Money. That’s the problem.
The Telegraph is reporting that an “unusually large” asteroid Named LZ1 will hurtle past Earth but will not collide with the planet on Friday, it is about 10 times the size of an Olympic swimming pool, measuring 500m (1,650ft) wide. If it was centered on a city or off the coast of the Atlantic serious damage was the potential outcome. The good part is that we’re lucky, this isn’t going to hit us.
The bad part is that this monster was detected only 72 hours ago.
The problem is money, every so often we hear about something like this, detected only days or hours before its approach. Most likely due to lack of funding for surveillance.
I don’t want to know if a 1/2 KM object is hurling at us in 15 minutes, I want to know that the 1/2 KM object will pass us in 15 years giving us enough time to do something about it, or at least enough time to evacuate a metro area or region.
This should be a warning sign that something is wrong with our funding allocation if we can see a license plate in Iran via a spy satellite but can’t see a 1/2 km object coming for New York City.
Enjoy the new reality.