Will Comet Ison coming though the asteroid belt, shove us to Defcon Two or One? [View all]

[truedelphi]

For those of you who are following the travels of Comet Ison, you may have noticed how this comet impacted several asteroids over the last two days. The comet hit many asteroids, and some of those were able to go on and enter our atmosphere. Those asteroids went on to hit our planet. (Most were about the size of a baseball, or smaller.)

The heavenly activities of Comet Ison are going to continue, and if initial science reports are to be believed, the results will end up being more spectacular as time goes on.

The next twelve months are critical in terms of the interplay between the comet, the asteroids it deflects into our atmosphere, and all of that.

Big Problem for earthlings and other sentient life that occupy the planet - on account of sequestration, the Air Force Space Surveillance Center is scheduled to shut down, just as the spectacular asteroid activity is heating up.

Now please note: my concern is not that a huge asteroid is about to get deflected into our atmosphere and hit the planet, obliterating all life. The projected sizes of the asteroids that might be "doomed" to enter our atmosphere are not a problem.

What is a problem is that without such a Surveillance Center up and operating, and with tension still existing between the USA and Russia, do we want to risk not having the safety advantages of the surveillance center?