The dinosaurs never saw that asteroid coming. What's our excuse?

There's no accepted global policy on what to do about asteroid impacts.

I've seen Australia and I've lived on an asteroid and I'd take the asteroid.

You may have trouble getting permission to aero or lithobrake asteroids on Earth.

We can both prevent asteroid impacts and address climate change. It's not either-or.

Richard Pilbrow's lighting can turn a coin into an asteroid and an idea into an apparition.

This planet is 15 million years overdue for an asteroid strike like the one that killed the dinosaurs.

While we didn't know the dinosaurs personally, we do know that they were wiped out by an asteroid impact.

Africa's a wreck and it's not because it was hit by an asteroid. It's a wreck largely because it was hit by Europe.

It would take an extremely large spacecraft to deflect a large asteroid that would be headed directly for the Earth.

The chances that your tombstone will read 'Killed by Asteroid' are about the same as they'd be for 'Killed in Airplane Crash.'

Why do they call it an asteroid when it's outside the hemisphere, but call it a haemorrhoid when it's on the outside of your ass?

I despise the Lottery. There's less chance of you becoming a millionaire than there is of getting hit on the head by a passing asteroid.

Why can't we summon the ingenuity and courage of the generations that came before us? The dinosaurs never saw that asteroid coming. What's our excuse?

Caltech honored me -- they named an asteroid after me. There's only two of them up there with names. One of them is Walter Cronkite. The other is Tommy Lasorda.

...they discovered only a small asteroid inhabited by a solitary old man who claimed repeatedly that nothing was true, though he was later discovered to be lying.

We made and spent at least 10 million dollars. The thing is, we heard that the planet was going to end in 2012. We thought, We have got to spend this money before the asteroid hits.

Why are hemorrhoids called hemorrhoids and asteroids called asteroids? Wouldn't it make more sense if it was the other way around? But if that was true, then a proctologist would be an astronaut.

Mars could very well be a staging location for the resources of the asteroid belt. We have to learn how to get a payback somewhere, but it's beyond Mars that the real payoff will come from minerals.

Mars is the symbolic and totally stimulating next objective that could so dominate the next century's exploration efforts. From Mars, the resources of all the asteroids will become readily available.

Luckily, there are some rocks left over from our earliest days, asteroids formed during our solar system's birth. Occasionally, some of them drop in on Earth, and when they do, they're called meteorites.

An asteroid could hit us at any moment. This is not - and also, the most successful kind of life on this planet is not us, it's microbes. They're the ones who greatly outnumber us, and may eventually destroy us.

Money is becoming increasingly plastic and digital. If there is a major disaster, let's say an asteroid strike, we'll go back to trading meats and furs. We won't need an abstraction, a dollar bill, but real tangible goods to survive.

Like prospecting in the 19th century, reconnaissance of the asteroids would of necessity take place in an arena where trouble is likely and help is distant. Heroic stories of individual triumph and failure, set on landscapes never seen by humankind, are in the cards.

People have to take seriously the threat coming from asteroids and what it represents. As Chelyabinsk reminded us, we have to take asteroids as a serious scientific concern, as well as a concern for protection of mankind and survival of the planet. This is not some kook policy. It's the protection of the interests of every single individual life on this planet.

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