I’m far more skeptical of the “governments have this covered” position than I was in 2015. Some of this is for theoretical reasons (ex: preventing catastrophe benefits people beyond your country) and some of it is from observing governments more (ex: pandemic response).
This is an interesting response to the perceived folly of trusting that our authorities can handle a cosmic body appearing on track to collide with the planet as there would seem to be more fundamental issues at play: that many such bodies may be unidentified, including due to long period orbits, that we generally lack proven technology to send such a body off-target depending on warning time, mass, velocity, etc, and that we’re really not working that hard on any solutions as far as one can see. A damning example is the apparent lack of development toward nuclear pulse propulsion as this would seem an obvious and accessible tool to deal with such risks.
Double Asteroid Redirection Test was launched in 2021 and will impact in September 2022. I think it is in fact correct, that planetary defense is, relative to other existential risks, well funded and not neglected.
This is an interesting response to the perceived folly of trusting that our authorities can handle a cosmic body appearing on track to collide with the planet as there would seem to be more fundamental issues at play: that many such bodies may be unidentified, including due to long period orbits, that we generally lack proven technology to send such a body off-target depending on warning time, mass, velocity, etc, and that we’re really not working that hard on any solutions as far as one can see. A damning example is the apparent lack of development toward nuclear pulse propulsion as this would seem an obvious and accessible tool to deal with such risks.
Double Asteroid Redirection Test was launched in 2021 and will impact in September 2022. I think it is in fact correct, that planetary defense is, relative to other existential risks, well funded and not neglected.