certainly save many more then 20-250 lives annually.

Is billions of dollars over the course of 10+ years too much to save 25 x 10 or 250 x 10 lives per year? 250 to 2,500 lives?
The numbers seem to have changed lightly. Earlier they were 20-250. 25x10 to 250x10 annually is 250-2500. I assume you meant deca-anually (sp?), every ten years. And once again, I'd rather put that billions of dollars into healthcare and welfare.

As someone else pointed out earlier, the money would be better spent on detection systems. Surely you agree that we (the United Nations, Naleth is a pacifist state and maintains no army) have the capability to sufficiently destroy a 1km diameter asteroid. The problem is we cannot detect such an asteroid in time.

For that matter, detection systems pose far less threat then actual military weapons which, since asteroid strikes are few and far between, will likely be turned on the population of the NS Earth at some point (costing more lives then they save).

The DSH already employs a large Orbital platform network in high orbit, which is full of long range Nukes - if a small nation like Hirota can have such technology, then larger, wealthier nations enjoy the same benefits. I see it unlikely any asteroid could get through.

Thus the DSH has voted against this proposal, and is pleased to see this proposal is likely to be voted down.
_________________________
http://ubbt.moby.com/userfiles/2312817-hirotaflag.jpg (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/target=display_nation/nation=hirota)

It is the collective belief of the Lokinian Sultans Cabinet, that there are far too many human beings on this planet as it is. The extermination of 99.9% of the planets population would be a welcome relief to our planet and therefore we cannot favour any course of action that would allow this asteroid to be stopped. On another note any such Space Defense system would be able to turn its weapons back to Earth and use its weaponry to devastating consequense on any nation that is not willing to support the regieme in control of the aforementioned "Defense" System. In conclusion The Lokinian Sultan, would like to add a personal note "F*CK 'EM ALL"

It is possible to use weapons that can't be turned towards the Earth. Or perhaps a weapon that would be stopped by the Earth's atmosphere.

Anyway, Moontian maintains a strong SBR and SBL array in orbit between 550 and 1100 km above the surface.

Has anyone else besides me noticed that the asteroid that was cited in the legislation was only 100 feet wide? I also wonder how close "perilously close" is exactly.

As a member of the region of Space and it's delegate, we find that this initiative is dangerous to us, especially if you aim it out. Please let us settle this with our moon based lasers, our venus based lasers and all the other lasers we have hidden where you can't find them.

Florestan: "How old is the earth? Scientists have cocluded that the general age is 4.55 billion years. During this long period of time, there has not been one occasion when the earth has been struck by a asteroid powerful enough to create effects felt worldwide."

Simply not true. I think you're vastly underestimating the effects of such impacts.

"Such collisions only occur once every 15 million years! I wonder if we shall ever live to see such colisions..."

I think you misunderstand statistics. Just because there is a one in x chance of an event taking place does not mean that it is a regulated occurrence. In this case, a once in every fifteen million years probability could mean that such an asteroid won't hit for 100 million years. It could mean that one will hit tomorrow and again the day after.

"Asteroids have not been known to generally kill people as they land mainly in unhabited places such as deserts."

Absurd! Do asteroids have self-contained population avoidance systems? No.

DP.

Ooh - 600 posts.

I think a couple of points need clarifying.

First, I think that 'perilously close' is within a million km or so, or within 2.5 times the Moon's distance. The asteroid refered to earlier came only 0.1 times the Moon's distance away from Earth.

Second, as for impacts causing world-wide effects, the asteroid would only need to be about 2-4 km or so in diameter to throw up enough dust to cover the planet. However, the impact 65 million years ago was caused by an asteroid 10-20 km in diameter.

There were many impacts with objects of this size while the Earth was forming. Otherwise, the Earth couldn't have gotten this big this quickly. There is also the possibility that the Moon was created from the remnants of an impact with a protoplanet about the size of Mars.