UN as Protector from Astroid Threats

Yeah, I'm not thinking that is plausible.

An asteroid may come uncomfortably close to Earth in 2036 and the United Nations should assume responsibility for a space mission to deflect it, a group of astronauts, engineers and scientists said on Saturday.

Astronomers are monitoring an asteroid named Apophis, which has a 1 in 45,000 chance of striking Earth on April 13, 2036.

Although the odds of an impact by this particular asteroid are low, a recent congressional mandate for NASA to upgrade its tracking of near-Earth asteroids is expected to uncover hundreds, if not thousands of threatening space rocks in the near future, former astronaut Rusty Schweickart said.

Not sure that makes sense. Considering that this project would cost a large amount of money, which would primarily come mostly from the US, and considering the level of corruption associated with UN projects, I don't really think I would want to place the existence of the planet into the hands of the UN.

They also discuss the "gravity tractor" in the article, which though interesting, is far from cheap. The maintenance of the vehicle would no doubt be huge, and just to have a system that would use gravity to deflect asteroids would require that its mass be very large as well. Moving large masses takes a lot of energy, and that equals a lot of money as well. It's a nice experiment, but I would think that you'd prefer to have a solution closer to what exists now for technology.

The UN? With their proven agility, I'd say you can pretty much forget that organization as being the responsible party.