Go Ahead, Nudge My Asteroid

It’s now pretty common knowledge that planet earth has an asteroid buddy with its number on it. The name of the beastie is Apophis, an asteroid named after an ancient Egyptian enemy of Ra and which in reality is a chunk of really hard rock about a thousand feet long. Scientists say that something this big could be considered a ‘Nation Buster’ because should it fall on land it could destroy an area the size of France. (Note: I am not advocating we destroy France at this particular time).

Scientific theorists have indicated that this cold-hearted denizen of deep space will skim the earth’s atmosphere on April 13, 2029 (that’s a Friday by the way). Then, it will come back for a grand finale in 2036 when it may smash into the earth going about 36,000 mph. The effect would be as though a couple of hundred H-Bombs went off all at once. Scientists tell us that ‘such an event would have a ‘long term negative impact on earth’s population’. You think?

The major powers  (especially the US which is good at these sorts of things) seem content to ‘kick the budget can’ concerning ways to avert such a tragedy. All, that is, except Mother Russia who rumored to be trying to hire Bruce Willis.  A long shot for sure, but it did get me to thinking.

It seems to me that within a few years other countries may just want to jump on the space bandwagon and go out to visit Mr. Rogue Rock. My reasoning goes like this. Sometime in the next few years, CNN, MSNBC and Fox will have completely run out of anything to report. (Actually they may already have)! Desperate media scriptwriters will latch onto this Armageddon story like some shipwreck survivor spying a life jacket in stormy seas. A movie might even will come out depicting an asteroid destroying earth. (What’s that you say? They’ve already done one)? Uh, never mind. Anyway, the mass media will do what they do so well and no, I’m not talking about attending cocktail parties where they just gain more mass. Even though the odds of a collision are at one in a million, I predict that sometime in late 2020 most of the major powers (Russia, China and America) will be constructing interplanetary craft whose job it will be to move (nudge) this rock out of harms ways…or will they? Someone just might get it into their heads that if they can ‘nudge’ the asteroid away from earth, then maybe it could also be ‘nudged’ into an enemy state. Hey, let the ‘nudge games’ begin!