Think of it as "Traffic Light Syndrome"

In other words, it's a truism that a finite but undetermined number of serious traffic accidents, usually fatal, must occur at a given location before any state's department of transportation will install a traffic light, or fix the grade of a curve, or whatever...

It took the destruction of the World Trade Center and a chunk of Pentagon to finally shake "It can't happen here" out of the American consciousness regarding terrorists... and now that we're finally fighting that war, how likely is it for money to be found to upgrade the Minor Planet Center?

From the article: Any large asteroids bearing down on Earth would likely be discovered decades in advance, experts say. But smaller objects often go undetected and could destroy a city. And no one can say if or when a surprise impact might occur.

In other words - same as it's been for the last x-million years. At our current level of technology, there's not a bloody thing we can do except watch it come, anyway. Don't look for that to change any time soon: there's a war on, y'know. After we lose a city to a rock from space, they'll declare another war, and Brian Marsden's staff will get some relief. Not before.

E'