It's chapter 18, you're right in thinking it was a short chapter.

Oh damn. Dunno how I made that mistake.

How is defending ourselves against THE ONLY THING THAT CAN KILL ALL LIFE ON EARTH "hanging ourselves"

We'd be better off in the stone age alive than to allow an asteroid to hit earth.

The chance of being hit by a large asteroid is slim
The chance of the technology leading to it being misused to wipe us out is greater.
Similar thoughts towards nuclear weapons, but stopping asteroids that have been directed towards earth by a madman might be harder.

If technology to destroy asteroids will kill humanity technology to do anything will kill humanity. What a lame cop-out to claim we shouldn't defend against THE END OF THE FUCKING WORLD because the technology will kill us. Ur a fucking doosh

Agree with FC on this one, Dent. Your way goes the path of the Luddites, fear based. I don't think that's the right course for humanity at all, given our place in the cosmos -- technology has caused far more benefit than it has ever caused harm, in my opinion -- of course, that's of the existentialist variety.

I really think that if it gets to the point where some Lex Luthor madman can just "direct" a fucking humongous asteroid to Earth, we will have already mastered the ability to deflect them by then. Or at the very least, prevent madmen from setting collision courses. Spaceland Security.

I didn't say we shouldn't try for self-preservation, the biggest thing threatening our extinction for the foreseeable future is us.

Nope.

It's asteroids dude.

Can you think of any one event other than an asteroid that could literally obliterate all of humanity? That is currently technologically available? Humans are versatile as fuck and crazy adaptable. SOME will survive ANY catastrophe, even worldwide nuclear war. But it's hard to think any humans will survive after a large asteroid impact. Even then, look at what happened after the disaster that wiped out the dinosaurs. Lots of life survived.

Asteroids alone are pretty big on the extinction scale, humans with asteroids is bigger, for now.
We need to be able to track asteroids a lot better, priority should be on giving us enough time to react. I have concerns that if we start juggling the balls too soon we might drop a few.

edeet:
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/b.../1/94-1394.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroi...ology_concerns

Just found this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B612_Foundation

Conclusions
The possibility of misusing a deflection system depends strongly, and almost solely, on the capability of such
a system (i. e., on the deflection Av it is able to achieve or, equivalently, on the minimum response time, tr, it
requires).
1. A system of very low capability (Av <0.1 m/sec), such as might suffice to deflect NEAs discovered long in
advance of a collision event, poses minimal threat of being misused to deflect asteroids toward the Earth.
On the other hand, the response time tr required to move an asteroid away from the Earth with such a limited system is >1 year,
thus calling into question the need to build such a system in advance of a discovery of an object on a
collision trajectory.
2. A system of moderate capability, Av - 1 m/sec, would have potential application for protecting against
long-period comets, where the response time is about a year or less probability that such a system could be
misused is small, but is about 100 times greater than the probability that it would need to be used,
3. A highly capable system, able to deflect an object with only a few days’ warning, coupled with a
spaceguard-level search for NEAs, presents a virtual continuum of opportunities for misuse. Such a high-capability
system is not required for deflection of large long-period comets (see 2 above). Its only legitimate
application would be for very fast response to approaching small asteroids. Since such small objects constitute only
a very small fraction of the NEO collision hazard, and since a deflection system effective for such objects has
significant potential for misuse, it appears imprudent to build such a system -- at least at this time.
4. DJFC and Blonde would fuck everything up and get us killed
Beyond protecting the Earth against impacting NEO's, there arc other benign motivations for developing an
asteroid orbital engineering capability. Some authors (e.g. O’Leary 1977; Gaffey and McCord 1977) have
proposed doing so to utilize mineral resources in asteroids, and Herrick (1979) suggested a scenario for crashing a
part of the asteroid 1620 Geographos into Central America, to excavate a new Atlantic-Pacific canal. We must
caution that any such orbital engineering systems present the same or greater risk for misuse or accidental mishap
as a defensive deflection system,

Surprised nobody has considered a virus as a killer to be concerned about.

Yep. Nobody's ever thought about virus outbreaks killing humanity. Nobody.

What about a guy with a scary mask and a butcher's knife? Or maybe he's like a clown and he kills people by making them laugh until they die and he keeps on killing them until they're all dead? What if that?

The virus would have to be airborne in order to be a serious threat to all of humanity. Unless of course the virus originates in f3lix's mother's vagina and spreads through intercourse, then we're all fucked.

Home Page
Went to the last one of these events for the perseids, the talk was titled "Life on Other Worlds"
I'm going to try and get the spreadsheet he used because i've forgot a lot and i'd like to be able to share it, exobiology is very exciting and almost brand new.
Point of the post anyway is that I don't get to go into the countryside that often, THERE WERE STARS EVERYWHERE probably 1000x my usual naked eye night sky.
Anyone living in an urban area should set aside the time to get into nowhere and take a look, I just got a bottom of the range pair of 15x70 binoculars and i'll be exploring some more soon.

Britains sexiest man Brian Cox returns for a new Wonders series

Probably have to use a proxy i'll find a more US-friendly link at some point.
torrent : thepiratebay.se/torrent/8073617/
In the world's most volcanic region, South East Asia, Prof Brian Cox explores the thin line that separates the living from the dead, posing the enduring question: what is life?
BBC iPlayer - Wonders of Life: What Is Life? (High Definition)

related
Proton Gradient, Cell Origin, ATP Synthase | Learn Science at Scitable

here you go fuckers

Numberphile - YouTube
Periodic Table of Videos - YouTube
Sixty Symbols - YouTube
Deep Sky Videos - YouTube
Four youtube channels produced by Brady Haran featuring professors from Nottingham Uni and elsewhere
Sean Carroll on a recent video

Haven't seen this yet, i'm just done with the Q&A on the talk though

And a talk by Jim Al-Khalili, the new head of the British Humanist Association

Bookmarked those and will watch. Might take six months but I will and I'm excited.

Introducing Comet Ison! Comet ISON To Put On Spectacular Show On Thanksgiving - Space News - redOrbit C/2012 S1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cliffs:

Big ass comet buzzing past earth around November of this year that "will be visible for almost a full two months." It could at times be brighter than the moon, might be best comet we see for rest of our lives.