Cheap Astronomy - Dear CA # 139: Clearing the Neighborhood

Saving the world on a tight budget. Hosted by Steve Nerlich. Dear Cheap Astronomy – Can we clear all the PHOs from around Earth? A key feature of Cheap Astronomy's CSOTM (Crash Shirt On The Moon) proposal is that the most readily available source of shirt to crash are near Earth asteroids and a small number of comets. This has the double benefit of putting all the raw materials in one place, plus you are clearing out potentially hazardous objects that could collide with Earth at some time in the future.   Dear Cheap Astronomy – Can we really deflect asteroids with rocket engines? This is a follow up episode to our recent one about crashing near-Earth objects on the Moon. Where a listener wrote to critique a throw-away line we made about attaching a rocket engine to an asteroid, particularly if it was a rubble pile asteroid. They were too polite to say it's a dumb-@$$ idea, but yeah, it is probably a dumb-@$$, well sort-of maybe.   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too!  Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.  Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org.