I know I feel safer...How about you?
-----
The White House has a plan to handle dangerous asteroids
By DAVID FREDDOSO (@FREDDOSO) • 1/7/17 9:00 AM
Not everyone in the waning Obama administration is working on a new rule intended to tweak the incoming administration. Indeed, it appears that some staffers are busy doing something very useful: planning for humanity's survival in the event of an asteroid impact.
And developing some pretty amazing acronyms for it, too.
The White House has released a "National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy" — a document developed by the Interagency Working Group (IWG) for Detecting and Mitigating the Impact of Earth-bound Near-Earth Objects (DAMIEN).
According to the strategy document, it "seeks to improve our nation's preparedness to address the hazard of near-Earth object (NEO) impacts by enhancing the integration of existing national and international assets and adding important capabilities that are currently lacking."
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/the-white-house-has-a-plan-to-handle-dangerous-asteroids/article/2611038The plan is pretty basic. It calls for improvements to near-Earth asteroid detection, development of methods for deflecting such objects (anything from a beam of light to a nuclear bomb could theoretically do the trick given early enough detection), and procedures in the event of an impact.
As improbable as a major direct hit is in any given year, it has happened before. And a "Sweet Meteor of Death" of sufficient size could literally end the world in a matter of moments. It's nice to know someone is thinking about this, just in case.
