Can anyone comment on why we don't have a handful satellites sprinkled with cameras pointing at all directions orbiting the Earth and feeding data down for analysis? Perhaps it's not much, but something is better than nothing. The excuse that this meteor wasn't spotted because it came from the sun side is laughable.
There are a lot of asteroids in the Solar System. Millions. The solar system is huge. It's not laughable that this one wasn't seen - it was extremely tiny.
Most asteroids that we can detect we do not have the technology to deflect unless we discover them decades before impact. Even then, deflecting them is all theoretical and would be a monumental technological undertaking, as it has never been attempted before.
Sounds like a wonderful Kickstarter project. Seriously though, the cost/benefit ratio isn't worth it for detecting stuff this small. "Worst in 100 years" and there was virtually no damage.
True. There are programs actively looking for larger objects though, that you can donate to if you're interested. This is the one that found 2012 DA14 which will be passing us shortly:
