Even if I returned to the crew and we went back through the rift immediately, we wouldn't have enough time to return to earth and develop a strategy for redirecting the asteroid.
There just wasn't enough time.
We had to redirect it soon. It was still far enough away that if we make even a slight change it it's path. it could miss Terra Durom entirely. Unfortunately we don't have anything with enough range to get out far enough and intercept the asteroid. By the time we got to it, any change in trajectory would be insignificant and it would still strike the earth.
This has been an event that we have speculated on back home. We have developed different strategies for dealing with such an event, but nothing seemed like it would do the trick. Blowing it up wouldn't work, we would just have several hundred asteroids falling to earth instead of just one, plus radiation from the blast. Redirection was the only way.
The problem with that was we would have to land on the asteroid and use some sort of engine to propel it off of it's course. But where would we get the fuel to do so. We would probably use all of it up just getting there.
There had to be another way.
