A small wave of fear made its way through congress recently, specifically the fear of large Near Earth Objects hitting the earth and killing us all. The public and congress have increased the pressure on NASA to track NEOs, especially those of "extinction class" and have a plan to save the earth from catastrophe.
NASA currently does about 98% of the work in tracking NEOs and has a nice long list of every object that they know is out there. Multiple telescopes are dedicated to the task, and more may be given the same task. NASA currently tracks anything over 1 km in diameter, size which could cause rapid climate change among other things. Anything bigger than 10 km is considered extinction class and has the potential to wipe out most species on Earth.
Some methods be considered to divert these large objects are nuclear missiles for the big ones and conventional rockets for the small ones.
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASA_pressed_to_avert_catastrophic_Deep_Impact_999.html
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