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[–]boston_blackie 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

We can barely get into space and they want to move the earth? Interesting idea we should reconsider in 5023

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yeah, I don't think the guy was planning anything immediate.

If nudged successfully, the asteroid would do a loop around the sun and head back towards Earth, before slingshotting itself on Earth's orbit...

'Do this a million times and the Earth will increase its velocity by the amount we need...'After a million fly-bys, the Earth is in its new, up-town orbit...'And as we have a billion years for the move, this means we only need one fly-by from the asteroid every one thousand years.

'Do this once every thousand years, and over a billion years we can move the Earth enough to keep its temperature constant while the sun brightens.'

There's no way to tell if it would even be required for many thousands of years, our entire concept of climate change is based on a few decades of weather data and temperature readings from airport runways.

[–]MaiqTheTrue 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Remember kids, don’t do drugs.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Drugs are fine, don't do science.

[–]Alienhunter 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Super theoretical physics. By the point you've figured out a good way to literally move the planet (which would require an insane amount of energy to really do so on any timescales that are relevant to humanity) you could just move the rather pitiful amount of carbon in the atmosphere compared to the Earth's mass, somewhere else.

By the time you can figure out this shit your probably have interstellar travel anyway so you could just go find other planets to conquer.