Turning 49 today. I've got a funk I can't shake.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

28. It was a tool for near-earths, but not the best tool and far from the only tool

First and foremost, it is good that you are sharing your fears and your funk and I hope this post helps you.

The reason it is not being rebuilt is because there are better tools now, especially for near-earth objects. Back in its heyday, the Arecibo observatory was one of very few tools and it was used to find NEOs. But now, since you follow the news, there are NEOs found every few months that hit the news. They are being found by better more modern tools and more of them are being found than ever back in the heyday.

That's the first false premise, that it was needed.

The second false premise is the idea that devastating NEO impacts are so frequent that it is going to happen in a generation or two. There is a teeny weeny tiny vanishingly small chance one could happen in my lifetime and yours. Multiply that by a dozen generations and the chance is still tiny and vanishingly small. Worth searching for, but teeny tiny.

And the speculation in your second last paragraph is just wrong, unwarranted, unreasonable, not true.

I'm sorry you are feeling this way but you have worked yourself into a state on two false premise. Personally, the science deniers worry me much more, but there I have a strategy that I apply to science deniers and asteroids and earthquakes and pandemics.

It goes like this:

I worry about the things that I might actually be able to do something about and I accept the things that I can't do anything about. If it were me, I would study NEOs, as you have a little bit, learn more. That is something to do. But let go of worrying about it hitting. Maybe keep a bug-out get-out-town kit handy, which is a good idea for earthquakes, forest fires, hurricanes, etc. That is something you can do. But you can't stop an earthquake and you can't personally stop an NEO impact, however unlikely as they are. So let go of worrying about an actual hit.