Just in case the world is threatened by a killer asteroid someday, NASA is apparently planning to save the world by copying a Bruce Willis movie:
It is the stuff of nightmares and, until now, Hollywood thrillers. A huge asteroid is on a catastrophic collision course with Earth and mankind is poised to go the way of the dinosaurs.To save the day, Nasa now plans to go where only Bruce Willis has gone before. The US space agency is drawing up plans to land an astronaut on an asteroid hurtling through space at more than 30,000 mph. It wants to know whether humans could master techniques needed to deflect such a doomsday object when it is eventually identified. The proposals are at an early stage, and a spacecraft needed just to send an astronaut that far into space exists only on the drawing board, but they are deadly serious. A smallish asteroid called Apophis has already been identified as a possible threat to Earth in 2036.
Chris McKay of the Nasa Johnson Space Centre in Houston told the website Space.com: “There’s a lot of public resonance with the notion that Nasa ought to be doing something about killer asteroids … to be able to send serious equipment to an asteroi
It’s good that we’re actually thinking about this stuff now, rather than worrying about it if when it happens, I just hope they avoid the obvious plot-holes of Armageddon.
You’re actually blogging this morning, Doug? I figured you’d be too nervous!
Something tells me, though, that if we want to figure out how to deflect killer asteroids, NASA won’t be our best bet. They’re far too risk-averse. I can see it now… They’re quintuple-redundant systems will finally be perfected and ready to go in January 2037, a few months too late.