Astrophysicist and doomsday prognosticator Sigrid Close takes us on a terrifying journey through the period preceding the impact of a binary near earth asteroid on Earth. Scientists will hold a doomsday conference - a “nudge or nuke” showdown in which some will argue for the use of satellite impact or gravity tractor, while others plead for the nuclear option. Either decision comes with risk. The nuclear option is fraught with political difficulties, the least of which involves proliferation, and the most embarrassing being that the U.S. may not possess a nuke large enough to do the job. The “nudge” option may mean diverting an NEO’s impact from one country to another. The nuclear option has the danger of breaking the NEO into several deadly pieces, each having its own, possibly fatal, trajectory. In our NEO scenario, the Katrina tragedy is multiplied a hundredfold as agencies struggle to mitigate the effects of disaster.
