NASA lacks funds to find killer asteroids

Here-Here Bart! I agree totally!

The explosion alone could have with the power of 100 million tons of dynamite, enough to devastate an entire state, such as Maryland, they said.

What have they got against poor Maryland?

How many states can you buy for $1B ? 0.0001 maybe or less? 1 Billion to help safeguard against destruction of a state sounds awfully cheap in those terms. I know once you find them the real spend starts (on deflection).

Courtesy of Nature, March 15:


Scientists plan defence against asteroids
News in brief


There's no doubt that a space rock slamming into Earth could cause substantial damage, but exactly what humans should do about the threat has not yet been decided. That's why scientists gathered for the Planetary Defense Conference in Washington DC on 5–8 March. Their aim was to compose a white paper on the subject — the first to be mandated by the US Congress.

Scientists at the conference said that it would cost about US$1 billion to find at least 90% of the 20,000 estimated potential Earth-killers by 2020, and discussed how a space rock on a collision course might be deflected. Options range from using spacecraft as 'tugboats' to drag an object into a new orbit, to proposals that rely on nuclear detonations to knock a rock off target — similar to the strategy used against a comet in the 1998 film Deep Impact (pictured). The white paper will be published at www.aero.org/conferences/planetarydefense .

Apophis ain't gonna hit us, I wouldn't worry about it.
The mission to Mars will be history as soon as George W is deposed after the next election.

I did a talk on this subject at my university back in 1998 and was briefly part of a small asteroid hunting group. I haven't really paid much attention since around 2001. Here's a link to my paper, but it is in danish whome.phys.au.dk/~mikkelbo/kollokvium/index.html .

What I think is interesting is that these days the politicians are talking about global warming and the effects it does to the Earth, and we are spending millions on research and things trying to limit the bad effects of this global warming. But an asteroid impact is much more dramatic. It goes to show, that as long as we can't visualize the problem, we don't really care much about it. (The global warming people also faced that problem for a long time).

Even the great comet impact on Jupiter in 1994 could not shake the World's politicians awake. A close call is what we need. (But not too close of course :shock:).

*duck and cover*

Oh by the way, one of the biggest problems is, that these suckers don't emit any light themselves. So even a 100% survey of the heavens wouldn't be enough be find them all. They could be hiding in the shadows. I'm not too worried about the ones we have spotted already. I'm more worried about the ones we haven't---and won't.

Apophis ain't gonna hit us, I wouldn't worry about it.
The mission to Mars will be history as soon as George W is deposed after the next election.

Current theoretic models suggest it MAY not hit in 2036. After 2029, give our take a year or 2, we'll have a better understanding of what threat the 2036 pass will have.

Don't forget, mathematics might be able to show a prediction for the 2036 encounter, but Nature wins overall every time. We just don't know 100% what influence Earth will have on the the 2029 pass... until it happens!

Seanie.