We lost seven astronauts.

What we must not lose is our resolve.

The movement of humans into space is the most important and noble task that we can perform. People will continue to die on this mission, martyrs to that cause. We can best honor their bravery, their memories, by continuing the work for which they gave their lives.

Mr. President, I suggest you use this opportunity to announce a decade long, wartime level, national effort to establish a permanent lunar colony, AND manned nuclear rockets to Mars. Name those rockets, and those colonies, after the space pioneers that died during the Apollo, Challenger, and Columbia missions.

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NASA is reporting today that an asteroid 1.4 miles in diameter may be on a course to impact Earth in 2019. One this size would wipe out a continent, and cause a years long "nuclear winter."

According to the report, it'll take a few more days of observation to narrow the course down enough to tell whether it's going to hit or miss.

Me, I''m hoping for a hit. Seventeen years is a good long time to do something about it, and it for sure would be the clue-by-four our so-called leaders (how you can be a leader when you follow the sheepul is a bit beyond me) need to set up a space-based warning and interdiction system worthy of the name. Then we'd be ready for the one that gives us only about twelve hours notice.

Of course, the spin-off benefits would be immense, but that alone doesn't seem to be enough motivation.

They say that there are only two things that ultimately motivate people - fear and greed. I think fear is the more reliable.

(Addendum: both the BBC and ABC have picked up the story, so I'm sure the wires will be flooded with coverage. Somehow the BBC guy managed to get several simple facts wrong in the article, to include the date of discovery. (sigh) I leave you alone to consider whether this is symptomatic of journalism in general, or just science reporting.)

[Addendum, July 29: Further observations have determined that the 2019 date will prove to be a miss - there's still a small but measurable chance for an impact in 2060]

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There's an interesting article here about our global effort to track earth crossing asteroids.

The story is presented in a fairly upbeat, even-handed, don't-wanna-cause-panic, way, but it still relates the situation with a fair amount of earnest gravity.

Personally, I think it tends to downplay the danger. Let me relate the bald facts admitted in the article in a less sanguine fashion.

The main points:

One - though we're making good progress, we've only managed to find what we think are about half of the the EarthCrossers large enough to end life on the planet as currently in fashion.

Two - there has been no significant effort to locate asteroids so small (~300m or so) and insignificant that an impact by one, say, in the Gulf of Mexico, would only wipe out life in the coastal region from Key West to the Yucatan. and everything in between.

Three - that the cost of this effort ins truly insignificant. The interviewee, one Mr. Morrison of NASA, says that he would have a difficult time spending a billion dollars a year on the task. This represents less than 5% of what we recently allocated, in just a few short weeks of deliberation, in what was essentially a voice vote, to spend in aid for the WTC attacks.

I'm not even going to calculate what a tiny percentage this is of the recent 190 BILLION dollar farm welfare, err, bribe to the farm states, err, agribusiness handout, subsidy we the faithful taxpayers just got socked with, as I'd have to go jump in the pool to keep my blood from boiling, and guys with my family medical history need to avoid getting angered or stressed.

Fourth - all of our plans on how to deal with a potential planetbuster are simply "thought experiments," with no practical real world experimentation to guide them.

It seems to me that it would be a an excellent idea to mount an expedition, be it manned or unmanned, (though I prefer the former) to a known, harmless, easy-to-reach asteroid, and see exactly what it takes to alter its orbit.

This would not only provide some sorely needed verification of our present assumptions, but give us practical experience in areas of space operations such as long-term life support, zero-gravity manuvering and construction, and other types of the practical knowledge needed for our eventual industrialization and colonization of space.

As such, the relatively trivial costs of this undertaking should be considered as a long-term capital investment, and not a mere short term expense. There can be little doubt that the dollars we spend on this task will generate as rich a return as every dollar we've spent on the space program so far.

This return, moreover, will not just benefit those of us here in the States that spent it, but benefit all mankind. In fact, this task may prove to be the savior for all life, of every description, here on the planet, from the tropical rainforests to the Anarctic, from the blue whales to the blue-green algae.

So, why aren't we doing it? There is not yet the groundswell of public support that is needed to swat our politicians, as always looking at a horizon no farther than the next election, over the head with a clue-by-four, so that they will spend our money for the greater good.

How do we get it? I don't have any glib answers to that. If you do, there's a comment link right there below this line. I'd love to hear your ideas.

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