This story from Slashdot, on a new system that could be used to try and take out a rogue asteroid headed for Earth.
A killer asteroid, the kind of space rock that did in the dinosaurs, is on a collision course with Earth. A fleet of nuclear-powered robots races to the rescue. Humanity’s survival hangs in the balance.
By the second bag of popcorn, swarms of robotic MADMEN — short for Modular Asteroid Deflection Mission Ejector Nodes — are descending on the doomsday rock. They attack like hungry dragonflies, gouging out chunks and hurling them into space with such force that the asteroid is slowly nudged into a new trajectory. The shift averts the ultimate catastrophe. The human race survives.