Friday, September 2, 2011

How long till we have technology that can stop natural disasters?

So I meant to write this earlier in the week right after Irene blew through, but other things (mainly baseball games) kept pushing it back.

On Sunday afternoon, during what was supposed to be the peak of the storm, the movie "Armageddon" was appropriately on TV (and it's still awesome, by the way).  And that got me thinking: the film came out 13 years ago (I know, wow), and at the time, the technology in it seemed reasonable.  Think about that.  There were no ipods then.  The Internet was just becoming mainstream.  Most people didn't even have cell phones.  So if 13 years ago, in the dark ages of technology, it seemed plausible that we could save the world by landing on an asteroid in space and blowing it up, shouldn't we be able to stop natural disasters in 2011?

I guess floods, tsunamis, and earthquakes might be tough.  I'm not really sure what to do with those.  But hurricanes, tornadoes, basically anything that fits into the "storm" category, I think we should be able to beat.  I'm drawing on technology used in "The Matrix" and one of the "Ocean's Eleven" movies, I think Ocean's Twelve actually.  Anyway, in each movie they use some sort of very powerful electro-magnetic wave/pulse to shut down the power in both the attacking machine spaceship, and the entire city of Las Vegas, respectively.  So I think it's about time somebody invents something along those lines used for hurricane and tornado protection. You just shoot it into the eye of the storm and watch it slowly disappear.  


3 comments:

  1. You sound like an idiot basing opinions of real life tragedies on movies.

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  2. Well obviously I was being facetious. This blog is for entertainment purposes only. Have a nice day.

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  3. There was an interview yesterday on NPR with a woman in Scotland who has just won the "Move an asteroid contest" organized by the Space Generation Advisory Council. She has devoted her PhD studies to this and has come up with a credible plan. Maybe this isn't so far-fetched!

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