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Request for Cosmic Collision Insurance
HobbySpacer writes "According to this article a group of distinguished citizens has sent an open letter to Congress, the President, and other world leaders to request that they begin a serious program to protect the planet from the possible impact of a comet or asteroid. The petitioners include Freeman Dyson, Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt, Neil Tyson (Director of the Hayden Planetarium) and others. They say that for "the first time in human history, we have the potential to protect ourselves from a catastrophe of truly cosmic proportions." A three phase program is urged that includes detection, exploration, and contingency planning. See the full letter at www.CongressNEOaction.org"
For a one-time premium of only US$1,000, I will grant a US$1.5Million policy to anyone who wants one -- NOBODY TURNED DOWN!!
The policy will pay out, in full, to anyone whose species becomes extinct as a result of catastrophic collision with any celestial body.
Some of my competitors will only cover comets, excluding asteroids. Others may cover alien invasions, but exclude comets. I cover any celestial catastrophic event that causes the extinction of your species, and I pay cash!
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I think they are implying that the US plan of having a group of oil rig drillers ready to go, won't save us ...
Unique signatures are rare.
Humans seem to be unable to comprehend the need for action in this kind of low probability/extremely devasting situation. Nobody living has seen anything like this kind of catastrophe, so the public won't relate to it even if they hear about it. Our leaders don't grasp that a very low probability just means that given a long enough timeframe, the event will still likely occur.
about 20 years ago i read a blurb in the newspaper where this man slipped on his front poarch and fell into his rosebush and somehow a branch went into his throat and he choaked to death. a very unusual occurence to say the least. but i think this is more likely(no i did not crunch the numbers) than someone or vast numbers being killed by outerspace junk crashing to earth and causing wide spread destruction. i think we should spend our resourses on things like aides in africa. dealing with lost nuclear weapons or stupid politicians going to war and invading sovereign nations wasting billions of dollars and causing vast destruction for some asinine reason that no one understands. it seems to me when 5000 kids die everyday from diarrhea for lack of clean water and a couple of dollars worth of antibiotics then should we really spend a lot of resources on a possible cataclysm from space? let us face it--a million years from now the human race will be extinct--whether any life in existence then is our ancestors or not doesn't concern me very much. let us pass this ecosphere onto our children in better shape than we inherited it from our partents and let chicken little worry about the sky falling!
flowerbear adrift on a sea of confusion since 1958 flowerbear@phreaker.net FORTRAN programers don't eat quiche!!
If you want to make the humanity safe, the best way is the colonisation of another planet. This way, the destruction of one planet will not destroy humanity. In the long run, this is the only way. Sooner or later, an asteroid gonna fail on our heads. Colonisation protects humanity against most major threat.
Of course, colonisation will not protect individual who will always face the same probability of asteroid, nuclear weapons, ect no matter how many planets we can colonise.
Well, maybe i'm a cynic, but...
Why can I see a project like this getting huge funding and support from the government (we're protecting the country, no, the PLANET from weapons of mass destruction!), while NASA has to fight to justify itself? Why will weapons research and detection get more funding, attention and support than space exploration?
ID-10-T is a way of life
Really, am I the only one to think that even if our whole solar system would be devastated by a gigantic cosmic body (however unlikely that is) it would hardly qualify for cosmic proportions?
Maybe if a galaxy cluster was destroyed it'd be of cosmic proportions, but a tiny planet?
Nope, heh, talk about inflated self-importance. :-)
Before asteroid deflection reaqlly becomes in the public eye we need a nice small asteroid to take out a city. 10,000,000 people wiped off the Earth is nothing in the long run, but it would wake up the world's governments.
Assuming they dont think it's the first strike of a nuclear war.
Would a city-buster hit in a field be enough? Tungasta wasn't was it?
Chances are the next asteroid to hit Earth will land in the Ocean, probably the Pacific. Would a city-buster cause enough of a tidal wave to knock a few coastal cities off? Anyoen got any predictions of devestation? Perhaps a computer model where you specify impact speed, mass and location and you get a rough idea of numbers killed and where?
Forget Congress. They're asking for an increase of less than 17 million/year! Come on, how many Slashdot readers are there ... we could almost pull off that much money ourselves.
You'd think out of the 7 billion on the planet, at least 17 million of us (less than half a percent) would care enough to pitch in a dollar a year. I'm in for my buck.
Er, then again, maybe we should have a contingency plan.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
for "the first time in human history, we have the potential to protect ourselves from a catastrophe of truly cosmic proportions." A three phase program is urged that includes detection, exploration, and contingency planning.
This plan sounds suspiciously like an excuse to put lasers in space.... I can see it now,
"My fellow citizens, in the name of securing ourselves from evil celestial bodies hurtling towards the earth and thousands of miles per hour, we are beginning an expansive program to protect each and every citizen on this great planet. These lasers will be used for peaceful purposes... we wouldn't even think of aiming them at certain nations that have restarted nuclear programs or anything like that... noooooo."
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.