He was wearing a large oblong backpack and looked for all the world like a millennial Ghostbuster. And then I remembered what was going on. I'd seen this headline: "Help Defend the Planet by Detecting Infamous Asteroid Apophis!" and was naturally intrigued. Actually, it was my wife who was even more stirred. She's a scientist whose idea of relaxation is to scroll through Space Instagram. The dire planet defense warning -- and encouragement for citizen scientists to come together for mankind -- had come via a company called Unistellar. It's the creator of the eVscope, a digital telescope that has "unprecedented power and simplicity." If only America could claim the same.