The Most Essential Non-Essential Furloughed Government Workers Are NASA's Asteroid Watchers

What happens when ongoing political ineptitude forces the National Aeronautics and Space Administration into an information black hole? Armageddon, potentially.

I'm being somewhat hyperbolic. But thing is, I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that the brains behind NASA's Near Earth Object Program are arguably some of, if not the most "essential" "non-essential" government employees ordered to not come into work today on account of the federal budget impasse slash the government running out of money slash the American political system's knack for seemingly never, ever being able to get its shit together.

You'd think our elected geniuses in Washington would want to keep all channels of the national space agency's effort to identify and warn humankind about "potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that could approach Earth" open, right? Wrong:

In the event of government shutdown, we will not be posting or responding from this account. We sincerely hope to resume tweets soon.

— Asteroid Watch (@AsteroidWatch) October 1, 2013

Of course, being forced to suspend a Twitter account does not—I repeat, does not—equate to being forced to entirely power down:

To clarify: Many observatories, astronomers are watching the skies. Updated list of Near-Earth objects at http://t.co/mGzjwg6zQm

— Asteroid Watch (@AsteroidWatch) October 1, 2013

But you get my point, at least I hope you do. It might be just another Tuesday—and also NASA's 55th birthday. The existential threat of global obliteration via extremely-large space rock may still seem like it's ripped from the pages and screens of science fiction, but it is indeed very real. At the rate we're going, Ben fucking Affleck will save us all before Washington can say "I don't want to close my eyes".

@thebanderson