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Although scares associated with potential Earth impacts by specific comets and asteroids date back to quite early in the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, respectively (e.g. ), the era of “modern” impact scares is frequently considered to have begun with the 1997 XF11 incident in early 1998 (cf. ). Both cited papers discuss that particular incident, as well as some subsequent scares, but in my opinion the second account contains errors. In fact, I published a very detailed “discourse” on 1997 XF11 several years ago (). That paper fully acknowledges that mistakes were made, by several people, in the manner the 1997 XF11 situation was handled at that time.

Astronomy may be the purest of sciences, but even astronomy must interface with the rest of society. First, society influences astronomy: Astronomical research is largely supported by public funds, and political priorities decide which of our favorite projects may become reality. And waste from human activity increasingly limits our ability to distinguish the faint signals from the Universe from such human-generated interference as light pollution, space junk, and radio noise from the ground and from space.

In the last six years, COSPAR has organized consecutively three NEOs-related meetings in its General Assemblies. The main purpose was to focus the attention of the scientific community to the potential impact hazards of NEOs to the global society. If we look back at the presentation materials in these meetings, they could be collected into several categories mirroring the responses on this critical issue. They are: (1) awareness of the threat; (2) analysis of the threat; (3) mitigation of the threat; and (4) utilization of the threat. The last item came about at the end of the NEOs session in COSPAR’s General Assembly in Paris on July 21, 2004. As a final round up of the meeting, several young scientists and PhD students were invited to a panel discussion on the study of NEOs in year 2030. Not surprisingly, the younger the researchers the more optimistic were their opinions. Instead of the roaming catastrophe brought about by an asteroidal or cometary impact, these young researchers were considering topics such as mining of the asteroids and how to build large-scale structures in space to accommodate such an enterprise. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned here. As we have heard from a Chinese saying that crisis could also mean opportunity, it might be of interest to assess what are the benefits (instead of gloomy images) to be derived from the present discussions in this volume.