Another Asteroid Close Call

james was one of a number of people that submitted the news that the earth has had another near miss, this time with an asteroid. This particular one is thought to be about 300 meters in length, meaning that if it had struck the earth, it would have destroyed an area of say...South Africa. Not to mention the fall out. But we don't need a better system for watching the stars. Nope. Obviously not.

Comments

Simple survival system

[richie2000]

DUCK!

Re:Simple survival system

[azzy]

.. and cover.

Duck _and_ cover. Otherwise you're toast!!

Re:Simple survival system

[Sobrique]

The emergency procedure when being faced with being hit by an awfully large rock is to lower your pants bend down and kiss your arse goodbye.

This Just In

[Rope_a_Dope]

Taco Bell has announced that if an asteroid strikes a platform floating off the coast of South Africa, free chalupas to any living survivors.

Re:This Just In

[pokeyburro]

Well, that should kill off any stragglers...

The next Tunguska

[wiredog]

But where do we want it too hit? Redmond is too obvious. Washington DC is out, cause I live near there. Hartsfield Airport maybe? Never changing planes in Atlanta again has its attractions... New Holland, Michigan?

Re:A reason for funding?

[brassman]

I am sorry to say it but, I beleive that a direct hit it what is needed to force our governments to take action.

But then they'll say "Oh, gee, something like that only happens once every 5,000 years, so we have lots of time before the next one now that it's finally happened."

I'd script it this way:
Bruce Willis: "On average? What does that mean?"
Jeff Goldblum: "It means we're about due for three of these."
Bruce Willis: "Oh."

Surprised if there isn't ALREADY a system in place

[Fantastic Lad]

Sure, the monitoring system would be pointless in terms of saving ourselves, but where it would be most useful would be in extending the anarchy before the impact. Say from 30days to a full year.

Now, see that raises an interesting point.

Anarchy scares the controlling players of any political power structure, so who's to say that those in charge would share sky-watch information with the populace if they had it?

NASA, back during the Reagan years, had this really low profile military mirror version of itself; A whole second program complete with it's own shuttles which made space runs to plant military satellites in orbit. There's a lot of very expensive & very powerful junk up there which uses classified technologies far in advance of what John Q. Private Sector is allowed to sell in his hard drives. I'd be pretty surprised if there wasn't already enough hardware up there to do decent asteroid surveillance. --In fact, while it might seem like a long shot, I don't think it's that long a shot. . . I'd be willing to gamble that the American government knows a whole lot more about what's going on in Earth's vicinity than they talk about.

Of course, the way things seem to be run on this planet, I'd also be willing to gamble that even with the right hardware and regular reports, wishful thinking is far more pleasing to the mind, and far more distracting. Probably something along the lines of; "Yech! I don't want to worry about this asteroid stuff. I'm sure I'll be okay. I just need to make a pile of luxury resources for my wife and kids before the planet becomes a toxic waste land. This asteroid stuff only happens to poor people. Or at least, I'm sure it's possible to arrange it so it works out that way. . ."

-Fantastic Lad

[OT] Near miss? Reminds me of George Carlin

[Daath]

Reminds me of George Carlin:

Near miss? It's not a near miss - it's a near HIT!
If it had hit the earth, it would have nearly missed...