Nice work! My final score was 120. My strategy was just to drift slowly, spinning in a circle spamming the fire key--basically a death blossom. Didn't work any better than it did in Asteroid back in the day. ^_^

In addition to the improvements you already mentioned, I'd suggest some kind of visual representation of when you lose a life. Right now, without checking the counter, I found it very difficult to tell the difference between getting hit and shooting an asteroid at close range.

Sorry to hear the class wasn't very good.