THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT AN ASTEROID STRIKE WILL HAPPEN AGAIN – GAMBLING ISNʼT AN OPTION. Lt. Col. John C. Kunich Harvard Law, Associate Professor @ Appalachian University of Law, Planetary Defense The Legality of Global Survival 41 AF. L. Rev. 119, 1997 Consequently, it is easy to dismiss the hazard as negligible or to ridicule those who suggest that it be treated seriously. On the other hand, as has been explained, when such impacts do occur, they are capable of producing destruction and casualties on a scale that far exceeds any other natural disasters the results of impact by an object the size of a small mountain exceed the imagined holocaust of a full-scale nuclear war. Even the worst storms or floods or earthquakes inflict only local damage, while a large enough impact could have global consequences and place all of society at risk. Impacts are, at once, the least likely but the most dreadful of known natural catastrophes. What is the most prudent course of action when one is confronted with an extremely rare yet enormously destructive risk Some maybe tempted to do nothing, in essence gambling on the odds. But because the consequences of guessing wrong maybe so severe as to mean the end of virtually all life on planet Earth, the wiser course of action would be to take reasonable steps to confront the problem. Ultimately, rare though these space strikes are, there is no doubt that they will happen again, sooner or later. Ellipses in original text
