31 October 2010

National Space Society Announces the Kalam-NSS Energy Initiative

From: http://www.nss.org/

National Space Society Announces the Kalam-NSS Energy Initiative
(Washington, DC -- October 30, 2010)
The National Space Society will hold a press conference Thursday, November 4 at the National Press Club to reveal one of the first initiatives ever undertaken by a non-profit American organization and a former head of state. That initiative pairs India's eleventh President, Dr. A.P.J. Kalam with America’s National Space Society. Its name? The Kalam-NSS Energy Initiative.
The Kalam-NSS Energy Initiative’s goals? To solve the global energy crisis. To solve the global carbon crisis. And to solve America’s next generation jobs crisis. How? By harvesting solar power in space.
Mark Hopkins, the CEO of the National Space Society, says, "The Kalam-NSS initiative is a transformative idea that can upshift the US and Indian economies by meeting the urgent global need for a scalable, carbon-neutral, green, 24-hr renewable power source. It is a game-changing technology that addresses energy security, sustainable development, climate change, and multinational cooperation." Concludes Dr. A.P.J. Kalam, "I am convinced that harvesting solar power in space can bring India and United States of America together in whole new ways. And I am certain that harvesting solar power in space can upgrade the living standard of the human race."

PRESS CONFERENCE! 4 NOV

Hope you can attend! Apparently both Dr. APJ Kalam and ISRO ISAT's PRESS CONFERENCE! 4 NOV The National Space Society will hold a press conference Thursday, November 4 at the National Press Club to reveal one of the first initiatives ever undertaken by a non-profit American organization and a former head of state. That initiative pairs India's eleventh President, Dr. A.P.J. Kalam with America’s National Space Society. Its name? The Kalam-NSS Energy Initiative. The Kalam-NSS Energy Initiative’s goals? To solve the global energy crisis. To solve the global carbon crisis. And to solve America’s next generation jobs crisis. How? By harvesting solar power in space. World electricity demand by the year 2035 is projected to increase by 87%. Renewable power generation systems (water, wind, solar, geothermal, etc.) will only meet 23% of that demand. According to Dr. A.P.J. Kalam, “By 2050, even if we use every available energy resource we have: clean and dirty, conventional and alternative, solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear, coal, oil, and gas, the world will fall short of the energy we need.” He adds that, “There is an answer… an energy source that produces no carbon emissions, an energy source that can reach to most distant villages of the world, and an energy source that can turn both countries into net energy and technology exporters.” It's space solar power. Dr. T.K. Alex, Director of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Satellite Centre, Bangalore, and leader of the Chandrayan-1 project that discovered water on the moon, and John Mankins, a 25-year NASA veteran considered the world’s leading authority on space solar power, will give the details via electronic feed, and National Space Society CEO Mark Hopkins will explain in person at the November 4th press conference. # # # Energy and India are hot topics. President Barack Obama is meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh November 7th and 8th. The two are committed to joint research and development on energy issues. The National Space Society and former Indian President Dr. Kalam believe that Obama and Prime Minister Singh should adopt space solar power as one long-term answer to their nations’ needs. To that end, the next step in the Kalam-NSS Energy Initiative will be a National Space Society joint Indian-American conference on space solar power at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, Alabama, May 18-22. Space solar power has the potential to reverse America’s half a trillion dollar a year balance of payments deficit and to generate a new generation of American jobs. Why? Space solar power is a source whose basic technology is already here. The United States has been harvesting solar power in space and transmitting it to Earth since 1962, when Telstar, the first commercial satellite, went up. That satellite, Telstar, looked like a beach ball encrusted with square medallions. The medallions were photovoltaic panels. And India has been harvesting solar energy in space since 1975, when its first satellite, Aryabhata A, went into orbit. Every square centimeter of Aryabhata’s exterior was tiled with solar panels. Today harvesting energy in space and transmitting it to Earth is a quarter of a trillion dollar industry…the commercial satellite business. You use solar energy harvested in space when you watch soccer games from other continents, when you tune into satellite TV or satellite radio, when you use the Global Positioning System (GPS), when you consult the pictures in Google Earth, and when you use your cell phone. Mark Hopkins, the CEO of the National Space Society, says, "The Kalam-NSS initiative is a transformative idea that can upshift the US and Indian economies by meeting the urgent global need for a scalable, carbon-neutral, green, 24-hr renewable power source. It is a game-changing technology that addresses energy security, sustainable development, climate change, and multinational cooperation." Concludes Dr. A.P.J. Kalam, “I am convinced that harvesting solar power in space can bring India and United States of America together in whole new ways. And I am certain that harvesting solar power in space can upgrade the living standard of the human race.” # # # Dr. T. K. Alex, who will be available to answer questions at this press conference, is the Director of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Satellite Centre, Bangalore. He led the Chandrayaan-1 project, the first Indian mission to the Moon, which resulted in the discovery of water on the Moon’s surface. Now he is guiding and directing the development of Chandrayaan-2 and sixteen new Indian satellites. John Mankins, who will also be available, is a 25-year NASA veteran who ran NASA’s most recent multi-million dollar study of space solar power. For more information, please contact Gary Barnhard at 202-420-1600 or gary.barnhard@nss.org When Thu, November 4, 9:30am – 11:00am GMT+05:30 Where National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor, Bloomberg Room Who (Guest list has been hidden at organizer's request) Dr. TK Alex will be present by phone. When: 9:30 am-11:00 am November 4, 2010 Where: National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor, Bloomberg Room From: http://www.nss.org/ National Space Society Announces the Kalam-NSS Energy Initiative (Washington, DC -- October 30, 2010) The National Space Society will hold a press conference Thursday, November 4 at the National Press Club to reveal one of the first initiatives ever undertaken by a non-profit American organization and a former head of state. That initiative pairs India's eleventh President, Dr. A.P.J. Kalam with America’s National Space Society. Its name? The Kalam-NSS Energy Initiative. The Kalam-NSS Energy Initiative’s goals? To solve the global energy crisis. To solve the global carbon crisis. And to solve America’s next generation jobs crisis. How? By harvesting solar power in space. Mark Hopkins, the CEO of the National Space Society, says, "The Kalam-NSS initiative is a transformative idea that can upshift the US and Indian economies by meeting the urgent global need for a scalable, carbon-neutral, green, 24-hr renewable power source. It is a game-changing technology that addresses energy security, sustainable development, climate change, and multinational cooperation." Concludes Dr. A.P.J. Kalam, "I am convinced that harvesting solar power in space can bring India and United States of America together in whole new ways. And I am certain that harvesting solar power in space can upgrade the living standard of the human race." Read the full announcement here [PDF file].
When
Thu, November 4, 9:30am – 11:00am GMT+05:30
Where
National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor, Bloomberg Room
Who
(Guest list has been hidden at organizer's request)

