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LATEST LETTERS

Protect Earth from asteroid

Saturday, March 31 at 12:01 PM

Hank Riehlof Lone Tree writes:

The Denver Post editorial, "Time to Deflect Asteroid Threat" (March 18) concluded with this sentence: "We hope the U.N. will approve the Asteroid Action Treaty and that it will trigger a serious effort to protect Earth from a threat (an asteroid named Apophis, after the Egyptian god of evil, now conjectured to slam into the Earth in 2036) that we, like the dinosaurs, can barely imagine." If it isn't global warming then it's Apophis. And I still haven't yet recovered from "the coming ice age." The Post made my day. I'm still laughing.

READER COMMENTS

Instead of worrying about whether or not,earth may be hit by a rogue asteroid perhaps we should be more concerned with something more of an imminate threat. I am talking about an invasion of the planet earth by alien beings from outer space. Are we prepared to deal with flying saucers and ray guns? Perhaps we should draw up contingency plans for such a day. After all such happenings have been fortold in motion pictures for decades. Think about it what would we do if a flying saucer landed in civic center park?

Posted by Klatu on March 31, 2007 11:11 PM

Klatu, I take it you don't have thirty years left in you and you have no progeny. I recall when people were upset because of the AIDS "scare". I do get the impression that you may be spending too much time in the comic book section. There are people who concern themselves with long range projections. I think that is a good idea. I presume you'll follow your letter with a dissertation on why the science about the asteroid is wrong.

I understand the dinosaurs got a big laugh out of that stuff about an ice age.

Posted by Truth on April 1, 2007 08:00 PM

Don't they have a new trash bag out that catches stuff flying towards earth from space? I think it's called flex bag , I saw it on TV.

Posted by TV is TRUTH on April 2, 2007 07:26 AM

Hank,
You are somewhat out of date, 99942 Apophis (2004 MN4) is not likely to impact the earth.

Here is the page that JPL keeps on this asteroid.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/a99942.html

You will notice the Torino scale of 0, which means it isn’t going to hit us.

Nevertheless, asteroid impact threat isn’t some sort of tinfoil-hat stuff, and it is wise to be thinking about what we might be able to do in the future to lessen the risks to ourselves as a species and as a culture.

Posted by Spud on April 2, 2007 10:27 AM

Truth, are you for real? because I sure was'nt. For your information, Klatu was the charactor Michael Rennie played in the movie The Day The Earth Stood Still. I was trying to poke fun at the idocy of worry over wheather or not earth will be nailed by a killer astroid. What would the UN do about it? issue a proclimation strongly against the offending heavenly body? or would they take economic sanctions against it?
What I'm trying to say if we get hit or not there ain't a thing we can do about it. Except mabey have Dick Cheney blow it out of the sky with his 12 ga. To quote the real Klatu " Gort, Klatu Barada Nictu".

Posted by Klatu on April 2, 2007 02:08 PM