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In March 2007 researchers at NASA's Near-Earth Object Program released a report that said nuclear explosions are ten to a hundred times more effective in diverting killer asteroids than non-nuclear alternatives.

Even so, "30 to 80 percent of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects are in orbits that are beyond the capability of current or planned launch systems," the report said.

And even if NASA eventually develops a nuclear-tipped, anti-asteroid launch vehicle, rocketing hydrogen bombs into space "is prohibited by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967," ISU's Burke said.

That UN-brokered treaty prohibits the deployment of nuclear weapons in Earth orbit, in outer space, or on any other celestial body.

Quite frankly, the threat of annihilation by a meteor or comet strike is more real than the threat of our civilization crumbling under global warming - we know that such strikes have caused mass extinctions on the earth before. The US should be developing the monitoring, missile and nuclear weapons technology needed to prevent this threat. And screw the UN.

Late Pleostocene Human Population Bottlenecks. . . (Toba)

"The six year long volcanic winter and 1000-year-long instant Ice Age that followed Mount Toba's eruption may have decimated Modern Man's entire population. Genetic evidence suggests that Human population size fell to about 10,000 adults between 50 and 100 thousand years ago. The survivors from this global catastrophy would have found refuge in isolated tropical pockets, mainly in Equatorial Africa. Populations living in Europe and northern China would have been completely eliminated by the reduction of the summer temperatures by as much as 12 degrees centigrade.

And even if NASA eventually develops a nuclear-tipped, anti-asteroid launch vehicle, rocketing hydrogen bombs into space "is prohibited by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967," ISU's Burke said.

Proof positive that these guys are pulling everyone's leg and are not serious in the slightest degree.