Comet Collision

William Pfaff (Commentary, Aug. 8) belittles an effort afoot in Congress to initiate a watch for comets with potential for collision with the Earth. After trotting out silly arguments about how unlikely this event is--and Jupiter’s recent unpleasantness shows it isn’t all that unlikely--he then quotes the usual theological cop-out about “God in his inscrutable wisdom” deciding that it’s time to destroy mankind and so we shouldn’t attempt to “thwart” him. (Somehow, that argument doesn’t ring true for me. If it were valid, why would we take antibiotics when we get sick?)

An encounter with even a relatively small comet or asteroid would probably terminate human life--and quite possibly all life--on this planet. Somehow, I think that it would be sadly ironic if mankind managed to avoid nuclear annihilation, only to fall victim to some bad cosmic joke like a cometary collision. To me, it makes sense to do whatever we can to save ourselves.

ROBERT S. HELFMAN

Los Angeles