What did Don't Look Up predict?

A credible scientific warning of a catastrophic, shared threat is met with polarised disbelief, media framing as entertainment and political delay, split along party lines (arrived); A spacecraft can be sent to change the course of an incoming comet or asteroid, including by nuclear means, in the time a late warning allows (arriving); A private company mines a comet or asteroid for metals at a profit, and a government lets that prospect override a defence plan (near); A standing government office tracks hazardous objects and issues impact warnings, but cannot see everything, such as a long-period comet, far enough ahead (arrived).

When will Don't Look Up's predictions come true?

Nearfi estimates the next one around 2035.

P(n) Board › Don't Look Up

Prediction ledger · Film · 2021 · set in Unspecified near future (the film gives no year)

Did Don't Look Up come true?

Quick answer

Largely, yes. Don't Look Up (2021) has a P(n) of 81% on Nearfi's P(n) Board, our estimate of the chance its future arrives within 20 years. Of its 4 tracked predictions, 2 have arrived and 1 are arriving. Its central premise, 'A credible scientific warning of a catastrophic, shared threat is met with polarised disbelief, media framing as entertainment and political delay, split along party lines', has arrived. The next prediction is estimated to arrive around 2035.

Don't Look Up is most accurate about the human machinery around a warning: a standing planetary-defence office exists, and the partisan split over scientific alarms is well documented. Its physical science is better than its reputation, and a real spacecraft has since moved an asteroid. It is furthest from reality in its comet mine, and in assuming that a deflection mission could be built and launched within months.

Read the review · 6.6/10 →

P(n) · by 2046

81%

P50 · by 2076

98%

Here now

62%

Claims

Next likely arrival

2035

How this P(n) was calculated

P(n) is the chance that this work's future arrives within 20 years, by 2046. For each prediction we turn our estimate into a probability: arrived is 100%, diverged is 0%, and otherwise the low end of our 80% range counts as a 10% chance, the median year 50% and the high end 90%. Each prediction is weighted 1–5 by how pivotal it is to the story, and P(n) is the weighted average. P50 does the same by 2076. P(n), explained.

Claim	Prediction · why this weight	Weight	Status · estimate	By 2046	By 2076
DLU-1	A credible scientific warning of a catastrophic, shared threat is met with polarised disbelief, media framing as entertainment and political delay, split along party lines. Core premise: the comet is the backdrop, and the film is about why a warning is ignored.	5	ARRIVED arrived 2020	100%	100%
DLU-2	A spacecraft can be sent to change the course of an incoming comet or asteroid, including by nuclear means, in the time a late warning allows. Major: the abandoned deflection mission is the central choice the plot turns on.	4	ARRIVING 2035 (2030–2055)	72%	100%
DLU-3	A standing government office tracks hazardous objects and issues impact warnings, but cannot see everything, such as a long-period comet, far enough ahead. Supporting: the office is how the heroes learn the news and what sidelines them.	3	ARRIVED arrived 2016	100%	100%
DLU-4	A private company mines a comet or asteroid for metals at a profit, and a government lets that prospect override a defence plan. Major: the mining plan is why the deflection is cancelled and drives the second half.	4	NEAR 2045 (2035–2070)	52%	92%
	P(n) = P20 = Σ(weight × chance by 2046) ÷ Σ weight = 12.9 ÷ 16 = 81%
	P50 = 15.7 ÷ 16 = 98%

Already here today (arrived 1, arriving ½, weighted): 62%.

DLU-1

A credible scientific warning of a catastrophic, shared threat is met with polarised disbelief, media framing as entertainment and political delay, split along party lines.

ARRIVEDCore premiseArrived 2020Confidence: medium

Weight 5/5 · Core premise: the comet is the backdrop, and the film is about why a warning is ignored.

The pattern is documented on slower threats. Pew has found a gap of at least 51 percentage points between Democrats and Republicans on whether the US government is doing too little about climate change every time it has asked since 2018, and in 2020 found wide splits on whether human activity drives climate change. It has not been tested on a threat with a date on it. The film exaggerates the uniformity of the response: majorities in both parties back specific measures, so the disagreement is partly about who is speaking, not only about the facts. 1 2 3
DLU-2

A spacecraft can be sent to change the course of an incoming comet or asteroid, including by nuclear means, in the time a late warning allows.

ARRIVINGMajorEst. 2035 · range 2030–2055Confidence: medium

Weight 4/5 · Major: the abandoned deflection mission is the central choice the plot turns on.

NASA's DART spacecraft struck the 160-metre moonlet Dimorphos in September 2022 and shortened its orbit by about 32 minutes, against a minimum success target of 73 seconds. That settles the principle for a small rubble-pile asteroid. It does not show a kilometre-scale comet can be moved, nor that a mission can be built in months: DART took years. Nuclear deflection is untested and legally contested. We set the date for a standing, rapid-response capability, which no agency has promised. 4 5 6
DLU-3

A standing government office tracks hazardous objects and issues impact warnings, but cannot see everything, such as a long-period comet, far enough ahead.

