what would be our first response
My first response would be to shuffle this thread towards the off topic board (sometime tonight, at least)
My second would be to say "so now are you going to pay attention when we say we need more science funding?"
The situation right now is that we've plenty of ideas to deal asteroids, but no implementation of them. A private company might be able to come along and get things moving quickly, but governments tend not to, despite the possibility.
But, in their defence, it is only a possibility at this time. There is, as you say, no threat right now, and even those on the radar, or more accurately on the risk list have risks so small as to effectively be no risk at all, so there's no rush. But we'd always like to have something tucked away in a shed somewhere, in case of emergency, so to speak.
