NASA’s Asteroid Initiative, or Why I Wish I Wasn’t A Girl Who Sucked at Math and Actually Became an Astrophysicist The Way I Planned

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-report-defend-planet-asteroids-100208542.html

This is quite possibly the coolest thing I’ve seen in a while.  NASA sought public input on finding ways to protect the planet from an asteroid strike.  The requests for information are part of the Asteroid Initiative, and the results were presented at a two-day conference recently.  They chose 96 ideas for further study.  Ideally, NASA would like to capture a small asteroid or space rock and pull it into orbit around the moon for study.  How cool is that?

Of course, the conspiracy theorist in me has to admit that on the one hand, it’s great that NASA is doing this.  It’s a good idea to prepare for the possibility of an asteroid collision (let’s just hope they see it coming soon enough…we’ve had some surprise close calls recently).  On the other hand, is it possible that NASA knows something that they aren’t telling us?  Is it possible that an asteroid is coming our way?  I’d like to hear George Noory or Clive Lewis weigh in on this.  The whole idea of preparing for something (courtesy of the Super Bowl subliminal advertising) makes you wonder.

If I didn’t suck at math so much, my dream was to be an astrophysicist.  I love physics and I love space.  I read books on String Theory for fun.  I just suck at math.  *sigh*  That said, I think that in either case it’s awesome that NASA reached out to the public for ideas.

Good job, NASA.  (In case anyone from NASA reads this, I’m sorry the government retired your Space Shuttles.  We still need them.)