Not no that Neo, Near Earth Objects., i.e., dino killers, city busters, Siberian dynamite. The House and Senate finally had a hearing on the danger posed by NEOs. THey weren’t half bad, a round of bipartisan agreement almost broke out, and there were some quality comments mixed in with the noise and a plan in the works:
The Silicon Valley-based B612 Foundation’s plan to send an asteroid-hunting space telescope called the Sentinel into space in July 2018 would solve that problem, Green told the senators. “We have discovered 10,000 near-Earth asteroids thus far…. Sentinel will discover roughly that number every two weeks,” said B612 chair Ed Lu, a former astronaut and another witness on the panel.
“Assuming that we found one before you got your satellite up … what would an asteroid that is a kilometer in diameter, what would it do if it hit the Earth?” asked subcommittee chair Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) …. “That is likely to end human civilization,” Lu responded.
Best of all, imo biased opinion, we were mostly spared the spectacle of a bunch of imbeciles who pissed away over a trillion dollars and counting on non-existent Weapons of Mass Destructiontm lecture the experts and the nation about “wasting” a thousandth of that on WMDs we know exist to a 100% certainty. The full House Hearing on NEOs is here, the Senate version is here, the B612 Foundation and the Sentinel Telescope are described here.
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busterggi
March 22, 2013 at 10:45 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Do not underestimate the sheer destructive force of Keanu!
Trebuchet
March 22, 2013 at 11:02 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Cue Bobby Jindal. If monitoring volcanoes is a liberal waste of money, this has got to be worse.
Scr... Archivist
March 22, 2013 at 11:17 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Sentinels hunting for Neo? Hmmm…
The Lorax
March 22, 2013 at 12:07 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Sometimes, science has the best scare tactic… the truth.