chances that it hits us and what to do about it.
What the article does not address is the short-sighted stupidity of the people empowered to do something about it.
As I read the article, the odds are good (about 10,000 to 1) that nothing need be done, certainly not in the next eight to ten years or so.
But even if it could be indisputably demonstrated that the odds were 50/50 that a collision would occur, our politicians (and I do not refer exclusively to American politicians here) would do nothing about it as long as they were convinced that nothing would happen while they were in office; let their successors handle it.
So a mission that might be accomplished for $400M in the year 2014 will be delayed and postponed until collision is imminent, and then if it is even possible at all the cost will no doubt rise by one or possibly two orders of magnitude.
However, we must keep our priorities straight. Doing something about it in the near term would cost us nearly as much as two days worth of blowing things up in Iraq. Chances are the impact would miss North America altogether (about 8:1 odds of that) so why worry about it?
Most likely it would land in the depths of the ocean. Don't think for a minute that that would be the preferable scenario. Far less economic damage would occur if it landed in downtown Omaha! Imagine tidal waves hitting every coastal city on every coast of that ocean. Think about literally 40 days and 40 nights of torrential salt water rain over the entire planet as two billion joules of kinetic energy is converted to a kilometer-wide column of live steam extending into the upper reaches of the stratosphere while every earthquake fault on the planet lets go simultaneously.
If you have not already read the book "Lucifer's Hammer" by Larry Niven and Jery Pournelle, you simply must do so!
tanstaafl.
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"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"
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