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First Dedicated Asteroid-Tracking Satellite Will Be Canadian
cylonlover writes "In the wake of the meteor blast over Russia and the close-quarter flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14 last week, many people's thoughts have turned to potential dangers from above. It is timely then that the Canadian Space Agency will next week launch NEOSSat (Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite), the world's first space telescope for detecting and tracking asteroids, satellites and space debris."
The meteor incident in Russia has spurred interested in asteroid defense across the globe; donations are pouring in for asteroid-related projects, government officials are making a show of seeming interested, and researchers are stepping up their efforts. Unfortunately, as a related article at Wired notes, we're still a long, long way from having anything more than early warning systems. Quoting: "A new endeavor coming online in 2015 named the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System Project (ATLAS) will provide an early warning system that could provide one week’s notice for city-destroying 45-meter asteroids and three week’s notice for potentially devastating 140-meter objects. ... A more targeted effort comes from the B612 Foundation, which plans to launch the Sentinel telescope in late 2016. This spacecraft would sit inside the orbit of Venus and constantly be on the lookout for killer asteroids, whichever direction they come from. Sentinel will spot nearly all asteroids 150 meters or larger and identify a significant portion of those down to 30 meters in diameter."
Humanity survives 100,000 years without being annihilated by meteors, but now a meteor has struck in Russia and we need to panic and have a meteor defense system up in 10 years? Sorry, but the probabilities have not changed. If you want to save humanity, focus on eliminating bio-weapons and nuclear weapons. Those are the threats that could eliminate humanity in 50 years. Meteors--probably not*.
* And I know that I'm going to be flamed by those who say "what if". The same argument has been used to sink nuclear power and support anti-terrorism policies. Risk management means evaluating even catastrophic risks in deterministic terms--i.e. there is no absolute values (yes/no).