[PoppingSmoke]

"75,000 miles"

Someone ain't kidding when they say close. What now? Is Congress going to fund a $37 Billion pork included Counter-Asteroid Program? Create a new department of Outer-Space Defense Agency? or demand from the UN that they rename themselves the United Federation of Planets? Demand hearings on why NASA failed to detect this attempted attack on Earth? Leak intelligence information that we had prior space signals on this asteriod? Revisit the national missile defense program allowing for missiles to be also launched into space? Stand on the Capitol stairs and hum the the sound track to Star Trek?

[KarlInOhio]

Is Congress going to fund a $37 Billion pork included Counter-Asteroid Program? Create a new department of Outer-Space Defense Agency?

That's the Robert Byrd Counter-Asteroid Program based in West Virginia.

[clifdweller]

There's no way to stop one unless we see it comming well in advance. More money should be spent on finding them. However, the only hope for the long term survival of our species is to spread ourselves around the solar system. I'd like to see the first colony on Mars be under the American flag, not some Euro-wanker's version of internationalism. But, given the lack of interest in the US space program, we'll never see it.