Good point: it would be much cheaper to disbelieve scientists so you could ignore it. Until, of course, it's too late. But after that, budgets don't matter anyway.

This is a really good article, calling attention to the Tanis work which most people probably missed.

The show should have had it hitting in 50 years instead of 6 months. If it were due in 6 months, there would be provably not a damn thing anybody could do except dig a hole to hide for 10 or 1000 years until things settle down a little. With 50 years it is just barely conceiveable that something useful could be done if they started immediately.