At first, this sounded like a report from a pseudo-scientific humorous newspaper, but it's a real competition and the plan is stunningly sensible. The idea is to paint the asteroid white, changing how the rays from the sun affect it - changing it's trajectory - so it doesn't hit us. (Yes, they are doing this for a reason - there is an asteroid headed our way, it will be close to Earth in 2029 and again in 2036.)
I've just been battling piles of paper. There is always more paper. More junk mail. More things you printed in error, and have to shred. More requests from charities, so you have to shred the mail because it has your address on it. More junk mail. And every once in a while a very important piece of paper.
It's that one very important piece of paper that is the main problem. You can't just get rid of all of the mail at quick swoop. You have to see if that important piece is inside the mountain of junk.
It's quite demoralizing, because you know you've lost at least one important piece of mail in the past and you don't want to do it again. So you pile the paper up to do something with it later. And then you start another pile because the first one is in danger of toppling.
But this goes on for way too long.
Finally, you have to spend a day covered in paper, sorting it, and searching for that all important piece.
So why can't we hit the asteroid with paper? Send it mountains of mail. It's mostly white, so that could deflect the sun like the paintball plan, and it's bloody depressing to boot. It should be depressing enough to be a cosmic downer. We can demoralize the asteroid into stopping and giving up by covering it with paper.
I think it's a good plan.
