Humanity has long been frightened by the possibility of collisions of asteroids and comets with our planet. So far, we could observe how small cosmic bodies reach the Earth and rarely small objects pass through the atmosphere that are not capable of causing visible damage to human civilization.
A similar scenario is not a fantasy, and in ancient times the Earth was attacked by hundreds and thousands of cosmic bodies that bombarded the Earth. The effect of such attacks now would be simply catastrophic, because our cities are densely built-up and even if a small object gets into a metropolis, then millions of residents can be destroyed. NASA is actively exploring the possibility of creating technologies capable of changing the trajectory of space bodies and detecting danger to our planet in advance. For these purposes, huge funds are allocated and plans are to build more observatories that will observe the most dangerous space bodies.
In addition to changing the trajectory of flights of dangerous space bodies, NASA is considering the possibility of destroying asteroids and comets and for this they are developing the possibility of launching nuclear missiles at such objects.
In 3 years, the company plans to launch the DART space ram into Earth's orbit and try to change the trajectory of the Didymos asteroid. Complicating the process of changing the trajectory of space objects is the fact that scientists still need to detect dangerous objects in advance, but such technologies have not yet been developed and scientists hope for luck rather than accurate data.
The Earth is far from a safe place and there are many threats in space that can destroy human civilization. It is necessary to work out various mechanisms of protection against the space threat.
