Planetary Defense: Protecting Earth from Asteroids

securitas writes "Space.com has published a feature about developing a planetary defense against catastrophic comet and asteroid impacts. The story arises from the aptly named 'Planetary Defense Conference: Protecting Earth from Asteroids' held in California February 23-26. The article discusses potential methods to prevent an impact, the need for study missions to comets and asteroids, the to-date haphazard approach to monitoring Near Earth Objects (NEOs), and the NASA/US Air Force Spaceguard Survey, which aims to discover and track 90% of 'Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) with a diameter greater than 0.6 miles (1-kilometer) by 2008.' Some ideas for anti-impact technologies to develop include gas blasts, nuclear detonations, ramming microsatellites, lasers, mass drivers and gravitational tractor beams. The most disturbing message from the conference? 'It may take a celestial body hit to Earth' before governments take any meaningful steps to address this danger. Mirror at USA Today."

Comments

Sounds like...

[Anonymous Coward]

...just another way to gain support for weapons in space.

Now they will protect us from terrorists and ass)steroids. Shucks, I'd be stupid NOT to support putting weapons in space.

And so it happens again:

[Freston Youseff]

America destined to save the world yet again.

Re:Take over

[Anonymous Coward]

The Xindi xucks!