Quote:
If you have not already read the book "Lucifer's Hammer" by Larry Niven and Jery Pournelle, you simply must do so!

I did, quite long ago - I think that's the best Niven's work. I remember that senator (who was preparing for the worst case) making sure that SUVs they were buying were American - no point in being "caught" with too many Japanese cars in the case the comet misses

One would expect NASA (and ESA, Russinas, Japanese, Chinese) say "look, we want to learn about asteroids anyway, so how about mounting a joint mission and checking whether the thing is a solid rock or a pile of gravel; oh, yes, we could also put that transponder..." Hmmm, perhaps this could be made into an election issue? Then again, perhaps not - remember how Republicans used to ridicule then vice-president Al Gore for his environmental concerns (I think it was ozone hole)? Bah!

BTW, that Schweickart's article explains how they got $400G damage estimate - a bit more than annual Pentagon budget...