30 October 2010

NASA to Lead Global Asteroid Response

Read President's Science Advisor Letter to Congress Here:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ostp-letter-neos-house.pdf


From: http://naturalplane.blogspot.com/2010/10/fortean-oddball-news-asteroid-strikes.html
NASA to Lead Global Asteroid Response

nature - NASA will play a leading part in protecting the United States and the world from the threat of a dangerous asteroid strike, according to letters sent by John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), to Congressional committee leaders on Friday.

Holdren's letters to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the House Committee on Science and Technology assign responsibilities to the US space agency that go beyond its 2005 Congressional mandate to detect and track 90% of potentially hazardous asteroids with a diameter greater than 140 metres. To date the agency has found 903 of the estimated 1,050 asteroids with diameters of a kilometre or more passing within about 50 million kilometres of the Earth.

NASA will be mandated to notify other organizations, including the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), if a dangerous asteroid is found, and to drive research and development on the capability needed to deflect the rock.

In assigning NASA's new asteroid defence role by 15 October, Holdren was meeting a requirement of the 2008 NASA Authorization Act. Under the act OSTP is also required to choose an agency or agencies that would protect the United States and implement a deflection, if one were necessary.
Ramping up funds

So far, NASA's mandate to track near-Earth objects has been largely unfunded.

Former US astronaut Russell 'Rusty' Schweickart, who has advocated for the United States and other countries to be more active in planetary defence against asteroids, says that NASA's amplified responsibilities give it a platform for asking Congress for extra funds. "This is a major step forward," he says. Schweickart co-chairs NASA's Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense, set up by the agency in March with the expectation that it would be assigned a leading role in coordinating asteroid defence.

Holdren also envisions a key role for FEMA in passing along news of the impending strike to states and territories that could be affected. "The essence of the planned notification approach is to utilize existing communications resources and mechanisms resident at FEMA," he wrote in the letters.

The letters add that NASA would make additional notifications through the US State Department and diplomatic channels to other countries that could be affected, and to the United Nations. Those notifications would be updated by NASA as more information became available about the threat, up until one day in advance of the projected impact, Holdren says.

Strategic defense

The ad-hoc task force released a report on 6 October listing actions NASA should take on planetary defence. It recommended the establishment of a Planetary Defense Coordination Office, with an annual budget of around US$250 million, and the initiation of a mission to prove capability to deflect an asteroid.

Holdren notes in his letters that the President's budget for the 2011 fiscal year asks for a three-fold increase in funds for near-Earth object detection activities, from $5.8 million to $20.3 million. It remains to be seen whether next year's budget request will cater for the agency's additional responsibilities. "It's especially important that those activities discussed by the OSTP be supported by a proposed budget to cover those modest costs required," says Tom Jones, another former astronaut and co-chair of the ad-hoc task force.

Despite being fairly specific about notification procedures, Holdren's letters were much vaguer about the methods for deflecting an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. He says that the US government's assessment of deflection options is still at an early stage.

"As NASA tests in space the techniques and technologies needed for deflection, the OSTP should re-examine this question and identify the lead agency — or agencies — to actually execute a deflection demonstration," says Jones.

From: http://sagansbrain.blogspot.com/2010/10/imperative-of-asteroid-defense.html
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2010

The Imperative of Asteroid Defense

The aftermath of the Tunguska Event, an impact from space in central Siberia.
Check out this Op-Ed in today's New York Times from Russell Schweickart, former astronaut and co-chair of the Task Force on Planetary Defense.

Asteroid defense is a subject that doesn't get nearly enough attention.  Of course we don't want to alarm people, but at the same time, maybe people need to be a little more alarmed!  That may be the only way to really see some action on this front.

When you think about it, it's sort of surprising that we don't devote more energy to asteroid defense.  We actively scan the skies for near-Earth objects, but in terms of actually deflecting an asteroid from a collision, our plans at this point are only theoretical.  It's surprising because it seems like we should be able to get everyone on board with this mission.  For some people, space exploration is seen as an esoteric endeavor, lacking practical purpose.  But what could be more practical than defending the planet from a clear and present danger?  To me, asteroid defense should be much easier to rationalize than studying the geology of the Moon or sending astronauts to Mars.  

The problem is that this is an issue that sounds fanciful.  We've all seen Armageddon.  You start talking about preventing an asteroid collision and everyone thinks about Bruce Willis flying up there to blow it up, with Aerosmith providing the soundtrack.

But we all know what happened to the dinosaurs.  What's so far-fetched about an asteroid collision?  Even though impacts of that size are exceedingly rare, smaller objects are much more common and can do plenty of destruction.  Let us not forget the Tunguska Event, the 1908 impact of a space object in central Russia that caused an explosion estimated to be as much as 1000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.  That was more than 100 years ago, and it came down in such a remote corner of the Earth that few people other than space enthusiasts even know about it today.  But it could just as easily have come down in New York City, in 2008 rather than 1908.  As Schweickart points out, this sort of impact occurs every 200 to 300 years, statistically speaking.  But that doesn't mean we have nothing to worry about.  If you average two such impacts in 400 years, they don't have to be 200 years apart.

This is not the sort of project that we can put off indefinitely.  A mission to Mars can be delayed five or ten years and it won't make much difference; the lives of millions don't hang in the balance.  But what if we were to discover an object that's going to hit us in the next five years?  Is that sufficient lead time to get the project going today?  Would we have to contend with congressional skepticism?  I can hear the carpers now: "Are we really going to spend 10 billion dollars on a project to protect us from this rock you say is going to hit us?  We don't even know where it's going to land, do we?"

