[who_would_fardels_bear]

My understanding is that this article is misleading. We may have identified most (but not all) life-on-earth-ending asteroids/comets, but we haven't come close to identifying country and city killer objects.

We are trillions in debt. If we had spent that money more wisely we would already have been well on our way to cataloging a huge chunk of the country and city killing objects as well, and we might also already have deployed a system like HAMMER.

But our government is populated with shortsighted idiots.

[Eurotwit]

Detection has to be the key. Because for the forseeable future we can only hope to alter any orbit with years warning in advance.

No current “Hammer” containing the combined explosive power of our nuclear arsenal is not enough to divert or remove a planet killer.

Though, detection is not enough.

There might be a huge meteor obiting on the millenial time scales coming for us sunside, and there would be absolutely nothing we could do.

So, I agree with Hawkin.

If we value human life.

We need to diversify off planet.