Posthuman Blues

Group to search for killer asteroids with historic telescope

"NASA has given a Topeka-based group of amateur astronomers $56,060 to use optical parts of the so-called Pitt telescope to search for asteroids that could hit the Earth."

It's a start, I guess. But what happens if they find one? Suppose they find a murderous chunk of rock heading our way and astronomers are unanimous that it will extinguish all life as we know it. Further suppose that we have, say, ten years until impact. What changes? What will we do?

For many, a civilization-destroying threat from space would probably be welcomed as justification for religious rhetoric. And although I'm not 100% sure, I think George W. Bush is probably among them. I'm sure "End Times scholar" Tim LaHaye and company could work annihilation from space into their masturbatory apocalyptic forecasts just as Jerry Falwell rationalized the September 11 attacks as evidence of God's displeasure with secular humanists and other liberals.