So close:

USGS confirms meteor over Metro Detroit, causing magnitude 2.0 earthquake

Imagine if the meteor had plowed into Detroit proper and gone off with a sizable and city-trashing “bang.” What would Americas response to that have been? Well, there’d be those like myself and, presumably, a good fraction of the readership of this blog, who would say to whoever would listen: “See? I’ve been telling you for years that the United States has needed a robust Space Force, preferably powered by Orion engines or something even better, out there in GEO and beyond, on the constant prowl for threats to the nation both from foreign powers and incoming impactors.”

But you *know* that there’d be another, louder contingent of people who would scream that “the cis white supremacist patriarchy” caused the asteroid to hit Detroit. The end result of that would be further demands that science and engineering be dumbed-down even more. In the end, the result of a  “falling star” would be that the fields of endeavor that could actually prevent more such disasters would be turned into little more than ineffectual horoscope analysis and navel gazing aimed at making practitioners feel good about their over-inflated and undeserved self esteem.

So, strange as it may seem to say, perhaps it’s best that Detroit *wasn’t* blown up by an impactor. Huh.