ARRIVEDSupportingArrived 2016Confidence: high

Weight 3/5 · Supporting: the office is how the heroes learn the news and what sidelines them.

NASA set up its Planetary Defense Coordination Office in 2016, the same title the film gives Dr Oglethorpe's employer. NASA says no known asteroid larger than 140 metres has a significant chance of hitting Earth in the next 100 years. The gap the film dramatises is real too: long-period comets are not surveyed in the way near-Earth asteroids are, and a 1997 estimate by a JPL scientist put the warning at under a year. NASA's infrared NEO Surveyor, due no earlier than September 2027, is aimed at the wider gap but is a survey of asteroids, not a comet alarm. 7 8 9 10
DLU-4

A private company mines a comet or asteroid for metals at a profit, and a government lets that prospect override a defence plan.

NEARMajorEst. 2045 · range 2035–2070Confidence: low

Weight 4/5 · Major: the mining plan is why the deflection is cancelled and drives the second half.

US law since 2015 gives American citizens the right to own, sell and use resources they recover from an asteroid, and start-ups are trying. None has yet returned material or earned money from it: AstroForge lost contact with its first spacecraft in March 2025, and Planetary Resources, which led the field a decade ago, folded after failing to close a funding round in 2018. The second half of the claim, a government dropping a defence plan to chase minerals, has no real parallel, so this rates the mine, not the cancellation. 11 12 13

Evidence

FOR Americans Are Increasingly Pessimistic About Avoiding the Worst Effects of Climate Change. Pew Research Center, 2026-05-28. In March 2026, 87% of Democrats and 31% of Republicans said the federal government is doing too little on climate; the gap has been at least 51 points since 2018.
FOR Two-Thirds of Americans Think Government Should Do More on Climate. Pew Research Center, 2020-06-23. In 2020, 72% of Democrats but 22% of Republicans said human activity contributes a great deal to climate change.
AGAINST Two-Thirds of Americans Think Government Should Do More on Climate. Pew Research Center, 2020-06-23. The same survey found bipartisan majorities for specific measures, such as 88% of Republicans backing tree planting and 78% a tax credit for carbon capture.
FOR NASA Confirms DART Mission Impact Changed Asteroid's Motion in Space. Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, 2022-10-11. Dimorphos's orbit fell from 11 hours 55 minutes to 11 hours 23 minutes, a margin of about plus or minus 2 minutes.
AGAINST Momentum transfer from the DART mission kinetic impact on asteroid Dimorphos. Nature (via PubMed Central), 2023-03-01. The result is for one rubble pile, and Dimorphos's mass is poorly constrained, so the push could not yet be turned into a general rule.
AGAINST Impact of an asteroid on Earth: the need for legal clarifications. Leiden Law Blog, 2020-06-08. Argues that treaties, including the Partial Test Ban Treaty, bar nuclear blasts in space and that a planetary-defence weapon is still a weapon.
FOR Planetary Defense Overview. NASA, 2026-11-04. NASA established the Planetary Defense Coordination Office in 2016; there is no known asteroid over 140 m with a significant impact chance in the next 100 years.
AGAINST Long-Period Comets and the Oort Cloud. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (via NASA NTRS), 1997-01-01. Weissman says long-period comets can be spotted at about 5 AU, giving somewhat less than a year's warning, and that better detection is needed.
AGAINST How Meteor Showers Can Guide the Search for Long Period Comets. arXiv (Hemmelgarn, Moskovitz, Pilorz, Jenniskens), 2024-10-03. A 2024 paper says long-period comets mostly go unseen until they are inbound, so they give little advance notice.
CONTEXT The Real Science Behind the Movie Don't Look Up. Universe Today, 2021-12-28. The film's science consultant, Amy Mainzer, says surveys cover long-period comets less completely than asteroids, which are a bigger unknown.
FOR 51 U.S. Code Chapter 513: Space Resource Commercial Exploration and Utilization. US Government Publishing Office, 2023-01-01. A US citizen who recovers an asteroid or space resource is entitled to possess, own, transport, use and sell it, subject to applicable law including international obligations.
AGAINST AstroForge. Wikipedia, 2026-11-04. Records that AstroForge declared its Odin asteroid probe lost on 6 March 2025, and that a follow-up demonstration mission is planned.
AGAINST Planetary Resources. Wikipedia, 2026-11-04. Records that in 2018 the company failed to close a funding round, postponed its first prospecting mission indefinitely and was acquired by ConsenSys.

Ledger updated 4 Nov 2026. All works on the P(n) Board · Method