Russia plans space project to prevent asteroid collision in the 2030s

Anatoly Perminov, head of Roscosmos,  tells Voice of Russia radio that  Moscow may invite experts from Europe, the United States and China to join the project aimed at thwarting the menacing asteroid Apophis.

"People's lives are at stake. We should pay several hundred million dollars and design a system that would prevent a collision, rather than sit and wait for it to happen and kill hundreds of thousands of people," Perminov says,  according to RIA Novosti news agency.

He says it is his understanding that the 850-foot asteroid "will surely collide with the Earth in the 2030s."

Russia is particularly sensitive to the threat from outer space because of a meteorite that struck a remote region of Siberia in 1908, leveling 80 million trees over an 830-square-mile area in an explosion estimated as equivalent to between 5 and 30 megatons of  TNT.

Perminov offers no hint as to how Russia plans to deal with Apophis, except to say it would not destroy the asteriod.

"No nuclear explosions (will be carried out), everything (will be done) on the basis of the laws of physics," he says.