If there were more champions for this cause, I can imagine it might be similar to the fight over climate change.  There would be those who would want to prepare for it, and those who would think it costs too much to prevent something that might not cause any harm in our lifetime.  But think of the huge amounts of money spent on missile defense during the cold war.  That danger was very real, but ultimately, thankfully, nothing came of it.  The expenditures required for asteroid defense would be tiny by comparison.  But unlike the prospect of nuclear war, which was possible but avoidable, the impact of a large object from space is inevitable given enough time.  We just don't know when it might come.  It could be 100, 200 or 300 years from now, but it could be much sooner than that.  We owe it to the citizens of Earth -- even those who may not be born yet -- to start preparing for this scenario now.

President Obama's new plan for the future of NASA calls for a manned mission to an asteroid.  Assuming this directive is not changed in the years to come, this will be an astonishing achievement.  But even more than a manned mission to Mars, it may prove to be of vital importance to the future of life on Earth.  We won't just be going to look around and take some soil samples.  We'll be learning how to interact with an asteroid.  And one day that knowledge could save millions of lives.

Scientists will be quick to point out that catastrophic impacts are still quite rare, and furthermore, the chances that an impact will occur near a major metropolitan area are smaller still.  But we might not be able to determine the object's precise trajectory until it's too late.  An object capable of destruction equivalent to Tunguska could land anywhere on Earth, killing millions, or killing no one.  But a serious effort to plan for this contingency will be worth the cost no matter how many lives are at stake.  There are certainly more immediate concerns on our horizon, but such will always be the case until the day we find the big one coming straight for us.

From: http://ezinearticles.com/?Business-Innovation---Lets-Shrink-Wrap-an-Asteroid,-Let-Me-Explain---Planetary-Defense-Concept&id=5255768
Business Innovation - Let's Shrink Wrap an Asteroid, Let Me Explain - Planetary Defense Concept
By Lance Winslow
Perhaps you or someone you know has been involved in the marine industry? If so, then you probably realize that in colder climates often boats are shrink-wrapped for the winter months. Yes, just as you might do with your leftovers before you put them in the refrigerator. It turns out this works very well to protect them from the winter. Then when springtime comes the boats are thawed out and the shrink-wrapped is removed. The cost for doing this is about $2500-$4500 for about a 20 foot boat. Perhaps during the recession you can get a little bit better deal?

Well, that's how you shrink-wrapped a boat, but what about shrink-wrapping an asteroid in space? Yes, I know that sounds funny, but I'm not talking science fiction here, I think it has a real benefit. Let me explain. First of all if a very large asteroid or comet were to hit the Earth, there is a potential that it could cause all species living on the surface of the planet to go extinct. Therefore it makes sense to have a planetary defense system to go out into space and either destroy, divert, or deflect the asteroid. Now then, what if we shrink wrap it? With what you ask?

Okay so we shrink wrap an asteroid in a Graphene Coating and then hit it with a laser to propel a vibrational frequency wave which causes the ion-bonds to become weak while causing the Graphene to attract. Then we allow it to unwrap, and turn off the energy now we have a sheet of asteroid to mine, or break apart in sections as it goes, blasting a little bit at a time off of the graphene coating, which is now a very large sheet floating through space.

We have unraveled the asteroid's mass into a thin layer of dust, then send the dust in all directions. This means it is no longer a threat to Earth. Please consider all this, because the concept is actually viable.

References:

1.-The arXIv Blog at MIT, Blog post on October 21, 2010 entitled; "Mass Can Be Created Inside Graphene, Say Physicists - The Amazing Properties of Graphene Now Include the Ability to Create Mass, According to a New Mathematical Prediction."

Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes it's hard work to write 21,300 articles; http://www.bloggingcontent.net/

From: http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=15091&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ocean-impacts-and-their-consequences
Ocean Impacts and Their Consequences
by PAUL GILSTER on OCTOBER 27, 2010
It’s good to see asteroid deflection occasionally popping up in the news, thanks to the efforts of people like former astronaut Rusty Schweickart, whose efforts as co-chairman of the Task Force on Planetary Defense of the NASA Advisory Council are complemented by his work for non-profits like the B612 Foundation. Schweickart is worried about the potential consequences of even a small asteroid impact, pointing to the Tunguska event of 1908, in which 800 square miles of Siberian forest were flattened in the kind of strike that occurs every 200 to 300 years.

Bigger asteroids are, obviously, a far greater danger, and while they’re much rarer, they do have the capability of wiping out entire species, as may well have occurred some 65 million years ago in the destruction of the dinosaurs. In his recent New York Times article, Schweickart notes what we need to do:

With a readily achievable detection and deflection system we can avoid their same fate. Professional (and a few amateur) telescopes and radar already function as a nascent early warning system, working every night to discover and track those planet-killers. Happily, none of the 903 we’ve found so far seriously threaten an impact in the next 100 years.

Nonetheless, asteroids demand a constant vigilance. Schweickart continues:

Although catastrophic hits are rare, enough of these objects appear to be or are heading our way to require us to make deflection decisions every decade of so.

A deflection capacity is something NASA needs to be looking at, and the report of the Task Force on Planetary Defense urges that financing for it be added to the NASA budget. Schweickart believes that $250 to $300 million, added annually over the next ten years, would allow our inventory of near-Earth asteroids to be completed and a deflection capability to be developed, after which a maintenance budget ($50 to $75 million per year) would keep us tuned up for potential deployment.

Underscoring the need for a deflection capability is the work of Elisabetta Pierazzo (Planetary Science Institute), whose forthcoming paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters focuses on two impact scenarios, 500-meter and 1-kilometer asteroids hitting a 4-kilometer deep ocean. What Pierazzo finds is that an ocean strike could deplete the Earth’s protective ozone layer for several years, resulting in a spike in ultraviolet radiation levels that would, among other things, make it more difficult to grow crops (not to mention its effects on other life forms).

Pierazzo and team’s atmospheric simulations show a global perturbation of upper atmosphere chemistry, as water vapor and compounds like chlorine and bromide alter the ozone layer to create a new ozone hole. Adds Pierazzo:

“The removal of a significant amount of ozone in the upper atmosphere for an extended period of time can have important biological repercussions at the Earth’s surface as a consequence of increase in surface UV-B irradiance. These include increased incidence of erythema (skin reddening), cortical cataracts, changes in plant growth and changes in molecular DNA.”

