Cold War Monologue

PROLOGUE 2044. A troubled world economy and changes in the geopolitical landscape of the world have left the United States and China with the only fully functional space programs. Tensions between the two countries are high, and many believe that a second Cold War is beginning.

February. An American observatory discovers a large near-Earth asteroid, or NEA. It is given the provisional designation 2044CF. Initial data suggests that the object has a three percent chance of impacting Earth. NASA assigns a team to investigate further. A few news sites pick up the story, but all that do stress that the impact probability for almost all NEAs drops to zero when more data has been collected. Most news agencies are more concerned with another

You may be familiar with the international treaty banning the use of nuclear weapons in space.” “The Outer Space Treaty. A relic of the Cold War, passed in the sixties. Well, I suppose it’s still relevant.” “Yes sir, I’m not sure I’d want a dozen Chinese nukes in orbit above us. Besides the treaty, we’ll likely face some opposition here at home from the environmentalists. A break up of the launch vehicle in the atmosphere could scatter radioactive materials across the planet. A risk, but we would do our best over at NASA to make sure that didn’t happen. On the flipside, you could counter that it’s better to use our nukes in space, saving lives, as opposed to here on Earth, destroying them.” “Well, it certainly complicates matters. We’d need approval from the UN– and that means China.” The President closed the folder and moved on to the next labeled, “Kinetic Impactor.” “All right, let’s move on.” “Yes sir, this might be the simplest option, although it doesn’t pack the same punch as a nuclear warhead detonation. We would build a craft to essentially crash into the asteroid. The force of impact should transfer enough energy to divert the course of the object. Similar to a nuclear deflection, we would need to survey the asteroid first for a suitable impact site. However, unlike the nuclear blast, we aren’t transferring nearly as much energy