Combating Comets With Airbags?

Forget Nuclear Warheads Heading Off A Crash: Send Up A Pillow

(CBS)  Giant airbags could one day save the world from the disaster of a cosmic collision with a giant comet, according to a scientist in the United States.

Forget nuclear warheads to stop a crash with a comet that could have cataclysmic effects such as the one that is believed to have triggered the demise of the dinosaurs, Hermann Burchard of Oklahoma State University told New Scientist magazine.

Far better to send up a space ship equipped with a massive airbag that could be inflated to several miles wide and used to gently buffet the invading solar body away from a collision course with earth.

"It seems a safe, simple and realistic idea," Burchard told the magazine's latest edition.

However, he admitted there were still numerous details to be worked out including the material for the airbag which had to be light enough to cart into space yet strong enough to bounce the comet off its course to earth.