Ultraviolet radiation intensity can be expressed by the ultraviolet index (UVI), which indicates the intensity of UV radiation at the surface, with the higher numbers tending toward damage to skin and eyes. While a UVI of 10 is considered dangerous, resulting in burns to fair-skinned people after short exposure, values up to 18 are occasionally recorded at the equator. The highest recorded UVI is 20, recorded at a high-altitude desert in Puna de Atacama, Argentina.

Modeling a strike by an asteroid that hit at latitude 30 degrees north in the Pacific Ocean in January, Pierazzo’s simulations show that a 500-meter asteroid impact would result in a major ozone hole, boosting UVI values to over 20 for several months in the northern subtropics. A 1-kilometer asteroid would drive the UVI in certain areas to a sizzling 56, while boosting UVI values over 20 within a 50-degree latitude band north and south of the equator for about two years. The affected band’s northern end would include Seattle and Paris, while its southern end reached New Zealand and Argentina.

“A level of 56 has never been recorded before, so we are not sure what it is going to do,” adds Pierazzo. “It would produce major sunburn. We could stay inside to protect ourselves, but if you go outside during daylight hours you would burn. You would have to go outside at night, after sunset, to avoid major damage.”

We always tend to depict asteroid impacts in terms of their direst consequences as a way of illustrating the magnitude of the threat. But it’s chastening to learn that even a survivable impact like those Pierazzo and team have modeled would create serious environmental damage even if loss of life could be prevented. All this assumes, too, an asteroid that strikes in the ocean (the most likely scenario). There’s no question that building up our planetary defense against such impacts is the best insurance we could create, stopping potential impactors before they near our planet.

The paper is Pierazzo et al., “Ozone perturbation from medium-size asteroid impacts in the ocean,” in press at Earth and Planetary Science Letters (abstract). Jeremy Hsu’s article on this work in LiveScience is excellent.

From: http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/space_information/20101027.html
A New Column by Former Executive Director Louis Friedman.

October 27, 2010
Starting on Planetary Defense
It is unlikely that anytime soon an asteroid or comet will impact Earth and cause devastating or large-scale damage. But we will probably soon find some object that is deemed potentially hazardous, one that might pose a future danger to Earth. That will be considered a threat. When that happens, defensive action may be contemplated. The discovery of thousands of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) makes us much more aware of previously unknown possibilities and also much more sensitive to the devastating consequences of an impact.

The President’s Science Advisor, Dr. John Holdren, has just sent a ten page letter to the U.S. Congress (PDF) dealing with Planetary Defense. The letter is a result of Congress asking the Administration for a policy and plan to protect the United States from a potentially hazardous NEO.

It’s great to have this issue addressed. Ignorance should no longer be an excuse for inaction. The Administration’s letter is one more in a series of reports and studies that define the problem and call for more action – observations and tracking of NEOs, analyzing their composition and structure (including with space missions), and studies of mitigation techniques (deflecting a potentially hazardous object). We have previously mentioned reports from the Association of Space Explorers (PDF) -- the astronauts and cosmonauts organization which has led international consideration of this issue, the International Academy of Astronautics, and a Working Group of the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (PDF) , of which The Planetary Society is a member. A special task force of the NASA Advisory Council also has issued a very strong report (PDF) calling for NASA leadership in both public information and global cooperation addressing the issue. Board member Bee Thakore and I prepared a paper and presentation on the subject to the International Astronautical Congress in 2009 .

The Association of Space Explorers, with strong leadership by former astronauts Rusty Schweickart and Tom Jones (a Planetary Society Advisor), is also conducting a series of international workshops developing recommendations for mitigation methods and global policy. Much of their focus has been on the United Nations.

Progress is also being made on the science and technology. The pace of observations has quickened, and more NEOs of smaller and smaller size are being discovered. Space missions are being conducted. In just two weeks the Deep Impact spacecraft, which sent an impactor into a comet back in 2005, will pass by and observe closely Comet Hartley 2. Calls to build more dedicated observatories on Earth, and in space, need to be developed into firm proposals for funding and implementation. One problem is that no federal agency, not even NASA, has the prime responsibility for planetary defense -- hence no mission proposals have yet been generated.

While NASA is far ahead in consideration of the issue, the issue has also been addressed in Europe, particularly England, and in Russia; but only addressed – no programs or plans have been made. The lack of defined policy in the U.S. is mirrored throughout the world. Observation programs are not well funded and space missions are only proposed for science investigations, not for advancing planetary defense readiness.

Dr. Holdren’s letter is very welcome. It should help advance United States government planning. He reaffirms NASA’s lead responsibility for detection of NEOs. He adds that NASA should even lead in the study of mitigation and deflection, coordinating with other federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Department of Homeland Security. He also recommends that the U.S. continue to coordinate with international efforts to study the problem.

I am personally uneasy about NASA being the lead agency to consider mitigation, even though at the moment they know more about the subject than other parts of government. But mitigation involves consideration of nuclear weapons, and deflection of asteroids can be considered a weapon system. Having that as part of NASA’s mission needs some debate (especially if it detracts from space exploration). Inter-agency discussion can help resolve who should be lead; thus, the Administration’s recommendations are a valuable step forward. But it is not enough of a step. Any consideration of NEOs should be international. No nation can consider deflection of a potentially hazardous object unilaterally.

It’s my view that spacefaring nations should organize an ad-hoc task force, which someday might evolve to a treaty organization (analogous to NATO) to address policies, protocols and plans for dealing with the threat of a potentially hazardous object hitting Earth. The United States could, and should, lead by proposing such a task force. We need consideration soon, not because an impact is likely soon, but, because the threat of an impact is likely soon. The Administration’s letter to Congress should have also called for an international task force, clearly stating that NEO detection, observation, investigation, analysis, mitigation and potential deflection are global issues.

