Relax, no need to panic... until 2036.

Asteroid heading our way

"We plant transmitter, Europe, if you give us dough-sky."

Excellent. That should help distract everyone from my bid to rule the world in 2037.

I always hoped to be alive while the planet changed orbit, or lost it altogether. Riding a planet into the deep....

Silly romantic notions.

Like Slim Pickens, no doubt.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I hope the world ends in my lifetime so I know I didn't miss anything.

It's always bothered me that asteroid rhymes so well with hemorrhoid.

I doubt we'll have seen the killer coming. "Chicxulub II" will more than likely blindside us. A challenge to human pride, yes, but easily cured by preventative medicine (shelters, synthetic biomes, etc). Why dread? Think of the stupendous scientific opportunities, to witness and endure first hand phenomena previously only guessed at by paleo-forensics.

If the visible objects continue to bother you, remember the value of 28 years. Just ask people who made it from 1941 to 1969, or 1952 to 1980, or 1980 to 2008. Come 2036, Earth will be snugly wreathed by an automatic system of anti-bollide Mohrs Disaggregator cannons. Should even they fail, the lunar city Tsiolkovskinsk's mirrored starlight harvesters can be refocused to any point in space.

I'll be 89. Not worrying about it.

Ah, but Metro, (a) there won't be enough domes for everyone - just enough for the same rich assholes who are screwing up the planet now. Imagine a world with *only* them and no-one to exploit! Definitely amusing reality TV, but it doesn't bode well for the survival of the species and (b) we're already working hard at defunding the very asteroid-detection programs that have the potential to warn us of Chicxulub II... it's difficult to imagine a more short-sighted (pun intended) action, and seriously, it makes me wonder whether we *deserve* to survive.

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Originally posted by Metro Dynamics:Come 2036, Earth will be snugly wreathed by an automatic system of anti-bollide Mohrs Disaggregator cannons. Should even they fail, the lunar city Tsiolkovskinsk's mirrored starlight harvesters can be refocused to any point in space.

Plus, you know, Superman.

quote:

Originally posted by UberDog:

quote:

Originally posted by Metro Dynamics:Come 2036, Earth will be snugly wreathed by an automatic system of anti-bollide Mohrs Disaggregator cannons. Should even they fail, the lunar city Tsiolkovskinsk's mirrored starlight harvesters can be refocused to any point in space.

Plus, you know, Superman.

And if all else fails, Aerosmith strapped to a nuclear device will win hands down .

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whether we *deserve* to survive.

Selection doesn't care. It can't. Judgment is a sapient luxury. [Courtesy the Bumper Sticker Apothegm Factory].

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a world with *only* them

I trust anthropology. Ineluctably, rich assholes' daughters will revolt.

Remember, Giant Sequoias start as this:



All's we need's a handful, out-of-Africa style. Subsequent multiplicity will smooth out any drastic personality spikes.

IBM's many* Kittyhawks will ensure we don't forget how to make pozzolana cement or how to paint in perspective this time.

*2036 assumption.

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Originally posted by Bravus:
Ah, but Metro, (a) there won't be enough domes for everyone - just enough for the same rich assholes who are screwing up the planet now. Imagine a world with *only* them and no-one to exploit! Definitely amusing reality TV, but it doesn't bode well for the survival of the species and (b) we're already working hard at defunding the very asteroid-detection programs that have the potential to warn us of Chicxulub II... it's difficult to imagine a more short-sighted (pun intended) action, and seriously, it makes me wonder whether we *deserve* to survive.

Hey, America was seeded by the apex of self and direct-kin selection (Western Europe, at the time) and from this refined produce, a bunch of individualistic convicts and religious psychos with obsessive compulsive disorder, and look how we turned out!

Um... so anyways, on to Exhibit B!

I heard Rusty Schweickart, who was the lunar module pilot on Apollo 9, speak on alternative ways of dealing with NEOs last year, and he was fascinating. He's chair of the B612 Foundation.

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Originally posted by oddmanrush:
Asteroid heading our way

Meh, it's not headed my way.

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Anatoly Zaitsev from the Moscow-based Planetary Defence Centre says we need to develop “a planetary protection system.”

The almighty Space Condom! ;-)