Inside the Boardroom with Alan Bagley - SETI Institute

Astrobiology
Artist’s Concept of Deep Impact’s
Encounter with Comet Tempel 1
NASA/JPL/UMD
Reacting to Disaster
by Douglas Vakoch
The scenario is familiar from Hollywood blockbusters
like Armageddon and Deep Impact. A massive asteroid
– perhaps ten miles in diameter – is headed straight
for Earth. An all-out effort to deflect it is mounted. If
the mission succeeds, civilization as we know it will
continue.
But if natural human reactions to threats interfere, the ending
could be far from uplifting. If fear and denial postpone an adequate
response, dust and debris could make the daytime sky look like
night, the Earth’s surface could be razed by a global firestorm, and
tsunamis could obliterate coastal cities.
In theory, threats from space may be detected far in advance
of their arrival, giving plenty of time to deflect them (see pages
10 - 11) or at least prepare for the aftermath. But that’s in theory.
“What we may actually get,” says psychologist Albert Harrison, “is
an obsessive focus on a very constricted range of options, a refusal
to consider or integrate new data, defensiveness that prevents decision
makers from appreciating threats and developing alternatives,
and panicky, ineffective last-minute choices.”
The result would be devastating. “In some respects,” Harrison
suggests, “post-impact Earth may resemble an off-world destination:
a dangerous place bombarded with harmful forms of radiation,
a toxic atmosphere, and little or no useful vegetation.” If some
part of humanity survives, its future may be bleak. In the case of
extreme destruction,
Harrison says, “hopes
generated by looking
forward to emerging
from shelter will be overpowered
by the realities
of living on a dead and
barren planet.”
The Human
Response
As a social psychologist
at the University of
California at Davis,
Harrison has long
contemplated the impact
of space, ranging from longduration
spaceflights to
the societal implications of
12
SETI Institute Explorer