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The Underfunded, Disorganized Plan To Save Earth From the Next Giant Asteroid

Posted by Soulskill on from the how's-that-space-program-coming-along dept.

New submitter citadrianne sends a story about the beginnings of our asteroid defense efforts, and how initial concern over an asteroid strike wasn't sustained long enough to establish consistent funding: Until a few decades ago, the powers that be didn't take the threat of asteroids very seriously. This changed on March 23, 1989, when an asteroid 300 meters in diameter called 1989FC passed within half a million miles of Earth. As the New York Times put it, "In cosmic terms, it was a close call." After this arguably close brush with total annihilation, Congress asked NASA to prepare a report on the threat posed by asteroids. The 1992 document, "The Spaceguard Survey: Report of the NASA International Near-Earth-Object Detection Workshop," was, suffice it to say, rather bleak.

If a large NEO were to hit Earth, the report said, its denizens could look forward to acid rain, firestorms, and an impact winter induced by dust being thrown miles into the stratosphere. ... After reports from the National Research Council made it clear that meeting the discovery requirement outlined in the Congressional mandate was impossible given the lack of program funding, NEOO got a tenfold budget increase from 2009 to 2014. Yet it still faces a number of difficulties. A program audit released last September described the NEOO program as a one-man operation that is poorly integrated and lacking in objectives and oversight.

4 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. What plan? by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A plan to save us from NEOs would require some ability to actually reach an NEO before it hit.

    Since we're not working to develop that capability, pretty much anything else we do is irrelevant....

    --

    "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    1. Re:What plan? by arth1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A plan to save us from NEOs would require some ability to actually reach an NEO before it hit.

      Not necessarily. We could find a way to jump some of us aside, or heat up one side of it with lasers from afar, or burrow until the crisis is over, or have congress declare it a non-problem, or have religious people pray for a miracle.

      I think the simplest solution is the better one. Let them hit. Evolution will take care of the aftermath. It already has weeded out large landbound reptiles that can't take the heat (or the cold) due to meteor strikes. If the Yucatan big boy hadn't hit, there might have been scaly beings in charge now. Other than lawyers, I mean.

  2. More to the point by rnws · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Given that these sorts of events have consequences on a planetary scale and that little things like nation-states mean absolutely nothing if we lose the species, why the hell isn't this an international effort? Why does the USA have to do all the grunt-work? (I'm not a yank BTW). This really is something I could get behind the UN for actually doing something useful lately. (The UN has done SFA of use since eradicating smallpox).

  3. Re:Gov program performs audit to ask for more mone by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    >> *One-man* government program writes his own audit to ask for more money.

    You laugh, but in ten years, if this went through as a US Government program I'd fully expect to see:

    * Undersecretary of NEO Defense
    * 2 Directors of NEO Defense (Homeland and Foreign)
    * 5 staff assistants for Undersecretary and Directors
    * 5 NEO Program Managers and a $20M technology budget
    * 2 NEO Project Managers to handle the implementation (and expected missed deadlines)
    * Full salaries, benefits and pensions for everyone, plus the original guy who has now retired
    * ...and still only one man actually doing any work.