In the long human project of learning to live beneath an indifferent sky, Chinese aerospace researchers have proposed a two-stage strategy for asteroid defense — first piercing the rock, then detonating a nuclear device within it — a method that simulations suggest could triple the force of deflection compared to a surface blast. The work emerges not from belligerence but from a sober reckoning with the limits of gentler approaches: when warning time is short and the object is large, destruction may be the only form of protection available. It is a reminder that planetary defense, for all its