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The Underfunded, Disorganized Plan To Save Earth From the Next Giant Asteroid
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.
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.
Is that one man Bruce Willis? I think we're safe if it is.
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....
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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).
>> *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 ...and still only one man actually doing any work.
* 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
*
You laugh at that, but with private corporations, sometimes things aren't much better. At one point in time, for about 4 months, I was the only person managing all the systems for around 250 branch banking offices in Japan for Citigroup. 1 person. This included the servers, diskless clients, and printers for them all. Across 3 data centers for load balancing and redundancy, so, counting spares, nearly 1000 servers. Stress level was increased until I quit.
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Let's blast 2034FC once and for all! Our Kickstarter will raise money for, construct, and launch a series of nuclear missiles to knock 2034FC out of its collision course with Earth once and for all. By pledging with us, you don't just get to be a part of saving multi-cellular life on Earth, you'll be eligible for these cool rewards!
* $100 - "I saved Earth. What did you do?" T-shirt
* $200 - As above, plus a poster showing a telescope view of the first detonation.
* $300 - T-shirt plus a series of posters showing each detonation that you can wrap around your room as a panorama. Wow!
* $500 - Invite to a local "We saved Earth!" party on the launch date!
* $1000 - You get to pick the super-motivational song your local party plays while watching live video of the launch.
* $5000 - A flight to the launch site to watch in-person! Holey moley!
* $10000 - As above, but including box seats at the launch site!
* $25000 - VIP access with exclusive T-shirts, complimentary drinks, and a keychain!
* $100,000 - VIP access, plus we laser-engrave your name on the surface of the asteroid as it passes, forever immortalizing you as a savior of Earth!