WMDs from space: update

Apparently the $3.5M Nasa is spending each year on it LINEAR programme is to look for 1km and above sized asteroids. These are the size of object that will definitely crash to the Earths surface and will probably wipe out human life in the process. So far about half of the estimated 1,000 or so such objects have been cataloged and so far all have been deemed not to be headed our way in the next 100 years.

Anything smaller stands a better chance of not quite making it to the Earths surface, and only partially exterminating human kind. But even the smaller ones would take out cities, countries and have potential to cause global tsunami of a scale never scene in recent human history. Apparently is a proposal to start a project to look for the smaller objects which might number in the tens, if not hundreds of thousands, but at present it is deemed too expensive. The monumental price tag? Well its a snip at $235 million for a ground based system that could do the job in 20 years, or $400 million for a space based one that would take only seven years.

To me its a no brainer, even if team USA completely footed the bill it would be only just over $1 per US citizen for the year, shared across all nations its about 5 cents per man, woman and child. Now remember an object only a little larger than 2004 FH may not make it to the earths surface, but could easily produce a several hundred megaton airburst. If you can find a way to divert it or at least evacuate beneath it then you're going to save untold millions of lives. Just what kind of technologically advanced society doesn't care to invest less than the price of a postage stamp for each person to help avert such a calamitous event, but can afford $1 billion a week to hunt down one bad guy a bunch of other bad guys decided shouldn't exist any more?

I think its a society that either feels extremely lucky, or is too afraid to think about the consequences of actually discovering such a risk. If I was Bill Gates, or Paul Allen (who just donated $13.5M to fund SETI), I'd be at NASA's door tomorrow with my check for $500 million in hand. Each one of them has a market value that would be decimated overnight, if not made worthless by the market freefall that would occur if people thought there was an imminent asteroid strike coming. The only way to avoid such a problem is to catalog all risks and predict such things decades in advance so there is time to prepare and eliminate them.

Unfortunately, we're basically SOL until some people decide that investing in the future of the Earth is more important than a buying perhaps one less latte a year. Lets hope we all have a big rock to hide under when the shit, oops I mean asteroid, hits the fan.