I happened upon Brian Cox's video earlier today where he relates the film "Don't Look Up" to real world concerns, [0] and he mentions the DART mission [1] is a

I happened upon Brian Cox's video earlier today where he relates the film "Don't Look Up" to real world concerns, [0] and he mentions the DART mission [1] is a test-run for deflecting an asteroid, the press release reads, "DART [...] will impact a known asteroid that is not a threat to Earth. Its goal is to slightly change the asteroid’s motion in a way that can be accurately measured using ground-based telescopes." I suppose landing on comets/asteroids was the first step, now we can actually try moving them! (this first attempt is 160 meter diameter, I'm sure the result will be valuable to adjusting our simulations for larger hazards.) My favorite part of the Brian Cox video is he mentions that the same tech for asteroid defense will be used for asteroid mining, maybe there is a profit motive to spur investment after all. Still, a botched asteroid capture could play out like the movie, we can only hope we have the chance to start small :) [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntaidEKs_Ks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntaidEKs_Ks [1] https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-spacex-launch-dart-first-test-mission-to-defend-planet-earth https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-spacex-launch-dart-f...