Guess what is in the news again? It is the annual worry about the Earth getting smashed by an asteroid or comet. We seem to dwell on this. I just saw an article that stated that we have more of a chance of being hit by an asteroid, that is the Earth of course not us individually, than dying in a jet plane crash. I don't know if this is accurate, but in either case, I guess it makes good reading. I have a hunch that the Earth has been hit thousands of times in it's history by these things and maybe none of them have been what is known as "planet killers", where all life gets wiped out. Life is a lot harder to wipe out than they suspect. Sure you might wipe out a big chunk of it, but I bet it would really take something a lot bigger than they suspect, to kill it all. For one thing, if there is any place on Earth that wasn't effected by an asteroid hit, life would probably continue. In order for it to be a complete life wipe out event, the planet would have to be practically destroyed, or the atmosphere turned into a poisonous environment, or one that is so hot that life would be burned up. The funny thing is that even if this was to happen and humans were wiped out, some creatures would probably survive. I'm thinking of those they stay around those hot ocean vents. I guess this isn't much consolation to us though.

We keep talking about protecting ourselves from these and just recently an announcement has come out from the Soviet Union. A news article has come out stating that Russia is prepared to repel asteroids to save the Earth. The how of this is not available yet. Have they discovered some new technology? It almost sounds like the famed antigravity engines of those ufos are going to be used somehow. I do know that the Russians and the Americans have been working on anti gravity for quite some time now and many people feel that it is only a matter of time before a breakthrough is made. If they have made one, repelling an asteroid, especially one that contains metal ore, might just turn out to be a simple problem. Aside from repelling asteroids, it would be quite a breakthrough in technology and open the door to many other applications including incredible space flight. The amazing announcement from the Russians came from Viktor Remishevsky, the deputy head of the Russian Space Agency. The Russian Institute of Applied Astronomy has stated that about 400 asteroids and 30+ comets currently present a threat to the Earth, of course these are the ones that we know about. The Russians want international cooperation in this effort and Remishevsky said, "Above all, space research institutions, telescopes, and the infrastructure of the Russian Academy of Sciences should warn about the threat of asteroids falling to Earth,"

In the past the US, through NASA, has stated different plans for knocking asteroids off their Earth bound course. They had suggested sending a mission there and attaching rocket engines to the asteroid, setting up solar sails and even using nuclear weapons to knock them off course. If an asteroid is detected far enough away and early enough, it only needs to be moved a few degrees because by the time it reaches this planet that would have moved it many thousands of miles off course preventing a collision. The key with using these methods is early detection. I don't know if early detection is even necessary with the Russian method? Since I don't know anything about the Russian method, it is impossible to decide what they are really talking about as far as procedure. I do know this however, Russian physicist Yevgeny Podkletnov was working on anti-gravity for years and his work so impressed the Americans that Boeing, the aircraft and aerospace giant, is using his work to try and build an anti-gravity system of some sort. The work is secret, so not much is known about it. In 1992, in the midst of much skepticism, he announced that he had conducted a successful experiment into something he termed "gravity shielding". Boeing was not the first to enter into this field. A British defense contractor, BAE announced in 2000 that it was conducting research into this area.

Up to now and maybe still, is the problem of comets. Even if we could deflect an asteroid, a comet is so much bigger, that if we were to use the current technology that we have to try and deflect it, it just wouldn't work. The nucleus of the average comet is about 7 miles across and this is not counting all the junk that is trapped in it's magnetic field that it is dragging along with it. Right now that is more than we can handle. Even if we could blow it up, that would produce a shotgun effect where all the individual pieces would hit the Earth causing untold damage. It may be, if we have discovered anti-gravity, that even if a comet is too big to deflect, that blowing it up and deflecting the pieces could be an option. As most of you know, one prominent theory today is that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a comet or large asteroid hit. This theory has been gaining favor with all sorts or scientists that are pointing out craters on this planet and stating that each one was the BIG HIT. The crater that is now in favor, is at the tip of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Gulf of Mexico. Supposedly this is where an asteroid that was 6-9 miles in diameter hit the earth. Today there are other theories and the one that seems to hold the most promise, as far as I am concerned, is that insects got into the digestive system of the big dinos and ultimately destroyed them. They have been found in their excretion. The reason I think that this theory is correct is that the dinosaurs didn't die instantly, it took years.

So how many hits are there on the Earth by asteroids yearly? It is estimated that we absorb about 2 asteroids hits each year. The force that is exerted by them as they slam into the atmosphere is about what was expended by the atomic bomb that exploded over Hiroshima. By the time they reach the ground there is nothing left of them, thank goodness. These asteroids are considered small. Everybody seems to be waiting for the big one to hit and scientists are saying that it is inevitable. Well we have not seen one that big hit in the recorded history of man, which only goes back about 7 or 8 thousand years, but does indicate that we have a pretty good chance of no hit in our lifetimes. I am an optimist and a pessimist might say that we are due. I would have to say to them that there is always a chance that the sun or earth might blow up without warning or a neighboring planet could explode sending untold rocks our way, but you just can't worry about that stuff. If a nearby star exploded, gamma rays could wipe us all out, we have to get off of this doomsday mentality. We should monitor these things and try and defend against them, but we have much more of a chance that a terrorist attack might destroy a city.

NASA had decided to classify all asteroids and has said that they are about 70% finished with classifying them. I am not a big fan of depending on what NASA says, their track record on truth leaves a lot to be desired. They claim that they have found 840 potentially dangerous asteroids. Comets are even more of a concern, but seem to have been put on the back burner, because there are so few of them. It does make you wonder though. Comets are potential world destroyers while many asteroids are not. I think that they both should get the appropriate attention. How about taking 1/10 of a percent away from the Iraq budget and fully funding the search for the next 10 years or more, at least this money won't be put into the hands of crooked contractors.