From: http://logisticsviewpoints.com/2008/11/14/all-greened-out-until-the-asteroid-comes/
Now, about that asteroid…A few weeks ago, I grabbed one of  the many unread magazines on my nightstand as I headed to the airport.  After we were in the air, I took the magazine out (the June issue of The Atlantic) and I immediately noticed the cover art: a fiery asteroid hurdling towards Earth. The title of the cover story was “The Sky is Falling”, and the subtext read: “It’s inevitable: asteroids with the power to annihilate us will come this way.  Can NASA divert them before it’s too late?”  Whoa!  Why haven’t I heard about this before, and why isn’t anyone panicking?!?!
The article argues that the odds of a life-annihilating space rock hitting our planet is much greater than we once thought, and that such an impact would disrupt our climate pattern and trigger a prolonged period of global cooling.  Of course, none of us would be around to care very much, but that’s beside the point.  Depressed, I put on my headphones and started to watch TV (it was a JetBlue flight).  As I surfed through the channels, I stumbled upon a History Channel documentary on-I’m not kidding-how an asteroid might destroy our planet!  This was officially the worst flight of my life.  Then, in early October, I learned that a meteor entered the Earth’s atmosphere and burned up over Sudan.  While the meteor did not pose a threat to us due to its small size, the frightening part of the story is that NASA only became aware of the meteor’s existence and its Earth-bound trajectory just twenty-fours earlier!  I say forget about bailing out the automotive industry, send my tax dollars instead to the folks tracking those rocks in space.
I know what you’re saying: Adrian, stop worrying about this questionable threat, these encounters you’ve had with asteroids and meteors are just a coincidence.  You’re probably right, but I can’t help but wonder that maybe all of this “green” stuff is just a waste of time, or a way to pass time, until God hits the reset button and the world turns dark and cold again.  He told Noah that He would never destroy the Earth again with a flood, but He never said anything about an asteroid.

From: http://logisticsviewpoints.com/2009/03/06/more-green-supply-chain-news-and-asteroids-too/
Finally, back in November, I highlighted the threat of asteroids extinguishing life on Earth sometime in the future, thus making all of this “green” stuff a waste of time (see “All Greened Out (Until the Asteroid Comes)“).  Well, it happened again on Monday-another asteroid came within 46,000 miles of the planet and it wasn’t detected until two days before it zoomed by.  Asteroid 2009 DD45 was about two hundred feet long, big enough to create damage equivalent to a nuclear blast if it had struck the planet.  If I wasn’t paranoid back in November, I am now.

From: http://swiftor.com/f36/u-s-must-ready-meet-asteroid-threat-white-house-science-adviser-says-23510/
Jeremy Hsu
SPACE.com Senior Writer
SPACE.com

National emergency plans for natural disasters can also work in the unlikely scenario of an asteroid strike on the U.S., according to a letter to Congress by the White House's top science adviser, SPACE.com has learned.

The 10-page letter by John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, adds that the U.S. has a responsibility to the world as the country most capable of detecting space rocks that threaten Earth. The Oct. 15 letter obtained by SPACE.com is addressed to the leaders of the House Committee on Science and Technology.

Holdren states that NASA must continue leading efforts to close the gap in detecting and perhaps deflecting near-Earth objects (NEO). The U.S. space agency already has the duty of alerting the rest of the government about any threatening space objects.

Holdren's letter also laid out the duties of other federal agencies in handling emergency communications and response. It called for a "senior-level interagency simulation exercise" to test impact-response plans before the United States is confronted with an actual asteroid impact.

"My immediate reaction is that it represents the most detailed consideration of the U.S. government's response to the NEO threat to date, more clearly delineating communication links and responsibilities than had previously been the case," said Clark Chapman, space scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Going on alert

According to Holdren's letter, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, under the Department of Homeland Security, has the main responsibility on the ground in the U.S. FEMA can rely in part upon the National Warning System, which was designed to alert U.S. citizens to a Cold War nuclear attack.

The Department of Defense would work with NASA on possible mitigation or deflection scenarios that involved military resources.

Meanwhile, the Department of State would help coordinate any international warnings or responses in a deep-impact scenario that affects more than just the U.S. It has experience notifying other countries about re-entering human-made space objects, including the defunct USA-193 spy satellite that was ultimately destroyed by a U.S. Navy missile.

"The United States is currently the world leader in NEO detection activities and will have a vital role to play in such communications, irrespective of whether the direct risk to the United States or its territories is considered low," Holdren said.

A NASA advisory council recently suggested that the space agency set up an official Planetary Defense Coordination Office to lead protection efforts against threatening asteroids or comets.

Finding the threat

NASA has begun closing in on its congressionally directed goal of finding at least 90 percent of all NEOs with a diameter of 1 kilometer or greater. Search teams had discovered about 903 of an estimated 1,050 NEOs in that size category as of Oct. 1, and the space agency plans to reach its 90 percent detection goal by the end of this year.

Just 149 of the discovered objects have orbits that could possibly bring them into collision with Earth, and none present an impact threat within the next 100 years. Another 993 objects less than one kilometer in diameter also have orbits that could someday pose a threat to our planet.

Yet NASA estimates that the 6,416 known NEOs in the smaller size category, less than 1 kilometer wide, represent just five percent of the expected count. In other words, there are probably many more objects out there that represent a possible threat to Earth.

Facing the future

Some of those objects were discovered more recently by NASA's sky-mapping WISE mission, which is slated to end in January 2011. But there are possible plans for ground-based telescopes that could join the hunt, such as the Air Force's Space Surveillance Telescope and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

The National Research Council and NASA also suggested the possibility of a dedicated asteroid hunter that would fly in a Venus-trailing orbit. No firm plans have been made for this.

President Barack Obama's new National Space Policy and plan for human spaceflight has also targeted a human mission to an asteroid by 2025. That could prove a useful dry run of sorts for any future efforts that might need to deflect an asteroid away from Earth.

"The planning, required capabilities, and ultimate execution of such a mission also would parallel most aspects of a potential robotic asteroid-deflection mission, providing valuable experience in asteroid-rendezvous techniques," Holdren said.

SPACE.com's Space Insider Columnist Leonard David contributed to this report from Las Cruces, N.M.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/opinion/26schweickart.html?_r=1
Humans to Asteroids: Watch Out!

By RUSSELL SCHWEICKART
Published: October 25, 2010

Times Topic: Asteroids
A FEW weeks ago, an asteroid almost 30 feet across and zipping along at 38,000 miles per hour flew 28,000 miles above Singapore. Why, you might reasonably ask, should non-astronomy buffs care about a near miss from such a tiny rock? Well, I can give you one very good reason: asteroids don’t always miss. If even a relatively little object was to strike a city, millions of people could be wiped out.

Thanks to telescopes that can see ever smaller objects at ever greater distances, we can now predict dangerous asteroid impacts decades ahead of time. We can even use current space technology and fairly simple spacecraft to alter an asteroid’s orbit enough to avoid a collision. We simply need to get this detection-and-deflection program up and running.

