When it comes down to developing a way to defend the entire planet fromdestruction I am all for it. A large asteroid or comet hitting the earth is nota common occurrence. But it has happened many times before and when it doeshappen again the asteroid may wipe out all life, including humans.
If ourgovernment did develop an anti-asteroid defense system, it would not only haveto protect our country, but the whole planet. If we had such technology we would first have to be very sure it wouldwork. We wouldnt want to shoot a nuclear weapon at an asteroid just to have itbreak into multiple pieces and have those pieces raining down on Earth. One ofthe most important parts of defending our planet would be to find and chartevery asteroid that could threaten us. That would be a very tedious and neverending job, but is necessary for the defense system to work.
It would do ushumans no good to have some sort of defense against asteroids if we dont knowwhen they will strike. So after thinking about an anti-asteroid defense system, I think thatour government should look into constructing one. When one thinks about what anasteroid could do to our planet it is usually a very scary thought. In the pastwe have been very lucky with where asteroids have hit our earth. Back in 1908in the Tunguska region of Siberia, an object from space hit there causing milesof forest to be devastated. If that same object had hit New York, it would haveprobably been like a 20 megaton bomb going off in Times Square.
That would havecompletely altered history. What makes it worse is that it is thought that asmall comet hit in Tunguska. What if a huge comet had hit there? Theseexamples are very good reasons why I think that humankind needs to come up witha way to stop asteroids or any other type of object that could kill off all lifeon earth.Category: Science
