Stopping the Big One

Last month a 400-yard wide asteroid came within 200,000 miles of earth, inside the orbit of the moon. NASA had been tracking it, so there wasn't any real concern that it would hit us.

But the close approach prompted Edward Lu, a former astronaut, to renew his call for the United States to improve our capabilities for predicting and preventing asteroid collisions. Such a collision is widely believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs by drastically changing the climate in the aftermath of the collision (the Alvarez Hypothesis).

Movies like Deep Impact and Armageddon popularized the threat the earth faces from comets and asteroids. An asteroid the size of 2005 YU55 wouldn't destroy the planet, but it would have the force of small nuclear bomb and could wipe out a city, or inundate several coastal cities with a tsunami if it hit the ocean.

We don't know of any big asteroids or comets that pose an immediate threat, but we aren't tracking many of the smaller objects. Also, the gravity of the outer planets, especially Jupiter, changes the orbits of asteroids and comets in the outer solar system, causing them to drop in on us unpredictably.

The chance of a collision is small, but the sheer magnitude of the calamity has prompted many people to  take the issue seriously. Though people like Mitt Romney derided Newt Gingrich's idea of mining the moon for its minerals, there are many conservatives who believe that the United States should take the lead in space with asteroid collision detection and prevention projects, as well as space exploration in general. Not only would it potentially save humanity, but it would help the United States regain the initiative in space by allowing us to develop the technology to do big projects in space. Own the high ground!

Conservatives harshly criticized President Obama for canceling Bush's botched Constellation moon program, and Obama's decision to have NASA do less and private companies do more in space. As recently as last month Herman Cain blasted Obama's space initiatives and blamed Obama for canceling the shuttle program, even though it was Bush who canceled the shuttle in 2004, forcing us to rely on the Russians to get our astronauts to the space station.

But Obama's strategy appears to be bearing fruit: recently NASA announced that the first private launch to dock with the International Space Station was authorized: SpaceX will launch its Dragon spacecraft in February, 2011. Paul Allen and Burt Rutan are building a successor to SpaceShipOne that will have an operational launch in 2016.

Bottom line: NASA scientists predict there's a small but real chance that an asteroid will strike the earth and wreck the earth's climate. So why are conservatives so resistant to NASA scientists who predict that human activity will drastically affect on the earth's climate?

The bigger, more immediate threat to is human-caused climate change, not an asteroid.

Even though Newt Gingrich now says admitting that global warming is real was his biggest mistake, some Republicans like Jon Huntsman are brave enough to acknowledge the truth. (There was a big noise when Huntsman appeared to recant his stand on global warming, but when he reiterated his support for climate science he was roundly ignored.)

The real issue with conservatives and climate change doesn't seem to about the science. As the Gingrich example shows, they know it's real: anyone who's 50-plus years old has seen the changes for themselves and knows it's happening. Their real concern seems to be that the United States will get stiffed in any kind of international agreement and countries like China will cheat, and we'll be stuck paying for it with lower economic growth. That's a legitimate issue. But it's a lousy excuse for inaction, like a ten-year-old saying he shouldn't have to brush his teeth because his baby brother didn't have to.

Climate change won't cause the extinction of mankind. But it will raise sea levels and increase the incidence of extreme weather like hurricanes, floods and tornadoes, as well as cause drought, disease, famine, mass migration and war. Those things will destabilize markets, international trade and our economy far worse than our current troubles have.

If only there were some flashy way to stop global warming by having Bruce Willis nuke something...