In his book PALE BLUE DOT, the late great astronomer Carl Sagan talked about the future prospect of using asteroids as weapons. At the time, the full reality of asteroid collisions with the earth we're beginning to dawn on the various scientists of the world. Several solutions we're proposed, one of which was sending a space probe to land on an approaching space rock, and using its rockets to push it away from the earth. This was deemed the simplest and most effective method of preventing a repeat of the 65 B.C. KT collision or even a 1908 Tunguska scale impact. But many scientists including Carl Sagan quickly realized, this could also be used as the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. Because if you have the ability to push an asteroid away from the earth, you also have to ability to steer an asteroid TOWARD the earth ! With a single stadium sized space rock, you could incinerate an entire county like Russia or China with one shot ! Or create an ocean sized tsunami devouring all Pacific Rim countries. This prospect is rapidly approaching, as private space companies such as PLANETARY RESOURCES, begin the gold rush of asteroid mining our very own Solar System within the next decade or two. Let's use caution as we start shoving mile wide asteroids near the earth shall we ? Or we'll suffer the same fate as the dinosaurs.
B.D. Seegebarth
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