The tabletop simulation presented a hypothetical scenario in which cities like Dallas, Washington, DC, and Madrid were at risk of a large asteroid impact. "A large asteroid impact is potentially the only natural disaster humanity has the technology to predict years in advance and take action to prevent," Lindley Johnson, a NASA planetary defense officer emeritus, said in a press release. That's because they didn't think Congress would approve funding for a critical space mission to study the asteroid "unless impact became certain," NASA's summary said. Options for preventing an asteroid impact include shooting the asteroid with lasers, launching a nuclear bomb at it, or simply smacking a space probe into it to nudge it away from Earth. Participants weren't sure Congress would fund the mission unless the asteroid was a certain threat — not a 72% chance of threat.

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Persons: —, Lindley Johnson, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Anna Moneymaker, Ed Whitman, Johnson, Richard Binzel, Binzel, it's Organizations: Service, NASA, Business, Capitol, US State Department, FEMA, Defense Interagency, JHU, MIT, NASA DART, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, Academies, White Locations: Dallas , Washington, Madrid, Europe, Japan, Canada, North America, Africa