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ATLAS Meteor Tracking System Gets $5M NASA Funding

Posted by samzenpus on from the eye-on-the-sky dept.

An anonymous reader writes "After a huge meteor recently exploded over Chelyabinsk (population 1,130,132), Russia, NASA has approved $5 million for funding for ATLAS project (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System). From the article: '"There are excellent ongoing surveys for asteroids that are capable of seeing such a rock with one to two days' warning, but they do not cover the whole sky each night, so there's a good chance that any given rock can slip by them for days to weeks. This one obviously did," astronomer John Tonry of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii told NBC News Friday.'"

4 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. NASA didn't just hand over the $5 million by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    They applied for a grant in 2011 and it was approved then. This summary implies that NASA has been scrambling this weekend to fund something in the wake of the Russian meteor explosion. The project has been in the works for YEARS.

    http://www.fallingstar.com/nasa_funding.php

    1. Re:NASA didn't just hand over the $5 million by Alex+Pennace · · Score: 5, Interesting

      So you're saying that the timing is just a coincidence?

      It passes the sniff test. Consider the possible scenarios:

      1. As per http://www.fallingstar.com/nasa_funding.php, this has been in the works since 2011, grant money was released in January 2013, and only now is the mainstream media reporting on it.
      2. An American bureaucracy approves a $5 million grant within three days, two of which are Saturday and Sunday.
      3. There was already a fully-working secret skunkworks detection system that knew months ahead of time that Chelyabinsk Oblast would be grazed by a meteor, and they kept it a secret knowing there would be a lot of grant money headed their way; the only person they told was cousin Igor back in Russia who was ideally positioned to do brisk business in underwear and trouser sales

      Which scenario is the most plausible?

  2. Getting to 24-48 hr advance warning by relikx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The ATLAS system's funding is a step in the right direction but as the article mentions the southern pole would remain a blind spot. Still, having one to two day's notice for an affected area would go a long way. We seem to have most of the >150m asteroids located through current efforts but that still leaves thousands or millions of undetected objects capable of wiping out a city and causing further catastrophe for nuclear facilities. The cost vs. benefit seems evident, better late than never.

    1. Re:Getting to 24-48 hr advance warning by Burdell · · Score: 5, Informative

      For something like this (where nobody died), you wouldn't attempt an evacuation. I believe that most of the injuries were from broken glass and other falling debris; it would be enough to warn people to either get outside (away from buildings, trees, and other objects that could be blown around by a shock wave) or to stay inside away from windows.