 And, well, it was nice knowing you. NASA's own scientists couldn't prevent a direct hit. Even using their new DART system that sends a rocket up to nudge the space rock out of orbit, the scientists found a lot of holes in their plan, even for a pretend scenario where they had 14 years to prepare for an asteroid direct hit. The good news is NASA says they can work on getting better as long as nothing is aiming straight for us anytime soon.