Democracy Dies in Darkness

Opinion Three cheers for NASA’s asteroid smasher

By
September 26, 2022 at 2:48 p.m. EDT
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches with the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, spacecraft onboard, on Nov. 23, 2021. (Bill Ingalls/AP)
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Rae Paoletta is the editorial director for the Planetary Society.

Who ever thought crashing into space rocks could be so useful to science — and to the defense of humanity?

On Monday, at 7:14 p.m. Eastern time, NASA will make history by forcing a kitchen-appliance-size cube to collide with an asteroid. Scientists will then be able to evaluate whether smashing into asteroids is a viable way to one day save the planet from dangerous objects, if it ever comes to that.