We CAN look for planet-endangering rocks

It wouldn't be hard to make a telescope to look for the unfound asteroids that might pose a danger to the cities and march of civilization, according to this article:


New Space Telescopes Could Spot Dangerous Asteroids

There's actually two separate ideas for these telescopes, which explains the "together" that leads the following:

Together, they could act as silent sentries in space, scanning the solar system for hazardous asteroids. Each proposed telescope, by itself, could help find more than 90 percent of nearby asteroids that are 460 feet (140 meters) across or larger, as the U.S. Congress directed NASA to do back in 2005.

That's the smallest size though to pose a real impact threat to Earth. The catch? Building them both would cost $1.1 billion.

Now, there's an interesting part to this idea:

The first proposed space telescope, a $500-million mission put forward by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., would take advantage of one of several sun-Earth Lagrange points. These are locations where the gravitational forces of the sun and Earth perfectly balance out the orbital motion of a visiting telescope or spacecraft.

In a previous comment on NASA, I noted that one thing that should be developed is the capability to get to the Lagrange points to service the important satellites (like this telescope, or SOHO) that are accumulating there. So that would be something that humans, or maybe humans working with humanoid robots, or maybe even the humanoid robots, could do. But I think it would be more fun and more interesting to kids if humans went. With the Space Shuttles retired, maybe there will be less chances of re-entry incinderization.