26 January 2008

Impact Crater Chart


Internation Action on NEOS?
In addition, last year the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) established an Action Team on NEOs within its Scientific and Technical Subcommittee to encourage more international work on this issue. The Action Team is focused on identifying gaps in efforts and coordination within the international community, as well as recommending improvements.
Assisting in UN Legal Framework for International NEO Cooperation
SGAC is a member of Action Team 14 of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS). ASE will introduce a draft protocol in 2009 which will be the output of four workshops that conclude in late 2008. SGAC can help by taking this output to inform the COPUOS member states about its content and to answer any questions that might arise to ensure that by its introduction in 2009 the member states are informed and vote in favour of the draft protocol. Even if the final version of the draft protocol will be finished a few months from now, we can already start our preparations. Please go to the forum and see our NEO resource site for more information.
The workshops will culminate in the presentation of a draft United Nations Protocol on NEO Deflection to the UN’s Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) in the spring of 2009. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=20596
"Duty is doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, without being told it needs to be done."
Lets hope that by then the DoD has formulated a coherent position. If not, one can only have contempt for such a lack of vision, ambition, failure of imagination, and negligence of what is clearly a wider responsibility. "