Turns out we’re gonna wake up dead one day because an asteroid has smashed us good.
There is a pretty darn big rock coming potentially between the Earth and Moon today – only 0.2 the distance away from Earth as the Moon. It’s the second big rock that has come withing a Moon’s reach of Earth in less than 48 hours.
The more we look up, the more we realize there are a LOT of REALLY BIG things whizzing about REALLY FAST. We don’t actually want to find out what happens when one of these things hits us (despite all the movies on the subject).
This is definitely a situation where the outlandish spending part of our defense budget might be better applied or even expanded to stimulating effect.
We need to massively develop our observation capacity – we need to see everything that is coming our way, and in enough time.
We need to re-deploy and re-engineer existing technologies in order to fashion a secure, reliable response. Blowing REALLY BIG, REALLY FAST things to smithereens in outer space should appeal to everyone on ‘ever-so-many levels.’
We need to hire scientists and provide a long term project that provides CAREERS, and not just jobs. These are careers that produce successful people – people who see a return on their investment in education and pass it on to their kids and their region’s economy and quality of life after they are gone.
We need to be at the forefront of space-based technologies for ‘ever-so-many reasons.’
We need to orient our defense structure to eliminate existing threats BEFORE we confront potential threats. Doesn’t it make sense to eliminate the low probability/high impact threats you know are real; that have the certitude of orbits and the laws of gravity; before one addresses long past threats and chickenhawk visions of Armageddon?
We need a defense establishment, and while we do, won’t it be nice to know that much of it is pointed at not-humans for once? Perhaps, as we come to understand more about the scale and immediacy of the asteroid threat, anti-asteroid efforts could eventually draw more and more spending from less fruitful, death-based activities.
It’s going to take time. It’s going to take a lot of money. But who else will keep our children safe?