NASA to formulate asteroid defense plan

Congress cites NASA 's “unique competence” to deal with hazard

Esa / Deimos Space

This artwork depicts the climax of an asteroid deflection mission titled Don Quijote, currently being planned by the European Space Agency. An impactor named Hidalgo would hit the target asteroid while another spacecraft named Sancho watches the impact from a safe distance.

By Leonard David

Senior Space Writer

updated 3:30 p.m. ET June 28, 2006

VAIL, Colo. - NASA has begun a fact-finding appraisal of how best to detect, track, catalog and characterize near-Earth asteroids and comets — and what can be done to deflect an object found on course to strike our planet.

The need to prepare is being highlighted this week as astronomers watch a large asteroid that will pass close to Earth on July 3.

Experts from a variety of fields are here this week at a NASA workshop on "Near-Earth Object Detection, Characterization and Threat Mitigation." The meeting is a unique, “idea gathering” event being carried out under direction of Congress. The intent is to provide lawmakers with an “executable program” — but also one that will clearly need funds to implement that program in an orderly and timely fashion.

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NASA is on a fast track to give Congress an initial report by year’s end that will include an analysis of possible alternatives for diverting an object on a likely collision course with Earth.

Congress has tagged NASA to use its “unique competence” to deal with the potential hazard faced by Earth from such celestial wanderers, in order to help establish a warning and mitigation strategy.

Another chief agenda item on the table is putting in place the survey skills to spot near-Earth objects, or NEOs, that are equal to or greater than 460 feet (140 meters) in diameter. In plotting out that survey program, the merits of ground-based and space-based equipment are to be mulled over to achieve 90 percent completion of a NEO catalog within 15 years.

Global problem, not just national
This week’s gathering is viewed by many as a turning point in shaping a NEO action plan.

“It is historic in the sense that it’s the first time the U.S. government has ever had a formal interest in the problem, in the global problem, that is, in the detection, tracking and beginning to look at the mitigation issues. I think that’s very significant,” said William Ailor of The Aerospace Corp., who is on the workshop’s mitigation working group.

A similar view is held by Russell Schweickart, former Apollo astronaut and chairman of the B612 Foundation. This group consists of scientists, technologists, astronomers, astronauts and other specialists who want to significantly alter the orbit of an asteroid in a controlled manner by 2015.

“This is really the first time that NASA will have ever put the words NASA and asteroid deflection together internally … so it’s a very positive move,” Schweickart told Space.com in a pre-workshop interview. He later advised workshop participants that “this isn’t a national issue … this is a planetary issue.”

Schweickart added that, given the likely scenario of decades of warning time, “this is not a last-minute search-and-destroy mission.”

CONTINUED : Unfriendly fire

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