Here's the old bad news" Killer asteroids and comets are lurking stealthily in our solar system. There are about 20,000 of them which pose a threat to our lives. The good news is that NASA says it can detect these space monsters and devise a plan to save life on Earth as we know it.

Here's the new bad news: Washington says that even if NASA reduces its proposed budget by 70 percent, the answer is still no and the plan is denied the funding necessary to save us all. It leaves NASA - and the rest of the world - sightless to defend itself. Simon "Pete" Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center said "We know what to do, we just don't have the money."

After reports rattled the world of an asteroid which may hit the Pacific ocean in 2008 were released and debunked, the U.S. congress ordered NASA to devise a way to track down such threats and propose a way to avoid a catastrophe. NASA did just that, and the budget proposed rings to the tune of one billion dollars.

Asteroids that measure 460 feet in diameter are considered threats. To contextualize just what kind of horrors can happen if one enters the atmosphere, NASA had this to say:

Even if the asteroid burns up and shatter to pieces in the atmosphere, the particles raining down can obliterate a small American state like Maryland. If it hits the ocean, colossal tidal waves will follow, and if it's big enough to land intact for deep impact, the blast can rival the one that supposedly wiped the dinosaurs from the face of the Earth.

The best and fastest way to track asteroids is through a space infrared telescope which will cost about 1.1 billion dollars. A cheaper 800-million dollar solution is to mount a new telescope to one of NASA's existing telescopes. The cheapest is to cooperate with other agencies around the world and mount the new telescope into one of theirs. That would bring the cost down to 300-million dollars.

Washington, however, still says that all the solutions are too costly. John Logsdon, space policy director at George Washington University emphasized the need to keep track of these space-based threats and concluded "you can't deflect them if you can't find them."

Three weeks from now, NASA will be launching space shuttle Discovery and an astronaut crew into space in the STS-121 mission. This is another attempt by the agency to save its ailing and aging shuttle program. Blastoff is scheduled for July 1 from the Kennedy Space Center in Central Florida, though the launch window can remain open until July 19.

Space engineers have been busy prepping the Discovery and ensuring that the tragedy of Columbia will never happen again. The engineers have made sure that there are no foam debris in Discovery and they recently discovered a faulty electrical box that they are working on. If you would recall, an almost 2 pounds of foam debris in the heat shield caused the untimely demise of the shuttle Columbia and its crew.

But still, they offer no assurance even if they are backed by twenty-five years of flight experience. Four years before the program is scheduled to end, NASA officials still consider the shuttle an "experimental vehicle." According to Wayne Hale, NASA's shuttle program manager, "this is a risky vehicle to fly...There are a number of things that can cause a bad outcome with this vehicle. What we have done is...try to reduce the risk."

Two years and $1.5 billion in modifications later, NASA launched Discovery last summer, only to discover that large chunks of foam again peeled away from the tank. That crew landed safely, but only pure luck prevented another accident, engineers said. "We have made the largest aerodynamic change to this tank that we have ever made since we began flying 25 years ago," Hale said.

If, God forbid, another major incident occur, NASA's run might just come to an end. According to John Logsdon, one of the members of the board that investigated the Columbia tragedy and director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University - "another major incident would probably lead to the [permanent] grounding of the fleet".

Even amidst unsure and risky scenarios, Discovery's astronauts said they still have faith in the shuttle and in NASA engineers. STS-121 mission specialist Lisa Nowak said, "it's been a long wait, but it's worth the wait...I feel that we're prepared and ready to go." We wish them all the luck in the world, they will surely need it.