President Obama has already announced a goal of landing astronauts on an asteroid by 2025 as a precursor to a human mission to Mars. Asteroids are deep-space bodies, orbiting the Sun, not the Earth, and traveling to one would mean sending humans into solar orbit for the very first time. Facing those challenges of radiation, navigation and life support on a months-long trip millions of miles from home would be a perfect learning journey before a Mars trip.

Near-Earth objects like asteroids and comets — mineral-rich bodies bathed in a continuous flood of sunlight — may also be the ultimate resource depots for the long-term exploration of space. It is fantastic to think that one day we may be able to access fuel, materials and even water in space instead of digging deeper and deeper into our planet for what we need and then dragging it all up into orbit, against Earth’s gravity.

Most important, our asteroid efforts may be the key to the survival of millions, if not our species. That’s why planetary defense has occupied my work with two nonprofits over the past decade.

To be fair, no one has ever seen the sort of impact that would destroy a city. The most instructive incident took place in 1908 in the remote Tunguska region of Siberia, when a 120-foot-diameter asteroid exploded early one morning. It probably killed nothing except reindeer but it flattened 800 square miles of forest. Statistically, that kind of event occurs every 200 to 300 years.

Luckily, larger asteroids are even fewer and farther between — but they are much, much more destructive. Just think of the asteroid seven to eight miles across that annihilated the dinosaurs (and 75 percent of all species) 65 million years ago.

With a readily achievable detection and deflection system we can avoid their same fate. Professional (and a few amateur) telescopes and radar already function as a nascent early warning system, working every night to discover and track those planet-killers. Happily, none of the 903 we’ve found so far seriously threaten an impact in the next 100 years.

Although catastrophic hits are rare, enough of these objects appear to be or are heading our way to require us to make deflection decisions every decade or so. Certainly, when it comes to the far more numerous Tunguska-sized objects, to date we think we’ve discovered less than a half of 1 percent of the million or so that cross Earth’s orbit every year. We need to pinpoint many more of these objects and predict whether they will hit us before it’s too late to do anything other than evacuate ground zero and try to save as many lives as we can.

So, how do we turn a hit into a miss? While there are technical details galore, the most sensible approach involves rear-ending the asteroid. A decade or so ahead of an expected impact, we would need to ram a hunk of copper or lead into an asteroid in order to slightly change its velocity. In July 2005, we crashed the Deep Impact spacecraft into comet Tempel 1 to learn more about comets’ chemical composition, and this proved to be a crude but effective method.

It may be necessary to make a further refinement to the object’s course. In that case, we could use a gravity tractor — an ordinary spacecraft that simply hovers in front of the asteroid and employs the ship’s weak gravitational attraction as a tow-rope. But we don’t want to wait to test this scheme when potentially millions of lives are at stake. Let’s rehearse, at least once, before performing at the Met!

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has just recommended to Congress that NASA begin preparing a deflection capacity. In parallel, my fellow astronaut Tom Jones and I led the Task Force on Planetary Defense of the NASA Advisory Council. We released our report a couple of weeks ago, strongly urging that the financing required for this public safety issue be added to NASA’s budget.

This is, surprisingly, not an expensive undertaking. Adding just $250 million to $300 million to NASA’s budget would, over the next 10 years, allow for a full inventory of the near-Earth asteroids that could do us harm, and the development and testing of a deflection capacity. Then all we’d need would be an annual maintenance budget of $50 million to $75 million.

By preventing dangerous asteroid strikes, we can save millions of people, or even our entire species. And, as human beings, we can take responsibility for preserving this amazing evolutionary experiment of which we and all life on Earth are a part.

Russell Schweickart, a former astronaut, was the co-chairman of the Task Force on Planetary Defense of the NASA Advisory Council.

From: http://spacepolicyonline.com/pages/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1188:nac-planetary-defense-task-force-makes-five-recommendations-to-nasa&catid=67:news&Itemid=27

NAC Planetary Defense Task Force Makes Five Recommendations to NASA
Written by Marcia Smith
Monday, 25 October 2010 21:03
The NASA Advisory Council's (NAC's) Task Force on Planetary Defense made five recommendations to NASA in its report to NAC, which accepted the report on October 6.  The Task Force was co-chaired by two former astronauts, Tom Jones and Rusty Schweickart.  In this context, planetary defense means defending Earth from Near Earth Objects (NEOs) -- asteroids and comets -- headed our way.

The recommendations are:

  • Organize for Effective Action on Planetary Defense
  • Acquire Essential Search, Track and Warning Capabilities
  • Investigate the Nature of the Impact Threat
  • Prepare to Respond to Impact Threats
  • Lead U.S. Planetary Defense  Efforts in National and International Forums

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy recently sent letters to Congress in response to a provision in the 2008 NASA Authorization Act on agency roles and responsibilities in dealing with the NEO threat.   It gave NASA a lead role in many aspects of NEO detection and cataloging, but deferred decisions on who is in charge of mitigating the threat.   It did identify NASA as the lead agency to perform analysis and simulation to inform future decisions on mitigation options.

80 Billion Dollar US Intelligence Budget and the Defense of Civilization

From: http://theblotch.com/wordpress/?p=934

80 Billion Dollar US Intelligence Budget and the Defense of Civilization
by SPLOTCH
So it seems that 80 billion dollars per year are being spent on the Intelligence Industrial Complex in the United States – 80 billion dollars: $80,000,000,000. But what are they doing, exactly? what are they watching and what are they trying to guard against? Stinking, unwashed, underfed cave dwellers in Afghanistan? A clerical, Sharia-based, and thus eminently or even overly orderly government in Iran? A few nuts with fizzle bombs and explosives in their underwear? And this costs 80 billion dollars?

In the meantime, the whole electrical, electronic, digitally base infrastructure of modern civilization – the entire economy, the food supply, the money supply, pretty much everything which makes modern civilization what it is, is completely unprotected if the sun makes one untoward burp in our direction. Scientists call this a CME or coronal mass ejection, which in addition to other exotic waves and particles could send an EMP or electric magnetic pulse our way.

