Posted on 02/19/2007 1:35:54 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
SAN FRANCISCO (Feb. 18) - An asteroid may come uncomfortably close to Earth in 2036 and the United Nations should assume responsibility for a space mission to deflect it, a group of astronauts, engineers and scientists said on Saturday.
Astronomers are monitoring an asteroid named Apophis, which has a 1 in 45,000 chance of striking Earth on April 13, 2036.
Although the odds of an impact by this particular asteroid are low, a recent congressional mandate for NASA to upgrade its tracking of near-Earth asteroids is expected to uncover hundreds, if not thousands of threatening space rocks in the near future, former astronaut Rusty Schweickart said.
"It's not just Apophis we're looking at. Every country is at risk. We need a set of general principles to deal with this issue," Schweickart, a member of the Apollo 9 crew that orbited the earth in March 1969, told an American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in San Francisco.
Schweickart plans to present an update next week to the U.N. Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space on plans to develop a blueprint for a global response to an asteroid threat.
The Association of Space Explorers, a group of former astronauts and cosmonauts, intends to host a series of high-level workshops this year to flesh out the plan and will make a formal proposal to the U.N. in 2009, he said.
...same percentage numbers at 7:07 AM
Perhaps we can send the UN to the asteroid. That could definately save us all.
This is the fault of Bush and the United States. The Asteroid is attracted to Earth because the US has not signed the Kyoto treaty....oh...and the war in Iraq....
I guess it means people will have to give up even more of their money to the UN to mismanage our doom. They are probably already figuring out how to cheat the asteroid.
Three words: Oil For Food.
My prediction:
Reuters will soon report that the odds of a direct hit have increased to a 1 in 100 chance. We will then proceed to spend 100's of billions of dollars over several years in an attempt to divert the path of the massive killer. People will be poorer (though some will get rich) but, we will succeed. The asteroid's path will be altered just enough to result in a direct hit in 2036 that knocks Earth out of its' orbit around the Sun. Al Gore will finally say he's sorry.
February 19, 2014 - (AP) - After nearly 7 years of debate, the United Nations has passed a resolution demanding that asteroid Apophis change course.
"The international community has spoken in the strongest of words, and asks Apophis to please not hit the Earth," stated United Nations Secretary General Hugo Chavez.
Nine of the seventy-five members of the permanent council passed the measure, with the other sixty-six members not voting. The nine members that voted to pass the resolution include Iceland, Tuvalu, Berkley, France, Venezuela, Cuba, Madagascar, China and Iran.
Provisions include the option to pass another resolution in the event that Apophis does not comply with the present resolution. A $13B (US) fund was established to help Venezuelan rural communities overcome emotional distress caused by the strike by the asteroid, which now has been determined to have a 1 in 185,000 chance of hitting the Earth.
The U.N. will spring into action - as soon as they can figure out an angle for KICKBACKS.
Lets give the UN lots of loot; the bureaucrats know what to do. Embezzle!
LOL...wonder how many billions of our tax dollars the corrupt UN could steal for that ridiculous project.
By 2036, most of those who survive the climate change crowd and the jihadi appeasers will be praying for an astroid strike.
Basic arithmetic shows that your chance of dying in an asteroid impact is somewhere in the same ballpark as your chance of dying in an airplane crash.
Since the UN is about as ineffective an organization as there is, what does anyone actually expect them to do . . . . . . issue a resolution against the asteroid!!??
Anything that the UN says is a problem or concern is just an introduction to a moneygrab scheme and the planetary conversion to socialism.
Don't worry about it! Big Al says we're all gonna die in 10 years from global warming if we don't change our ways. Since that is irrefutable (according to him) in 30 years there won't be anything left here anyway except a dead planet, so why worry about it?
If you never fly.
One thing about the movie "Independence Day". Anyone notice the U.N. wasn't mentioned? They just went on and did business and did what had to be done. I like it that way.
The U.N. is about as useless as roller skates on a fish.
Now, asteroids/meteorites/whatnot have hit Earth before. That's a conceivably dangerous and ACTUAL threat, no matter the probability.
It'd make more sense to spend all the global warming/global cooling/"climate change" money on building a giant space laser on the moon. Or a Death Star.
Hey, if the asteroid hits, it'll be intense, swift global warming followed by long, dragged out global cooling! Come on environmentalists; destroying asteroids is environmentally friendly!
Where's Al Gore? He should be making an Inconvenient Truth sequel focusing on asteroids.
This demands a strongly worded resolution!
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