[Bernard Marx]

A lot of the responses on this thread demonstrate what I call the Harry Truman syndrome: "Hell, that volcano'll never erupt and I ain't movin'." Bye Harry.

There's now no doubt that several great extinctions of life on earth in the past were caused by asteroid hits. Granted, they don't happen often but when they do -- like eruptions of Vesuvius or other sleeping giants -- they can be devastating.

In the end we're all dead anyway but, for the living I don't think it's paranoid to invest some of our intellect and treasure into figuring out 1) how to demolish/deflect cosmic intruders once detected, then 2) how to detect them.

[clifdweller]

Great post! It's only a matter of time, and that is fact, not paranoia. We most definitely should commit resources to this inherent danger. We should start by dumping useless orbital, rich boy, bungalos (ISS) which cost us billions and get a colony on the moon and Mars.