I have never quoted, nor have been “opining upon” impact hazard estimates. You’re just making that up. Is that how you do your “science”? Impacts are real threats, and we should be doing more to mitigate them. But, as I’ve been saying for a long time (though not in this thread), the human space flight part of ARM simply isn’t an effective way to do it.

I never said anyone was doing anything for the “fun of it”. That’s an amusing characterization. Developing applied technology is hugely important. If you want to mitigate impact of a large approaching asteroid, astrodynamic smarts and skilled trajectory and approach planning are essential. Maybe the Chinese want to be able to deflect an approaching asteroid just as much as we would. But perhaps you’re saying we shouldn’t let them do it?

If you want to argue with me, then please at least argue with something that I said. I have no desire to participate in illusory and strawman arguments.

You still do not get it.

“The Chinese chase asteroids robotically, just as we continue to do. It’s a terrific way of proving your precision astrodynamic smarts, as well as trajectory and approach planning.”

This is actually the development of an applied technology, not simply something done for the fun of it.

You probably wish the world would ignore it, but the US sent its mitigation plan to the UN committee on space. Russia and China will be doing the same thing shortly.

You keep on repeating 40 year old impact hazard estimates. I wish you would catch up with today’s knowledge of the impact hazard before opining on it.

You mean with regard to the Chinese chasing asteroids? What Wolf demanded was that the U.S. stop chasing asteroids *with people*. Yours is a fair point that I should have made that explicit. I don’t think Frank Wolf had any problem with NEAR, nor does he lose sleep over Dawn, or OSIRIS-REx. (But as to losing sleep, if it weren’t for those Chinese under his bed …)

Of course, his December 19, 2013 letter to the President was pretty explicit in this regard. He said … “I have been concerned by this administration’s misguided focus on capturing an asteroid to place in lunar orbit for American astronauts to visit.”

The Chinese chase asteroids robotically, just as we continue to do. It’s a terrific way of proving your precision astrodynamic smarts, as well as trajectory and approach planning.

It appears that you have forgotten CE2’s asteroid fly-by.

What they tend to do is to buy up old systems/technology, produce their own version and proceed from there. A rather sensible way to create a capability.

For example, they *bought* the design for Soyuz, complete with a design for a Soyuz upgrade. From this they engineered the Shenzhou program…

In the UK, a favorite of mine was the story of how the police no-knocked a house after a report of a silhouette of someone holding a gun was seen. Turned out that the guy who lived there had a Lara Croft promotional figure from the video rental shop he worked at in his living room.

The police tried to charge him with having a weapon – the dummy guns held by the figure!!!