A renowned Scientist from the Goddard Space Flight Center in NASA, Joseph Nuth, stated in the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union held at San Francisco that governments should start preparing for an Extinction Level Event. He even claimed that with the current state of things, governments are not even close to being prepared for the next cataclysmic event since the ELE that killed the dinosaurs.

Despite the continued aggressive effort of NASA to develop plans and strategies to enhance threat identification and tracking and to come up with options for planetary defense and danger mitigation, the Government agency is still far from being prepared to face an ELE head on.

According to Nuth, an Extinction Level Event is inevitable and that the only question now is when will it happen. An asteroid or comet strike similar to that which occurred millions of years ago and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs is the most likely ELE scenario that Earth will face again. With this projection, Nuth suggested that NASA should build two spacecraft for the sole purpose of protecting the earth against an ELE. The first spacecraft shall be used as an observer spacecraft while the second should be armed with the capability of carrying a nuclear bomb and will be sent to outer space to intercept a comet or asteroid which poses a highly conceivable threat to earth. Though this plan may sound like as hatched from the script of a Hollywood movie, Nuth said that it is one of the very few plausible means to prevent an ELE from happening.

Another possible way to prevent an ELE is to create a missile strong enough to reach the outer space and which will be launched from earth. If NASA believes that the current movement of a comet or asteroid will eventually cause danger to earth the missile will be launched to attempt to change the trajectory of that comet or asteroid.