Here comes... Canada to the rescue?

After the Russian meteor scare last week, many wondered why governments around the world seemed surprised and unprepared for the 10,000 ton death-rock hurling towards us. According to NASA scientists, the explosion in our atmosphere was the “equivalent to nearly 500,000 tons of TNT.”

But don’t worry. One country has come to the rescue. Drum roll, please for…

Canada?

After today’s launch of the Indian Polar Space Launch Vehicle (PSLV), four Canadian satellites, including the Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat), will begin monitoring the skies for potential meteoric threats.

That’s right. Asteroid mining out of Canada. The Canadians have Bruce Willis and the team from Armageddon. Who could have foreseen that coming?

NEOSSat will be the first space telescope dedicated solely to finding Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) in our solar system. Unlike Earth-based, man-monitored telescopes, NEOSSat will operate 24/7, capturing hundreds of more images per day for analysis.

NEOSSat is tiny — only the size of a suitcase — and runs off of multi-band gap solar panels. It was launched into orbit 800 kilometers above the Earth, and represents our first line of defense against total annihilation.

I guess someone was listening when we said there were no more hero’s in today’s world. Continue proving us wrong, Canada.

Meteors & misguided men

On Friday, a meteor descended on Chelyabinsk, Russia at a speed of 18.6 miles per second. They were lucky - the meteor would have been as big as a 15-story building had it not disintegrated in the atmosphere!

          Is it possible some people were expecting this to happen? We have been raised on sci-fi movies are somewhat de-sensitized when it comes to meteors. We immediately think of movies like Armageddon and Deep Impact.  Come Saturday morning, some folks were excited having had survived the meteor. Others were shocked that our advanced missile defense systems proved utterly useless. (Turns out blasting meteors out of space only works in Hollywood. So much for trillions of dollars spent on defense.)

          The truth is people tend to think of themselves as all-powerful and all-mighty beings. In the movies, the heroes always have muscles and access to the most high-tech equipment. They never get shot. They always get the girl. And in the end, just before the credits roll, they somehow save the day.

          But this is a fantasy! Men are egotistical fools who rarely use technology for good; who shoot each other quite often. Mankind’s biggest accomplishment, to date, has been surviving for thousands of years despite our apparent genetic disposition for blood lust. Sure, we’ve invented a great number of things. From the internet to capitalism. Java to baseball. But have these innovations helped us progress, or have they sunk us further into disillusionment?

          Hollywood heroes do not exist. Bruce Willis isn’t waiting to take off in a space ship, plant a nuke on a meteor, and (spoiler alert) save the earth from sure-fire destruction. We have learned much while at the same time, learned nothing. We’re afraid to face the truth: men are not heroes. We are fools who think we can conquer anything we set our sights on. The Earth. Outer Space. Nothing is out of mankind’s dominion.

          So while we talk about the economy, climate-change, and advancements in new technology, let’s not forget – we’re all just one giant meteor away from being wiped from this Earth, like the woolly mammoths and dinosaurs before us.

Poof! Gone. Just like that.