Can humans do better than the dinosaurs?

This is one of a string of questions I posed in a Skype chat on Sunday with Russell L. Schweickart, the Apollo 9 astronaut who has become a leading proponent of investing in tools that can spot and deflect earthbound asteroids and other orbiting threats. We spoke shortly after the cosmic coincidence on Feb. 15, when a long-projected close flyby by the DA14 asteroid was upstaged by the meteor that disintegrated over Siberia.

Schweickart, along with former space shuttle astronaut Edward Lu and others, has for years pursued the goal of creating the technological capacity (through a privately financed Sentinel space telescope mission) and encouraging governmental responsibility (through discussions with NASA, the United Nations and other relevant entities) to address this long-understood, but largely discounted, threat.

My first question was whether Schweickart saw the cosmic events last week as changing the equation. He was hopeful but doubtful.

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