Turns out he wasn't so lonely. While we said in the Q&A that NASA was doing little to protect us from an asteroid crash, it turns out the agency's been working on an anti-asteroid nuclear missile.
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NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center has designed a nuclear-warhead-carrying spacecraft, to be launched by the US agency's proposed 's Ares V cargo launch vehicle, to deflect an asteroid that could threaten all life on Earth.NASA says that by the 2020s, the interceptor will be able to detect a dangerous asteroid 5 years in advance, and deflect it two years in advance.
The 8.9m (29ft)-long "Cradle" spacecraft would carry six 1,500kg (3,300lb) missile-like interceptor vehicles that would carry one 1.2MT B83 nuclear warhead each, with a total mass of 11,035kg.
NASA Plans Armageddon Spacecraft to Blast Asteroid
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