Word: neos
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...Earth. Most of the large ones, they say, could be cataloged within a decade, given the necessary funding. But budgets are tight, congressional support is lacking, and NASA has opted to continue only its relatively modest $1 million annual support for three independent groups with telescopes specifically dedicated to NEO hunting. These teams are headed by Tom Gehrels at the University of Arizona, Helin at J.P.L. and Shoemaker at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona...
Even with NASA's support, the NEO hunters have had to scrounge from industry and other donors for much of their equipment. "Times have been very lean in this past year," says Helin. "There've been times when I was receiving no salary at all." Despite the travails, however, Shoemaker is confident that improving technology will enable astronomers, even at the current level of funding, to identify perhaps 50% of the NEOs in the next decade...
...what if one of them is found to be on a collision course with Earth? Scientists at the Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories have devised a number of ingenious plans that, given enough warning time, could protect Earth from a threatening NEO. Their defensive weapons of choice include long-distance missiles with conventional or, more likely, nuclear warheads that could be used either to nudge an asteroid into a safe orbit or blast it to smithereens...
...will not let him. Today's Vanke (April 6 letter) wraps himself in victim colors while yesterday's Vanke (Feb. 21 letter) rather haughtily dabbled in what Martin Kilson characterized as a mode of amoral discourse on our country's racist legacy that was tinged with "neo-White supremacist arrogance." Jeffrey Vanke now wants the Harvard community to rally round the Vanke flag, insulating him from what he considers an unwarranted bad name...
...Tenner's gently skeptical fascination with what he calls "the perversity of everyday objects and systems" seems unlikely to overturn the neo-utopianism of the Wired generation, that's all the more reason to attend closely to it. For though his history of technological "revenge effects" ranges freely over the past two centuries, most of his examples take a healthy dose of air out of today's overinflated enthusiasm with high tech...