Putin to use Cold War nukes to destroy doomsday asteroids in space before they hit earth

Meanwhile, the United States is busy working on its own way of shooting down space rocks asteroids albeit with a very different approach.

NASA plans to shove them away from the planet rather than blowing up the space rocks.

But Russia feels only nukes will stop the asteroids.

Russia believes using missiles that would be used to attack an opponent could be sent to space quicker than a space rocket.

"Most rockets work on boiling fuel", says Sabit Saitgarayev, the leading researcher at Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau, told news agency TASS.

"Their fuelling begins 10 days before the launch and, therefore, they are unfit for destroying meteorites similar to the Chelyabinsk meteorite in diameter, which are detected several hours before coming close to the Earth."

These huge space rocks, which are thought wiped out the dinosaurs, can only be detected only by observatories a few hours in advance of their reaching Earth.

But sometimes they are not detected at all.

Case in point is the 20-meter-wide meteor exploded in the sky over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013

It exploded with the estimated force of 300,000 tons of TNT or more, equivalent to a nuclear weapon, damaging buildings and leaving more than 1,000 people injured.

That time it blew up in the sky, but it is feared if one hit Earth's surface there would be mass death. 

(dailystar.co.uk)