Yes, I had the same thought. I was actually surprised and happy that we managed to pull that off.
All my life I have had this weird thought: If someday aliens will come down and tell us to move some random huge mountain 10 miles to the left, in one month (it doesn't have to look the same). If we can't do it they will wipe us out. I wonder if we would be able to pull together and somehow do it. And then my mind thinks through all the crazy iterations of ways to start trying. I keep thinking that we will globally waste 2 weeks planning it.
I guess not everyone is threatened by death in Covid, but it does seem amazing some of the things we have been able to pull together during this.
Easy one. We all come together to agree that the mountain will be mapped 10 miles to the left relative to its current position. Everything else will also be shifted slightly to account for that.
An earth-destroying asteroid is the more realistic form of this. We could get anywhere from days to years of notice it was going to hit (if years, it would just be a probable hit) and have to put together our Armageddon/Deep Impact mission to divert it. There are plenty of papers published on what we could do and the idea has had millions of dollars in funding, but it would need billions. We're screwed if the notice period is days, but we'd have a good chance to build something in months.
All my life I have had this weird thought: If someday aliens will come down and tell us to move some random huge mountain 10 miles to the left, in one month (it doesn't have to look the same). If we can't do it they will wipe us out. I wonder if we would be able to pull together and somehow do it. And then my mind thinks through all the crazy iterations of ways to start trying. I keep thinking that we will globally waste 2 weeks planning it.
I guess not everyone is threatened by death in Covid, but it does seem amazing some of the things we have been able to pull together during this.