Originally Posted By: Blast
My gut thoughts:
1. Consent of congress: Need? No. Get? Yes.
2. Funding: Yes
3. UN: I'm not going there.
4. Current plans: Probably, though mopping up after the impact is probably a bigger folder.

Agreed.
Originally Posted By: Blast

1. Can the current crop of nuclear missles escape Earth's gravity or are they limited to ballistic paths only?
2. If need be, could several missles be launched from the space shuttle? (wouldn't THAT cause an uproar!)
3. Would the missiles' navigational systems be able to direct them to an asteroid?
4. What would happen if a missle sucessfully hit the asteroid but something still impacted the Earth? (more uproar/conspiresy theories)
5. How would we convince Russia/China/etc that the missles were actually heading towards some object in space?

1. Nope, they are suborbital.
2. Given a few years to work things you, perhaps.
3. Nope, they are designed to target a geographic location, not something zipping in from interplanetary space.
4. Dunno
5. If they can "see" them, they can see where they are headed, I guess...
_________________________
- Tom S.

"Never trust and engineer who doesn't carry a pocketknife."