Despite its capacity for serious harm, asteroid impact is not the largest existential threat we face right now. Climate change, resource limits, pandemics, nuclear war, societal breakdown, earthquakes and tsunamis are even more alarming.

What distinguishes the asteroid threat is that mitigation is seemingly straightforward, relatively cheap and an activity in which every nation should be able to participate fearing only the consequences of inaction instead of those of action.

Roger Blandford, Professor of Physics at Stanford University calls on Congress to revise and update the National Academy Asteroid 2010 Report, “Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies”.

Read the Article: “Op-Ed: Policing the (Cosmic) Neighborhood”

Space News (September 15, 2015)