mk: >Sooner or later human civilization must confront the asteroid/comet collision hazard or become extinct. Dealing with interplanetary collision hazards over a period of centuries or millennia will naturally take our spacefaring society further out into the solar system — if for nothing else, to improve surveillance of incoming comets. As technology advances and the life-span of our species (and its successors) lengthens, a slow outward transition from interplanetary travel towards cometary source regions and interstellar spaceflight seems conceivable.Damn, Sagan was the best.
As far as the dangers due to asteroid deflection for research and mining, I think one approach would be to practice it around Venus. That would definitely give us a greater margin of error. -Oops, we accidentally asteroided Venus. :/