
The Sky Is Falling - ivankirigin
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/asteroids
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Leon
yeah, great, 'Why isn't NASA doing more about this?' Let's blame an
underfunded agency whose government won't give them enough to accomplish what
they ask of them (remember how we're suppose to go to mars sometime?). NASA is
doing great things with little funding it has, so let's not forget how
_expensive_ space travel/exploration/intra-sol magic really is. The agency is
pretty much controlled in what it does by government directives, how can we
blame them for not being able to pursue every space plan?

Plus this article sure does a number on statistical fallacies, 'Even if space
strikes are likely only once every million years, that doesn’t mean a million
years will pass before the next impact—the sky could suddenly darken tomorrow'

Yeah, great, fear-mongering space object impacts. Remember people: you _could_
win the lottery tomorrow. But you won't.

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ivankirigin
Each shuttle flight costs $1B.

How do you justify even a single one?

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josefresco
very, very good article, most shocking was that the US Air Force is currently
the #2 space agency in the world (in funding)

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helveticaman
_The odds that a potentially devastating space rock will hit Earth this
century may be as high as 1 in 10. So why isn’t NASA trying harder to prevent
catastrophe?_

Because they _may be_ 1 it 10. They are _not really_ 1 in 10.

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ivankirigin
The issue is finding the occurrence of such events in history. The more you
find, the more likely it makes such an event. We have a lower bound that is
most certainly an underestimate.

NASA isn't even working hard to find a more accurate estimate.

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DaniFong
Hey, it's Nathan Myhrvold again.

“The odds of a space-object strike during your lifetime may be no more than
the odds you will die in a plane crash—but with space rocks, it’s like the
entire human race is riding on the plane.”

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ivankirigin
video here: <http://www.theatlantic.com/movies/rocks/>

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gojomo
Easterbrook also wrote a prophetic warning about the Space Shuttle before its
first launch, nearly 6 years before the Challenger disaster. [1]

That gives me an extra sense of unease about the dangers he's identified here.

[1] "Beam Me Out Of This Death Trap, Scotty," April 1980,
[http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/8004.easterbr...](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/8004.easterbrook-
fulltext.html)

