For what it's worth, Brian May is a published astronomer and was ABD in Astronomy. That being said, I still disagree with his conclusions.
I think the article is a bit alarmist. We're talking 1 in 5500 odds that it will hit the Earth somewhere. It's not like 1 in 1000 odds that it will hit NYC, and 1 in 5 anywhere else on Earth.
more about Apophis:
Scientist: Asteroid May Hit Earth in 2029
Yahoo/AP | 12/23/04 | JOHN ANTCZAK
Posted on 12/23/2004 8:24:16 PM PST by hole_n_one
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1307719/posts
99942 Apophis (2004 MN4)
Earth Impact Risk Summary
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/a99942.html
I am not concerned with that aspect. The same technology that can be used to mine the asteroids will also do for deflecting these million to one stray events. They do nothing but talk and get funding for survey after survey but no hardware. We could proceed with space development now and at the same time put up the shields. It should already be happening. That it is not happening appears to be the work of various levels of shysters.