Distributed-Energy Blasting for NEO Destruction

Large-scale blasting techniques developed for terrestrial construction and mining could, if applied to a threatening NEO, ensure that it would be transformed into fragments too small (10-30 meters) to survive passage through Earth's atmosphere. Additionally, this approach could impart appropriate impulses to the NEO that its impact is prevented, or, if fragmented, that fewer resulting fragments would impact Earth. This approach also would be responsive to ongoing characterization of the NEO, and to its certain departures from an ideal spherical, homogeneous, continuous, linearly elastic mass.