What could a massive EMP do? If this EMP creates its own magnetic field oriented with the earth’s own magnetic field, it could knock out every power grid on the planet. What would that mean? No communication. No one would have any idea whether anyone else was affected. Computers, cell phones, and land lines useless, as if they never existed. Modern vehicles based on electronics (anything built within the last decade or so) would cease to operate. The long and complicated chain of trucks which brings food to the hundreds of millions every day in North America would stop dead. Grocery stores would be cleaned out in a day. Furnaces would not work in the north. Those with fireplaces would soon be tearing boards off their neighbors’ houses to keep warm. The others would simply freeze. After that, it’s every man and woman for themselves. Whoever has the most guns and the most bullets will eat and keep warm, the others will perish. A Mad Max world with no end in sight for maybe a century if ever.

There is presently no protection for this. The power grids are not dampened or shielded. There are not enough spare transformers around to light one small city. Nothing has been done, nothing is being done. And yet 80 billion dollars a year are being spent to insure that a radical doesn’t blow up your local convenience store or bring down a plane. Plane crashes are bad, but how about the end of civilization, the death of billions, and a benighted essentially medieval world dominated by the strong and the ruthless for decades or centuries?

This is a very remote possibility though, right? Actually, scientists say such an event is inevitable within 10 to 100 years – or as early as tomorrow for that matter. Inevitable means it will happen, it’s only a matter of when. Will we be prepared when it does? Not if it happens right now, we won’t.

Add to this the very real risk from large asteroid strikes, also inevitable in the course of the next few centuries or again as early as next week, and also potentially as damaging as the CME or even more so for a really big one, and it adds up to – we’re spending $80 billion on what?

A bill has presently been introduced in Congress but has not yet passed. It is called H.R.5587 and seeks to establish a United States Commission on Planetary Defense. The bill calls for the establishment of a 2 million dollar budget to help track NEOs or near earth objects (civilization-killing asteroids, in other words). 2 million dollars to help ward off the extinction of the human race, 80 billion dollars to track a few savages with AK-47s – does that sound reasonable? Lets compare those two numbers: $2,000,000 vs $80,000,000,000. Crazy.

23 October 2010

OSTP: NASA take lead in R&D

From: http://www.space.com/news/white-house-plans-asteroid-impact-101021.html
U.S. Must Be Ready to Meet Asteroid Threat, White House Science Adviser Says
By Jeremy Hsu
SPACE.com Senior Writer
posted: 21 October 2010
11:16 am ET
National emergency plans for natural disasters can also work in the unlikely scenario of an asteroid strike on the U.S., according to a letter to Congress by the White House's top science adviser, SPACE.com has learned.

The 10-page letter by John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, adds that the U.S. has a responsibility to the world as the country most capable of detecting space rocks that threaten Earth. The Oct. 15 letter obtained by SPACE.com is addressed to the leaders of the House Committee on Science and Technology.

Holdren states that NASA must continue leading efforts to close the gap in detecting and perhaps deflecting near-Earth objects (NEO). The U.S. space agency already has the duty of alerting the rest of the government about any threatening space objects.

Holdren's letter also laid out the duties of other federal agencies in handling emergency communications and response. It called for a "senior-level interagency simulation exercise" to test impact-response plans before the United States is confronted with an actual asteroid impact.

"My immediate reaction is that it represents the most detailed consideration of the U.S. government's response to the NEO threat to date, more clearly delineating communication links and responsibilities than had previously been the case," said Clark Chapman, space scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Going on alert

According to Holdren's letter, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, under the Department of Homeland Security, has the main responsibility on the ground in the U.S. FEMA can rely in part upon the National Warning System, which was designed to alert U.S. citizens to a Cold War nuclear attack.

The Department of Defense would work with NASA on possible mitigation or deflection scenarios that involved military resources.

Meanwhile, the Department of State would help coordinate any international warnings or responses in a deep-impact scenario that affects more than just the U.S. It has experience notifying other countries about re-entering human-made space objects, including the defunct USA-193 spy satellite that was ultimately destroyed by a U.S. Navy missile.

"The United States is currently the world leader in NEO detection activities and will have a vital role to play in such communications, irrespective of whether the direct risk to the United States or its territories is considered low," Holdren said.

A NASA advisory council recently suggested that the space agency set up an official Planetary Defense Coordination Office to lead protection efforts against threatening asteroids or comets.

Finding the threat

NASA has begun closing in on its congressionally directed goal of finding at least 90 percent of all NEOs with a diameter of 1 kilometer or greater. Search teams had discovered about 903 of an estimated 1,050 NEOs in that size category as of Oct. 1, and the space agency plans to reach its 90 percent detection goal by the end of this year.

Just 149 of the discovered objects have orbits that could possibly bring them into collision with Earth, and none present an impact threat within the next 100 years. Another 993 objects less than one kilometer in diameter also have orbits that could someday pose a threat to our planet.

Yet NASA estimates that the 6,416 known NEOs in the smaller size category, less than 1 kilometer wide, represent just five percent of the expected count. In other words, there are probably many more objects out there that represent a possible threat to Earth.

Facing the future

Some of those objects were discovered more recently by NASA's sky-mapping WISE mission, which is slated to end in January 2011. But there are possible plans for ground-based telescopes that could join the hunt, such as the Air Force's Space Surveillance Telescope and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

The National Research Council and NASA also suggested the possibility of a dedicated asteroid hunter that would fly in a Venus-trailing orbit. No firm plans have been made for this.

President Barack Obama's new National Space Policy and plan for human spaceflight has also targeted a human mission to an asteroid by 2025. That could prove a useful dry run of sorts for any future efforts that might need to deflect an asteroid away from Earth.

"The planning, required capabilities, and ultimate execution of such a mission also would parallel most aspects of a potential robotic asteroid-deflection mission, providing valuable experience in asteroid-rendezvous techniques," Holdren said.

SPACE.com's Space Insider Columnist Leonard David contributed to this report from Las Cruces, N.M.

From: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101021/full/news.2010.554.html
NASA to lead global asteroid response
Agency's monitoring role boosted to include warning and R&D on defence capability.

Eugenie Samuel Reich
NASA is to be charged with helping to avert a hit from a space rock.JULIAN BAUM / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
NASA will play a leading part in protecting the United States and the world from the threat of a dangerous asteroid strike, according to letters sent by John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), to Congressional committee leaders on Friday.

Holdren's letters to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the House Committee on Science and Technology assign responsibilities to the US space agency that go beyond its 2005 Congressional mandate to detect and track 90% of potentially hazardous asteroids with a diameter greater than 140 metres. To date the agency has found 903 of the estimated 1,050 asteroids with diameters of a kilometre or more passing within about 50 million kilometres of the Earth.

