Asteroid discovery from 1980 to 2010. Science fiction promised us a future in which a few brave men in small tin cans would have to go out and discover each one of them separately at great risk; instead it turns out high powered and not so high powered telescopes, lots of computers and the occasional unmanned probe are enough to discovered hundred of thousands of new asteroids in a few years…. A great age for scientific discovery, but not so heroic as we thought it should be…