How awesome of a job would that be!? I'd get to scream at a german lady to start countdown to FIRE THE LASER! (Austin Powers reference? Wasn't sure if it'd be obvious)
On a serial note though: THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN!!! (Haha, seems like it's a classic way to get money from the US govt/people!)
Ok, now to real cerial thingy: I've saved money on my auto insurance with Geico! LMAO!!! Haha, I'm sorry, I am just kidding, and NO I did not get an endorsement to advertise for that green lizzard! (I bet the color of money rubs off on that little bastard with an awesome accent!)
So the real serious thing now, like PHO REALZ yo: Large bodies with about a 1km size would pose a real threat not only to the region that they would strike, but our whole planet! Or continent or whatever, it's kinda dangerous. Reading some papers and reports in Scientific American these are the facts I've come across:
Dinosaur Killers, 10 km across, hit every 100 million years on average.
Globally devastating asteroids, 1km ID or larger, come ~half million years.
City destroyers, 50 meters across, strike ~once a millenium.
With these fun facts, it's kind of irrelevant for us, since the chances of us getting hit in our lifetime is minimized since we live at most around a century (If we eat right, excercise and live in a clean environment - sooooooooo like not a lot of people in US population haha!). So WHO THE EF CAAAARES, let our grandchildren worry about that ish! But I guess some people in congress are either a lot less selfish or just need a job, so they are pushing for an asteroid defense program!
So here are a few more facts:
LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope) that is mainly funded by Google will cost millions of dollars and will be able to map around 80% of moving, winking or blinking objects within a decade of operation (2014-2024). However for a modest amount of 100 million dollars more, it'd be able to map 90% of those objects. However it will have blind spots: That is, the ground based telescope will not be able to map objects slightly behind or ahead of Earth in it's orbit because of the Sun's glare. Second issue is that this telescope will be limited to visible light, therefore the mass of an object will be very inaccurate. For example: A massive asteroid can pose as a bright but half the size, since the mass of an asteroid will be based on such factors as brightness and other indirect factors.
So with little of budget for this kind of program, scientists are forced to get creative and along with using this LSST, JPL personel is thinking of a much more precise idea, such as launching a satellite that will actually orbit the Sun and map out the sky in IR (Infrared you noobs!) in order to track these objects. Being able to use multiple wavelengths, the mass could be determined down to 20% error. Which is decent, I mean I wouldn't get far with that kind of GPA (B-), but I guess people that made it already are just too boss! SO this little program will cost US about 500 million USD!
Another thing, once the asteroid is discovered, would we be able to do ANYTHING about it?
As a rule of thumb goes: it'd take about a decade of changing the velocity of the asteroid by a millimeter per second to divert it's course by a full Earth Radius! All I got to say to this is GAWD DAYUMN and CHEEZITS!
So there's another proposed project that might cost 400 million. This project is to fire a 400 kilogram projectile at a distant asteroid just to see what happens.
HOW EFFIN' SWEET OF A PROPOSITION IS THAT!? I get to throw ISH at things really far away just to say I did it and justify it with SCIENCE! I am soooo happy to be a physicist!
THAT IS ALL I GOT TO SAY TO YOO!
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