"a once-in-a-century occurrence.... a glimpse of an apocalyptic scenario that many have walked through mentally, and Hollywood has popularized"
This was all supposed to happen on Dec. 21st, so WTF?
"Meteor lifts awareness of cosmic risks; Hit that rattled Russia fuels bid to protect planet" by William J. Broad | New York Times, February 17, 2013
NEW YORK — For decades, scientists have been on the lookout for killer objects from outer space that could devastate the planet. But warnings that they lacked the tools to detect the most serious threats were largely ignored, even as skeptics mocked the worriers as Chicken Littles.
No more. The meteor that rattled Siberia on Friday, injuring hundreds of people and traumatizing thousands, has suddenly brought new life to efforts to deploy adequate detection tools, in particular a space telescope that would scan the solar system for dangers.
Meaning it's a good chance to get some funding from the tax trough.
A group of young Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who helped build thriving companies like eBay, Google, and Facebook has already put millions of dollars into the effort and saw Friday’s shock wave as a turning point in raising hundreds of millions more.
‘‘Wouldn’t it be silly if we got wiped out because we weren’t looking?’’ said Dr. Edward Lu, a former NASA astronaut and Google executive who leads the detection effort. ‘‘This is a wake-up call from space.’’
Astronomers know of no asteroids or comets that represent a major threat to the planet. But NASA estimates that fewer than 10 percent of the big dangers have been discovered.
I'm sorry, folks, but I'm just not going to worry about things from outer space that I can't control.
Lu’s group, called the B612 Foundation after the imaginary asteroid on which the Little Prince lived, is one team of several pursuing ways to ward off extraterrestrial threats. NASA is another, and other private groups are emerging, like Planetary Resources, which wants not only to identify asteroids near Earth but also to mine them....
Related: Globe Lost in Space
Even James Cameron didn't learn from "Avatar?"
Some people remain skeptical of the cosmic threat and are glad for taxpayer money to go toward urgent problems on Earth rather than outer space.
Like me.
Hey, look, I love striving for the stars, Star Trek, Start Wars, and all that stuff -- but we can do that after.
But many scientists who have examined the issues have become convinced that better precautions are warranted in much the same way that homeowners buy insurance for unlikely events that can result in severe damage to life and property.
Yeah, except there is a lot more chance of those things actually happening to the house.
Starting in the 1980s and 1990s, astronomers turned their telescopes on the sky with increasing vigor to look for killer rocks. The rationale was statistical. They knew about a number of near misses and calculated that many other rocky threats whirling about the solar system had gone undetected.
In 1996, with little fanfare, the Air Force also began scanning the skies for speeding rocks, giving credibility to an activity once seen as reserved for doomsday enthusiasts. It was the world’s first known government search.
NASA took a lead role in 2007 with what it called the Spaceguard Survey, but with the nation immersed in two wars and other earthly priorities, government financing never materialized....
Wasn't that about the same time as the Wall Street bank bailouts?
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"Cleanup begins after meteor deals blow in Russia; Victims await aid from the government" by Will Englund | Washington Post, February 17, 2013
MOSCOW — Residents found new ways to doubt the authorities, and seemingly everyone looked expectantly to Moscow for the flood of cash that rolls in on the heels of catastrophe.
Did the WaPo just diss the Russian people?
Regional Governor Mikhail Yurevich felt the need to deny that some residents had broken their own windows in the aftermath of Friday’s meteor to qualify for financial assistance. Even if that were true, though, it would be small potatoes compared with the compensation in store....
Mere hours after the meteor streaked across the sky and then broke into pieces with devastating force, Dmitry Rogozin, a deputy prime minister, pushed for plans for a terrestrial defense system to protect against future meteors, asteroids, and comets, and their sonic booms.
Contracts to the same people bringing us missile defense?
As of Friday night, Pavlovsky said, government scientists were saying those plans would cost about $2 billion, but on Saturday morning, ‘‘after Moscow woke up,’’ the projected price tag had doubled....
Yurevich was not the only person to observe that it was close to a miracle no one had been killed by flying glass....
While the agenda-pu$hing article above wails about being wiped out.
The meteor, traveling at about 40,000 miles an hour, unleashed the energy of 20 Hiroshima-size bombs as it detonated in the atmosphere.
Shortly afterward, a military spokesman told news services that it had been shot down by an air defense unit. Later, an official with the Ministry of Emergency Situations said that text-message alerts had been sent out before the big blast. Neither assertion was true; both drew strong criticism and mockery online.
The text-message claim seems to have been inspired by the failure of officials last summer to warn residents of Krymsk, in southern Russia, of a flood they knew was coming.
Remarkably, the Ministry of Emergency Situations announced Friday night that the offending official — unnamed — had been fired.
Of course, a meteor streaking in unbidden from space on an otherwise normal day to shower destruction on a city of more than 1 million was unnerving enough on its own.
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Also see: Brookline students track asteroid, set up live feed
