Can NASA, Air Force, and Private Industry Really Mitigate an Asteroid Threat?

coondoggie writes "There has been much chatter about the threat of an asteroid or significant meteor strike on Earth — mostly caused by the untracked meteor that blasted its way to international attention when it exploded in the sky above Russia injuring nearly 1,200 people in February. It was one of those amazing coincidences that on that same day an asteroid NASA had been tracking for months — asteroid 2012 DA14 — was to harmlessly cross Earth's path. Those events and the topic of mitigating asteroid and meteor or Near Earth Object threats to Earth prompted a couple congressional hearings by the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, the latest of which was held this week. None of the NEOs found to date have more than a tiny chance of hitting Earth in the next century. Thus the near-term risk of an unwarned impact from large asteroids, and hence the majority of the risk from all NEOs, has been reduced by more than 90%. Assuming none are found to be an impact threat, discovering 90% of the 140 meter sized objects will further reduce the total risk to the 99% level. By finding these objects early enough and tracking their motions over the next 100 years, even those rare objects that might be found threatening could be deflected using existing technologies."

Comments

The long-period comet problem

[symbolset]

This year comet Siding Spring was discovered that may hit Mars at over 200000 mph next year. If that was headed for Earth there is nothing we could do except have an extinction party.

Re:The long-period comet problem

[buchner.johannes]

Stegosaurus died out 150 million years ago, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event was 66 million years ago. Choose a dinosaur from the Cretaceous period, such as T-rex, Velociraptor, Triceratops or Pterosaur for your example, not one from the Late Jurassic.

Re:hypothesis

[Anonymous Coward]

...except that neither the Tunguska meteor nor the Chelyabinsk meteor came down during a time when Russia was, in fact, soviet.

This IS a mass extinction event

[PeterM from Berkeley]

We're already in a mass extinction event. We're wiping out species at a pace that, in a geological-time sense, is indistinguishable from a big asteroid strike or massive volcanic eruption.

And yes, humans are moronic. The kind of investment in humanity's immortality probably won't be made until someone has conquered the entire planet and subjugated the people to such an extent that he doesn't need a huge military budget--and then the effort will be made only if that is the world leader's whim, instead of, say, constructing monuments to himself.

--PM