A discussion during the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center reminded humanity of something that is often forgotten - the planet is vulnerable to a major asteroid strike.
According to Space.com, though NASA has been giving its best to study potential asteroid threats, there's still a lot of work to be done.
"We are not fully prepared, but we are on a trajectory to get much more so," said John Holdren, director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Humankind has been surprised of the asteroid threat twice in the past. Holdren cited the February 2013 disaster in Chelyabinsk, Russia where a 65 feet object came falling from the sky and injured over 1,200 people. He also cited the more horrifying asteroid strike in scarcely populated Tunguska, Siberia where a 135 feet rock from space demolished 800 square miles of forest.
Armed with the startling reality of this threat, NASA has taken necessary steps in trying to prepare civilization in case it occurs.
The $1.25 billion Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) is a project wherein NASA aims to launch a robotic probe to a nearby asteroid; the current target is a mind-boggling 1,300 feet wide rock called 2008 EV5.
The plan is for the probe to land on the asteroid, take a piece of it for research, and explore the space for a certain amount of time to try and find a deflection strategy known as the "enhanced gravity tractor." The goal of the deflection strategy is to push the asteroid slightly off course to help avoid direct impact on the surface of the Earth.
Aside from its asteroid-centric mission, Holdren shares that the ARM also aims to help gather more information about asteroids and what they're made of, learn about which technologies can help get astronauts to Mars, and help the agency practice human operations in space.
"if we are going to be as capable a civilization as our technology allows, we need to be prepared for even those rare events, because they could do a lot of damage to the Earth," said Holdren. "This is a hazard that, 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs succumbed to. We have to be smarter than the dinosaurs."
