An anonymous reader writes "Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson talks stopping extinction-level meteor hits: 'Here in America, we're really good at blowing stuff up and less good at knowing where the pieces land, you knowSo, people who have studied the problem generally – and I'm in this camp – see a deflection scenario is more sound and more controllable. So if this is the asteroid and it's sort of headed toward us, one way is you send up a space ship and they'll both feel each other. And the space ship hovers. And they'll both feel each other's gravity. And they want to sort of drift toward one another. But you don't let that happen. You set off little retro rockets that prevent it. And the act of doing so slowly tugs the asteroid into a new orbit.'"
