It is not enough to do a desktop exercise of a Beethoven symphony. You need to practice with an orchestra. The musicians need to read the notes. Otherwise it will be a disaster.

I am interested in climate change and other topics too. But this thing is so huge, in the worst case we are talking about the end of our civilization.

It is not enough to do a desktop exercise of a Beethoven symphony. You need to practice with an orchestra. The musicians need to read the notes. Otherwise it will be a disaster.

We need early warning systems, technologies to deflect an asteroid - and we need political preparedness as well. It needs to be clear who is to decide what, who launches the rockets, who presents which bills to its citizens. This is a planetary decision. We need to do this all together. Or it will not happen.

It would take an extremely large spacecraft to deflect a large asteroid that would be headed directly for the Earth.

If we do our homework right, never again should an asteroid that can do damage on the ground impact the Earth. We're living in a time-with our technology-we have the capability to eliminate that major shaper of evolution . . . the evolution of life on this planet.

In the short term, some deadly virus might be more important, but in the long run there is hardly anything more important than asteroids.