Sweet Meteor O'Death

Sweet Meteor O'Death

"The odds of a near-Earth object strike causing massive causalities and destruction of infrastructure are very small, but the potential consequences of such an event are so large that it makes sense to take the risk seriously," John Holdren, science advisor to President Barack Obama, told the Science, Space and Technology Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. - From a 2013 story on Fox News

We've gotten by so far without doing anything about the threat of rogue asteroids, and we will probably continue to do so. For a while, anyway. However, if we are really in love with ourselves as much as we claim to be, we probably ought to start thinking about what we could do about it if one ever did decide to show up.
    Gaining some space faring capability would be a good start and a mission to Mars would be a step in that direction. Personally, I think Venus is more interesting, but I can see how Venus's toxic, super-heated atmosphere would put people off. Much better to freeze and aphixiate than to boil in acid. Besides, we should be able to drive on Mars while the most we could hope to do in the near term on Venus is to fly around in the clouds.

Via Dustbury.