[Centurion2000]

The small space tractor, costing between $200 million and $300 million, would hover near an asteroid to exert enough gravitational pull that the space rock's orbit would change and a collision with our planet would be averted, Lu said before a crowd packed into a 300-capacity auditorium at the University of Hawaii-Manoa Monday night.

Use a nuke or an ion engine tug and a fission reactor for power. Problem solved.

Of course watching Greenpeace go into meltdown over nuclear reactors and weapons in space would be worth it as well.

[SlowBoat407]

I have another idea for a "global warming"- type threat we could spin up on people. We keep sending crap out into space, mined and manufactured here on earth. As we do so, we reduce earth's mass ever so slightly, so the energy we have keeping us in a stable orbit around the sun will soon be too much for the balance we achieved at the original mass. Our orbit will gradually begin expanding, moving us farther away from the sun, and cooling our planet by several degrees per decade.

WE'RE GONNA DIE!!1!

[Unmarked Package]

For FReepers with a serious interest in the subject of hazardous asteroids, be sure to read the fascinating related article: Exploding robots may scout hazardous asteroids and discussion thread at Free Republic.

[SunkenCiv]

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