Asteroid impacts have the distinction of being one of the few sci-fi concepts that will definitely happen at some point. But despite the clear and present (although potentially far off) danger of getting smacked by an asteroid, we’ve devoted few resources to averting such a catastrophe.
As Discover reported in 2013, NASA’s budget for such operations is barebones, and it’s unclear how that might change under the Trump Administration. NASA in 2015 cut funding to the Sentinel miss