NASA says "No Need To Worry." Really????

"PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA says a newly discovered asteroid will have a close encounter with Earth on Monday, but there's no need to worry."

No need to worry? Really?

Let's see if I have this right. An asteroid is coming very close to Earth and we only have 2 days warning. And NASA says we need not worry because it won't hit us. But that is not the worry here. The worry is that an asteroid could threaten our very existence and we would not have any substantial warning. Two days is barely enough time to bend over and kiss our butts good-bye.

THIS time it won't hit. But what about some other asteroid?

We need a better warning system, and we need to develop a method to attach rockets or small blasts onto an asteroid to gently change its direction without blowing it into a thousand smaller asteroids to rain on us.

We can spend billions on treadmills for shrimp, tunnels for turtles and an undeclared military action, but not one dime on a plan to protect us from a potential impact. An impact that WILL happen someday. It has happened before, and will happen again.

I've been to Crater Lake in the northwest, and Meteor Crater in the southwest. I am not anxious to have one closer to home to visit here in the northeast - assuming we even survive it.

And while it might do our nation a lot of good if it were to hit in one of the places where traditional American values have died out, I would much rather watch the asteroid veer off into space.

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