Thanks. I bet such an event would have caused a lot panic on the ground. It would today too, but for different reasons.

I am with you on the impact threat as being humanities greatest threat for survival. I think mankind needs to learn how to mine asteroids and comets, and learn how to divert them from collision courses with the Earth (or any other place humans may be living). I still like my ideal of mining potentially dangerous asteroids until there is nothing left from them to be a hazard. This, of course, would have to be done long before the asteroid actually became a threat.

If done right, the infrastructure, technology, experience and the material mined could help humans expand to other worlds in our Solar System. There is no reason, once the infrastructure was in place, humans could not explore the Moon, Mars, or anywhere else in the Solar System.