NASA will shoot rocket at asteroid to test ‘planetary defense’ strategy

"The launch of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission will occur at 1:20 a.m. Eastern time on Nov. 24, NASA said. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will be launched from the Vandenberg Space Force Base, about 50 miles northwest of Santa Barbara, Calif.


NASA is targeting a pair of asteroids that orbit the sun and occasionally come close to Earth. The asteroids don’t come close enough to pose a threat, NASA says, but their proximity makes them a prime candidate for the test of a technique that could someday prevent a “hazardous asteroid from striking Earth.”

“We’re going to make sure that a rock from space doesn’t send us back to the Stone Age,” Thomas Statler, a NASA scientist, said on the agency’s podcast.

We really need to figure out how to stop a killer asteroid, scientists say"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techn...edgdhp&pc=U531

We surely do: alrighty... burp...