February 2019 Results of `` Impact and Nuclear Weapons''

In February 2019, I gave a poster presentation at the Kyoto University Space Unit symposium.The Ultimate Choice of Nuclear Weapons for Collision Avoidance (link to poster)” will be published.

The result of this vote is that the participants who voted are biased toward space-related people and people with strong interests, and the number is small (there is a sample problem), and the questions are from high-urgency to low-urgency. Therefore, it cannot be generalized because there is a high possibility that it will be dragged by the answer to the previous question (affected by security and cognitive dissonance). However, I think it will be a reference case.

Question 1 An asteroid is approaching the earth. Due to the delay in discovery, the only remaining means to avoid a collision with the Earth is to use nuclear weapons to divert the asteroid's orbit. (It is not the destruction of an asteroid.)

Do you support the "use" of nuclear weapons to avoid conflicts?

-39 votes to "agree" with the use of nuclear weapons

-9 votes to "oppose" the use of nuclear weapons

Q2 There is an asteroid Bennu that may collide with the Earth in the 22nd century. There is also the possibility that undiscovered asteroids will collide with the Earth in the future. Moreover, that prediction may be wrong.

Possession of nuclear weapons to avoid conflict sustains the danger of nuclear war and is expensive to maintain. In addition, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was passed in 2017 (major countries such as Japan have not signed it), and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) won the Nobel Prize.

Do you agree with the "existence" of nuclear weapons on the basis of uncertain danger?

-25 votes to "agree" with the existence of nuclear weapons

-21 votes to "oppose" the existence of nuclear weapons

We will also post handwritten comments.