Rock Prophecy

Below are quotes from scientists and experts describing the reality of human ability to protect the Earth from asteroid impacts:

"We talk about Star Wars as if all we have to do is decide to go and we do, but the physics haven't been invented yet to do Star Wars."

- Senator John Glenn, News Hour, PBS 6/4/96

Hyakutake comet makes its closest approach to Earth as ABC World News concludes with a report about our unpreparedness for fending off a Rock aimed at our planet. Astronomer Neil Tyson of the Hayden Planetarium sums up, "I know of no way that we can stop it."

ABC News 3/26/96

"One of the estimated thousand-plus giant near-earth objects (N.E.O.'s) is barreling down on us and only a year or so away...what could we do? Say good-bye to each other and regret that we didn't wake up to this sooner."

- The New York Times, 7/28/96

"The question is not if, but when…Before you launch a missile you need to know where to aim. Only a fraction of large Earth-crossing asteroids have been located, this may prove to be the greatest oversight in human history."

"I can tell you with confidence that, for the ten percent of the big ones that have been discovered, there is no danger. But I can tell you nothing about the 90 percent that we have not yet discovered. So, yes, we understand the general nature of the risks, but we have not yet taken any real concrete efforts to protect ourselves, or even to look and see if there's anything headed our way. Impacts today are a risk, they're a hazzard, they're something we need to protect ourselves against. If we don't learn how to protect ourselves against impacts, then in the long term we're likely to be wiped out by impacts. It happened to the dinosaurs, it can happen to us."

-Dr. David Morrison, Director of Space, NASA Ames,
Asteroids: Deadly Impact, National Geographic, NBC 2/26/97

"If an asteroid was on a final collision course there would be nothing we could do. We have no weapon capable of going into space to intercept this particular object."

- NORAD official, Doomsday: What Can We Do?, FOX 2/14/97

"If people knew that a fragment was going to hit the Earth, I wonder about the mass hysteria that would result. Where would you go? People would say, where can we hide, what can we do?"

Carolyn Shoemaker Asteroids: Deadly Impact, National Geographic, NBC 2/26/97

"There's going to be a lot of feeling of helplessness and powerlessness and people are going to have to deal with the fact that they're not going to be able to do anything to prevent it."

- Disaster psychologist, Doomsday: What Can We Do?, FOX 2/14/97

"Scientists estimate there are...2000 Earth-crossers out there...If one of them were on a collision course with Earth, we wouldn't get more than a few months warning."

- Popular Mechanics 4/97

"Experts estimate that there are as many as half a million Earth-crossing asteroids and comets that have yet to be discovered...Current surveillance techniques discover an average of twelve new potentially threatening Near Earth Objects per year. But with an estimated two thousand NEOs uncharted, the chances of one entering our orbit undetected are extremely high...It is not a matter of if it will happen, but when. But even if we can detect an Earth-bound object months or years before impact, what can be done to avert a deadly collision?...Many of the leading researchers and scientists in the field fear that without additional funding current projects may be too little too late."

-Doomsday Asteroid, TLC 6/29/98

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