Meteor(ite) Science Ballistic Missile

When a major meteor(ite) such as the one that hit Chelyabinsk the other year is detected, an intercontinental ballistic missile is launched. The ICBM is needed to get to anywhere on Earth within an hour or so after the meteor(ite) arrives. At the same time, a phone call is made to the nuclear war hotline of the country in whose airspace the meteor(ite) entered, to advise them that this is not an attack. This is because the ICBM carries not a warhead but rather an instrumented glider or parachute-descending module (or perhaps multiple of these). The instruments include a mass spectrometer, plasma instruments, and a dust collector. Once the missile arrives at the location on Earth where the meteor(ite) entered the atmosphere, the glider or parachute descender descends through the same air that the meteor(ite) did and performs science on it. This should tell us some things about the meteor(ite), such as its composition, especially in cases where it is not a meteorite and we therefore have little other way to get such knowledge than spectrometry and airplanes (which both might not react fast enough). The data collected by the automated instruments is transmitted as the probe descends, but to retrieve the collected dust for lab analysis, the probe itself must be retrieved. This gives the receiving country exclusivity on that scientific data (until their scientists have gotten as much head start as they want), as an incentive to not be upset about an ICBM being launched at them.

N/A [2019-02-26]