The United Nations will shortly be asked to take on a new and unfamiliar mission - to save the Earth, not from drought, war or disease, but from the cataclysm that could occur following a direct hit by an asteroid.
A group of former astronauts and cosmonauts is warning that at least one asteroid already identified in outer space is on a path that could indeed see it colliding with our planet in 2036.
They say work should begin now on considering a strategy to protect humankind from this and other asteroids.
Specifically, members of the Association of Space Explorers are planning a series of meetings over the next two years, to be attended by diplomats, astronomers, astronauts and engineers, to draft an international treaty on address the threat.
It will be presented to the UN for adoption in 2009.
"You have to act when things look like they are going to happen - if you wait until you know for certain, it's too late," Dr Russell Schweickart, an Apollo 9 astronaut, told a conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco.
"We believe there needs to be a decision process spelled out and adopted by the United Nations." The United States Congress recently instructed Nasa to increase its efforts to identify asteroids that could pose a threat to Earth.
As of now, the agency is monitoring the paths of 127 so-called near-Earth objects (NEO) that have the possibility of striking the planet.
Among prominent figures who have been asked to participate in drafting a UN treaty are Lord Rees, the English Astronomer Royal as well as Roger Bonnet, the ex-director of science at the European Space Agency and the former British ambassador the UN, Sir Crispin Tickell.
Underscoring the peril, an asteroid named Apophis risks passing very close to Earth on 13 April, 2036.
Astronomers warn that as of now, there is a 1 in 45,000 chance of a direct hit.
Its impact would be enough to wipe out a country as large as England.
Debate over how best to deflect any asteroid headed to our planet echoes the science-fiction scripts of Hollywood films like 'Armageddon', which precisely told the story of an asteroid and the derring-do of astronauts sent on a mission to destroy it before it reached Earth's atmosphere.
Dr Edward Lu told the conference that notions of smashing asteroids before they reach Earth are risky.
"There is a random element to them," he said.
"Things like hitting them with a bomb or flying a spacecraft into them - you just do not know what the results of that are going to be." Scientists now favour deploying so-called 'Gravity Tractors', small spacecrafts that would travel close to a speeding asteroid and, with their own gravitational pull, try to drag it onto a different path.
Not a 2nd-grader's chance at a NAMBLA convention that I'll still be alive in 2036, so let the big ol' rock come a'callin'. Let's call it "Dottie" and start wavin' it in with those flashlight thingies the guys used to use at airport runways.
Bat-Anti-Meteor repellent. Right here in my third pocket of my utili.............
OH. It seems I've run out. You are SO screwed. I've got a magnificent cave under Gotham. Stocked well enough to last me about ten years. Clouds blotting out the sun, yeah, yeah, I work better in the dark. Take care out there. With comic book time ageing, I'll be around 40 by the time the big one hits so I'll STILL be in my prime. Heh heh.
When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now,
Will it still be heading toward us in a race? Tumbling, turning out in deep space?
If I'm still 'round in Oh-Thirty-Six, will you smash me, too?
Will you annoy me, will you destroy me,
When I'm sixty-two?
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