RS-232
No!
Ok thanks for clearing that up for me. Good points. The heavy spacecraft idea I saw something about it on the history channel.There's no dense air or other gas in space. If you detonate a nuclear warhead, the explosion won't create any pressure. The only way you're going to deflect the asteroid is if you detonate a nuclear warhead at its surface. The rock and ice will melt and get ejected from the asteroid - kind of like propellant ejecting from the nozzle of a rocket engine. Only that will nudge the asteroid off course.
This would be a very bad test, even if you managed to nuke it and not break it apart. Currently we know exactly where the asteroid will fly for quite a long time in the future and its danger to Earth can be accurately estimated. If you deflect it and change its trajectory, we'll have to measure it for a while before we can determine where it will fly. You run the risk of deflecting it into a trajectory more dangerous than the current one.
The best way of deflecting an asteroid is not to nuke it or ram it, but to park a heavy spacecraft near it. The gravitational influence of the spacecraft on the asteroid will be small, but over time it will tug the asteroid out of harms way. The only thing you need to know about the asteroid is a rough estimate of its mass. If you wanted to nuke or ram it, you'd have to know how the asteroid would react to such an event.
EDIT: So if it was heading for us as on a collision course we currently have no defense against it at all?
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