Human curiosity altered an orbit of an asteroid

I am sure that all of my readers are aware of the cause of the end of the dinosaur era. It was caused 66 million years ago by a massive asteroid 10 to 15 km wide, which devastated the global environment, mainly through a lingering impact winter which halted photosynthesis in plants and plankton.

If a similar asteroid would land on earth, it would mean the end of human civilization, if not even the presence of humans on the planet. Therefore it has been considered as one of the most frightening threats to our future.

Two weeks ago NASA succeeded in altering an orbit of an asteroid using a spacecraft. The achievement showed that  humans could redirect future celestial threats to our planet, and allows us to forget about the threat caused by uninvited asteroids.

The physics and technology allowing the NASA achievement should also be considered as evidence on the importance of curiosity driven science. Without our will to find and learn about the true nature of stars, space and planets, we would have never heard about the possibility to alter orbits of asteroids. 

And actually, we would not even know that asteroids existed - nor that one of those would have been responsible on the disappearance of dinosaurs. And well, without human curiosity we would not even know that dinosaurs lived more than 60 million years ago. 

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Scientific community discriminates its youngsters
Should forbidden questions be answered or not?
Vikings and the technological cutting edge