Poll of the Week: Solar Katrina!

By Jim Gerard, NASA INSPIRE, KSC, FL

The sun has been very quiet lately.  A few big hiccups have briefly thrown electro-magnetic particles our way, but only producing some spectacular auroral displays in the polar regions.  Today, however, residents in southern Africa are advised to wear extra sunscreen due to a solar flare alert!  An over-reaction, or prudent precaution?

While scientists might agree with the precaution, they know the main danger of severe solar storms is the effect on Earth's magnetic field.  This energy surge could disrupt the electrical grid over a large portion of our planet.  This damage would not just be confined to the power infrastructure, but also to those appliance plugged into the grid.  The estimate of damage reaches $2 trillion dollars.  We asked the OLC if we are prepared for such an event.

Negative answers were predominant, with 9 of 10 saying we were not prepared.  But, a large portion of those feel we can never be prepared enough.  here are some of the comments from the Discussion Board:

• My opinion is No. We are not prepared to cope with the widespread damage which would be caused by a solar storm of that magnitude. We can barely if at all cope with smaller solar storms, a solar storm like Katrina would be disastrous. What we need to do is figure out how to be ready, and get it done before it's too late. 

• We are definitely not ready!  A storm like that could damage communication satellites and possibly the power grid.  Since so much of our economy is electronic, the storm could be disastrous.

• Question: Is there any way to be ready? And second, how ready do we honestly need to be? I mean, I know that it would be disasterous, but honestly, how much of our technology do we actually need? Even if we only have 1960s technology, that was enough for Apollo, so it should be good enough for us now.



• I don't think we'll ever be completely ready.  And we should be less dependent on technology.


It may be too late to vote in the poll, but you can still join the debate on the Discussion Board.

Watch for the next poll coming later today!