Geological Movie Review of Armageddon - Part 10

Geological Movie Review of Armageddon - Overview

- Aftermath -

2:17:43 - All through the movie they are commenting on the "zero barrier". The point after which if they do not explode the bomb the asteroid will end up crashing into the Earth. Figuring out where exactly the zero barrier is in relation to Earth is fairly simple (See Figure to the right). Assuming they are moving at 22,000 mph and they start the 8 hours of drilling while they are next to the moon. The moon is approximately 238,857 miles away from the Earth, so the zero barrier is approximately 62,000 miles away from Earth (UniverseToday.com). This would take the asteroid about two and a half hours to reach us, assuming the asteroid does not speed up due to Earth's gravity pulling it in, which is likely, especially considering it is on a direct path to Earth. So even though the plan is not possible, I figured it would be interesting to find out how close they are letting the asteroid get to Earth before the all impressive bomb tore it in two parts.

           
The interesting thing about the explosion is they did the Star Wars Special Edition shock wave off of the asteroid. This caused the shuttle to shake, rock and roll like nobodies business. Shockwaves are produced by ripples in the atmosphere. There is NO ATMOSPHERE in space, so again NO SHOCKWAVES. During the movie they should also get pummeled by rock debris as it pulverizes the shuttle. This happened in a small degree but certainly nothing as should have been seen in the movie. Also the all impressive explosion not only kept the 2 halves of the asteroid relatively intact, it also vaporized all the smaller fragments that would have come raining down. This whole, keep the asteroid from destroying Earth thing, keeps getting more and more impressive. So, all in all, if there was an bomb large enough to be capable of splitting an asteroid the size of Texas, I do not believe that it would split it in half without damaging either side and still vaporize anything else not attached to the asteroid.

2:19:11 - Back to my trusty globe to see if people could really see the explosion all across the Earth. The first view of the explosion shows the Taj Mahal  in India while some other views give the impression that Americans can also witness the explosion. The view of the explosion would be similar to a view of the moon, only parts of the planet would be able to witness it at any one time. India and the US are not even on the same side of the globe, so it would be impossible for India to see the explosion while those of us in the US witnessed it, based on planetary prospective.

- Advisory Input -

2:26:26 - So even though they did not have a "scientific advisor" on the movie they did have several advisors for other roles. Ivan Bekey was the asteroid consultant on the movie, which is as close to a scientific advisor as I think they got. He has written several books on the subject of asteroid and comet collisions and he is also a former NASA advanced planner and technologist (USA Today). Which likely means that the systems we have in place to defend against this ever happening has his signature somewhere on it. Joseph P Allen is the NASA Consultant who I feel did an excellent job. Overall there were very little problems with the NASA aspect of the movie. Allen was not only a physicist with NASA but was also an astronaut (NASA). Jerry Bostick was the movie's advisor on all of the Mission Control situations and I think he also did an excellent job. He had worked in Mission Control on both the Gemini and Apollo Programs as well as being the Director for the Energy Technology Applications Division of NASA (NASA). Harry Humphries was mainly their tactical advisor on all military matters. He was a Navy Seal and started his own company giving military consultation on over 17 movies (NavySeals.com)

           
Overall they seem to have a very good team of advisors. There is an interview with a couple of them on the bonus DVD that I do not have at the moment, so I have not seen what they might have thought of the movie. But it seems that a lot of their opinions were listened to in respects to NASA and any government stuff but when regular science comes into play things get a bit iffy. My guess is that they are going to keep their opinions of the movie rather neutral so that they have more possible advisory roles in the future. No point in burning bridges.