IEEE Spectrum article on deflecting asteroids

[gary]

The April 2012 edition of the Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers (IEEE)
Spectrum magazine has arrived in the mail and there is an article by Gregory L. Matloff,
an emeritus professor of physics at New York City College of Technology,
entitled "Deflecting Asteroids".

In 2007, Matloff took part in a NASA Marshall Space Flight Center study of proposed
asteroid deflection techniques that could be made ready for use by the end of 2020.

One of the proposals Matloff discusses in the article is a large parabolic reflector, that
would resemble a solar sail, but whose purpose would be to concentrate sunlight onto
a smaller flat mirror which in turn would direct concentrated sunlight onto the
asteroid to try and create a gas jet through vaporization. If the asteroid had no
volatile material to vaporize, Matloff makes clear that this approach would not work.

Matloff discusses the solar collector and other proposals in the article which
also appears in full online here -
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/s...ng-asteroids/0