Mankind may be in Chuck Norris' hands

People may recall 1999 when not one, but two films about Earth’s impending collision with foreign outer space objects hit cinemas nationwide. The first film was “Deep Impact,” and it was about a comet that was set to collide with the planet. The second film was “Armageddon,” and it was about a team of renegades that were sent into space to ward off an asteroid from wiping out life on the planet.
Neither films were cinematic masterpieces – in fact “Deep Impact” was pretty horrible – but they poised interesting “what if” questions about the realistic possibility Earth could someday meet up with such a fate. It’s happened in the past, as many scientists believe an asteroid collision wiped out the dinosaurs. Evidence also shows both the Earth’s and moon’s crusts are littered with meteor and asteroid craters.
I try not to think about the fate of mankind coming to an end because of such an uncontrollable circumstance, but when I hear that a small asteroid buzzed by the planet on Monday, I can’t help but think that someday I might be at home relaxing, watching “Lost” and trying to figure out that show’s complicated plot, when all of a sudden an asteroid crushes my apartment and everything in it, including me.
Besides being upset that “Lost” still has one more season to go before all of the answers to its hundreds of questions are revealed, I would be upset that my world and I were obliterated without warning.
“Deep Impact” and “Armageddon” tried to comfort us by suggesting scientists would give us a few days warning that we were about to meet our doom, and that possibly we could send Bruce Willis into space to completely avoid such a fate. I think Chuck Norris is a better choice, but he’d probably be too busy with an infomercial.
But really? That’s probably not true as only a few scientists spotted this week’s asteroid, and it wasn’t revealed to the public until after it zoomed past only 40,000 miles away. That sounds like quite a distance, but it’s only about one-seventh of the way to the moon. Personally, anything that goes between the Earth and the moon is too close for me. Heck, I’m even a little leery of the moon some days. What if it doesn’t ignore gravity and come crashing to the Earth? I don’t want to find out.
Scientists said if the asteroid, which is considered small because it’s no more than 200 feet wide, had impacted the Earth, it would have exploded on or near the surface with the force of a large nuclear blast.
It may not have wiped out life on this planet, but it would have been devastating for anybody or anything in its path. And who knows? Some trigger-happy government, including our own, may have believed it was an attack by another nation and retaliated. I’m sure this is unlikely, but you never know. Stranger things have happened.
It would be kind of neat if Hollywood would remake “Armageddon” knowing we wouldn’t have enough time to get Willis, Norris, Sylvester Stallone or some other action star to save us, and instead make it a movie that suddenly ends literally because life ends. Most people would probably find this to be a bad ending, but given the context of the original movie and the facts of reality, it would be humorously cool.
Of course, we may not have to wait for such a remake, as this scenario may become a reality. The asteroid that missed us is likely to be drawn in by Earth’s gravity, according to scientists, meaning it may miss us again in the future, or it may eventually hit us. Maybe we should start preparing now. We’ll have to get Norris out of those infomercials and in an astronaut training facility. Mankind may be in his hands.