In light of the current more mundane concerns of Islamofascism, asteroids seem like a frivolity, but the fact remains that they are continually bombarding the planet, and occasionally, we are hit by ones big enough to matter. The Tonguska event of 1910, had it hit a major city, rather than a remote Siberian forest, would have killed thousands, and almost certainly been the greatest natural disaster of the twentieth century. Thus, just as we should be continuing to look into missile defense (even though our enemy didn’t happen to use missiles this time), we should also remain concerned about planetary defense.

Which is why it’s disturbing that NASA is cutting off funds for the sky survey that was being performed at Arecibo, in order to find money to cover the ISS overrun. NASA has a mandated goal of doing an inventory of all Near Earth Objects (NEO) greater than a mile in diameter, and this will prevent them from meeting it. In addition to telling us if there are any bodies out there with our number on them, it would also provide useful information for future resource utilization, should we ever decide we want to become a serious space-faring nation.

This is just one more reason for O’Keefe to clean up the Augean stables that is NASA. I hope that there’s a river big enough to divert…