Russia has plans to destroy asteroid

Russia’s federal space agency has announced that it is in ‘closed door’ meetings discussing what they plan to do with an asteroid that is set to make several passes near the Earth in twenty year’s time.

Anatoly Perminov, the head of the space agency, said that he and his colleagues were currently drawing up plans to divert the asteroid away from the Earth – which could involved some sort of explosive devices.

Mr Perminov was quick to point out that any plan would not involve any sort of nuclear weapons, however.

It’s a story that sounds more like it came from Hollywood than NASA – and any such action by the Russians would probably require the full support and cooperation of the international space community due to its size and gravity.

Russia has plans to destroy asteroid

The Americans have already dismissed the asteroid hitting Earth as unlikely, giving it a 1 in 250,000 chance when they calculated the probability. This probability has been reduced from a previous estimate of about 1 in 45,000.

Mr Perminov pointed out that lives of many Russians, and indeed people of the world, were at stake. He said that it was better to ‘spend millions of dollars to protect ourselves than to wait and watch hundreds of thousands of people die’.