Everyone has been very hard on Michael Griffin, NASA’s director, about his comments to NPR. (In case you’ve missed them, Stephen Colbert mocked him mercilessly, as is his wont.)

But they’re all missing something. I think Michael Griffin knows a secret. Remember [this story][], where former Astronaut Rusty Schweickart criticized the NASA report on Near Earth Objects? “Schweickart reported that by 2019 asteroid watchers will have on the books upwards of 10,000 objects with a non-zero probability of impacting Earth.” I think Griffin’s found one, headed straight for us, and we’re not ready. Why worry about global warming when an [extinction event][] is right around the corner? I think Griffin wants to ignore global warming and divert the money to building a [giant escape ship][] in which the [DNA of all living creatures][] is stored…