Killjoys at NASA cancel Doomsday

[james_davis_nicoll]

"Using updated information, NASA scientists have recalculated the path of a large asteroid. The refined path indicates a significantly reduced likelihood of a hazardous encounter with Earth in 2036."

Fools! Have they never read those books where by creating some false crisis, the steely-eyed rocket men get the money to properly develop manned (and girled) spaceflight for the betterment of Man?

Comments

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

"Girled spaceflight" made me LOL at work.

[thesaucernews.livejournal.com]

...but they named it Apophis! Apophis! It would have been perfect! Now we're just gonna get hit by an asteroid without such an apocalyptically cool name, or just a serial number.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Is it too late to deceive the authorities into setting up a wild-eyed scheme to steer the asteroid into medium-to-high Earth orbit so that we can mine the Hell out of that sucker?

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

if "manned," then shouldn't it be "wommanned"?

"girled" would indicated "boyed".

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

What is the DeltaV to capture this one?

[http://users.livejournal.com/krin_o_o_/]

Dammit! Somebody call the shop steward... They'll answer to the Space Engineers Union for this!

- krin

[nelc.livejournal.com]

Not for the betterment of Man and Girl?

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

You're totally not joking, are you? That's a real plot, isn't it?

Of course it is.

I'm tempted to write a story about scattered bands of peaceful, sheep-herding orcs who discover that the odd, hairless creatures crouching in that lonely fort down the way have been justifying the ore, engineers, work crews and gold coins to build their new-fangled steam cannons and self-propelled carts by sending reports of marauding orc hordes back to the Imperium.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The initial reports about Apophis (then just identified as 2004 MN4, I think) were somewhat muted for an asteroid-threat story, because they appeared in the aftermath of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. I tried to work out a rough estimate of what Apophis would do in the unlikely event that it actually hit us, and I recall, on the basis of some desultory Googling, deciding that it stood a fair chance of being... about as bad as the tsunami that had, with 100% certainty, just happened. At that point it struck me as a bit unseemly to keep worrying so much about the asteroid.

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

Does this mean I have to keep planning for retirement?