NASA will be mandated to notify other organizations, including the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), if a dangerous asteroid is found, and to drive research and development on the capability needed to deflect the rock.

In assigning NASA's new asteroid defence role by 15 October, Holdren was meeting a requirement of the 2008 NASA Authorization Act. Under the act OSTP is also required to choose an agency or agencies that would protect the United States and implement a deflection, if one were necessary.

Ramping up funds

So far, NASA's mandate to track near-Earth objects has been largely unfunded.

Former US astronaut Russell 'Rusty' Schweickart, who has advocated for the United States and other countries to be more active in planetary defence against asteroids, says that NASA's amplified responsibilities give it a platform for asking Congress for extra funds. "This is a major step forward," he says. Schweickart co-chairs NASA's Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense, set up by the agency in March with the expectation that it would be assigned a leading role in coordinating asteroid defence (see 'NASA panel weighs asteroid danger').

“This is a major step forward.”

Holdren also envisions a key role for FEMA in passing along news of the impending strike to states and territories that could be affected. "The essence of the planned notification approach is to utilize existing communications resources and mechanisms resident at FEMA," he wrote in the letters.

The letters add that NASA would make additional notifications through the US State Department and diplomatic channels to other countries that could be affected, and to the United Nations. Those notifications would be updated by NASA as more information became available about the threat, up until one day in advance of the projected impact, Holdren says.

Strategic defense

The ad-hoc task force released a report on 6 October listing actions NASA should take on planetary defence. It recommended the establishment of a Planetary Defense Coordination Office, with an annual budget of around US$250 million, and the initiation of a mission to prove capability to deflect an asteroid.

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Holdren notes in his letters that the President's budget for the 2011 fiscal year asks for a three-fold increase in funds for near-Earth object detection activities, from $5.8 million to $20.3 million. It remains to be seen whether next year's budget request will cater for the agency's additional responsibilities. "It's especially important that those activities discussed by the OSTP be supported by a proposed budget to cover those modest costs required," says Tom Jones, another former astronaut and co-chair of the ad-hoc task force.

Despite being fairly specific about notification procedures, Holdren's letters were much vaguer about the methods for deflecting an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. He says that the US government's assessment of deflection options is still at an early stage.

"As NASA tests in space the techniques and technologies needed for deflection, the OSTP should re-examine this question and identify the lead agency — or agencies — to actually execute a deflection demonstration," says Jones.

Planetary Defense Coordination Office Proposed to Fight Asteroids

From: http://www.space.com/news/nasa-planetary-defense-fights-asteroids-101019.html
Planetary Defense Coordination Office Proposed to Fight Asteroids
By Leonard David
SPACE.com's Space Insider Columnist
posted: 19 October 2010
01:58 pm ET
A new report calls on NASA to establish a Planetary Defense Coordination Office to lead national and international efforts in protecting Earth against impacts by asteroids and comets.

The final report of the Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense of the NASA Advisory Council was delivered to the Council this month, proposing five recommendations that suggest how the space agency should organize, acquire, investigate, prepare, and lead national and international efforts in planetary defense against near-Earth objects.

"This was a very important step in the process of the United States Government defining its role in protection of life from this occasional, but devastating natural hazard," former astronaut Russell Schweickart told SPACE.com. "Happily, in the instance of asteroid impacts, this is a natural disaster which can be prevented...only, however, if we properly prepare and work together with other nations around the world."

Schweickart, who served as co-chair of the task force, said the new report and its recommendations to NASA combined new information with previous studies from the past decade.

The task force met in July to discuss the need for a planetary defense office at NASA. Their final report was submitted to the space agency on Oct. 6.

"With the support of the Administration and the Congress, the U.S. will be in the position of being able to work with and provide leadership in protecting life on Earth from these preventable cosmic disasters," he said.

The task force's five recommendations are:

Organize for Effective Action on Planetary Defense: NASA should establish an organizational element to focus on the issues, activities and budget necessary for effective planetary defense planning; to acquire the required capabilities, to include development of identification and mitigation processes and technologies; and to prepare for leadership of the U.S. and international responses to the impact hazard.
Acquire Essential Search, Track, and Warning Capabilities: NASA should significantly improve the nation's discovery and tracking capabilities for early detection of potential NEO impactors, and for tracking them with the precision required for high confidence in potential impact assessments.
Investigate the Nature of the Impact Threat: To guide development of effective impact mitigation techniques, NASA must acquire a better understanding of NEO characteristics by using existing and new science and exploration research capabilities, including ground-based observations, impact experiments, computer simulations, and in situ asteroid investigation.
Prepare to Respond to Impact Threats: To prepare an adequate response to the range of potential impact scenarios, NASA should conduct a focused range of activities, from in-space testing of innovative NEO deflection technologies to providing assistance to those agencies responsible for civil defense and disaster response measures.
Lead U.S. Planetary Defense Efforts in National and International Forums: NASA should provide leadership for the U.S. government to address planetary defense issues in interagency, public education, media, and international forums, including conduct of necessary impact research, informing the public of impact threats, working toward an internationally coordinated response, and understanding the societal effects of a potential NEO impact.
Funding needs

The seven-person Ad Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense was established in April and reported to the NASA Advisory Council. The NAC provides the NASA Administrator with counsel and advice on programs and issues of importance to the space agency.

The NASA Advisory Council has approved the task force report. However, there's still a long way to go in the sense that there is no obligation on the part of the NASA Administrator to follow the recommendations.

Still, the seven-person team writing the report has elevated the NEO issue, helping to better identify how NASA should further address planetary defense.
The task force was chaired by Schweickart and fellow former astronaut Thomas Jones, with other members representing academia, a space research institute, and NASA itself.

In the final report, the task force found that a planetary defense program plan is likely to require an annual budget of approximately $250 million to $300 million per year during the next decade.

That funding would be needed to meet the Congress-mandated search goal of spotting 460-feet (140-meter) wide NEOs, as well as to execute selected NEO characterization missions; develop and demonstrate NEO deflection capabilities; and develop the analytic and simulation capacity necessary for NASA's planetary defense role.

"Once the search for potentially hazardous objects is substantially complete, the task shifts to ongoing monitoring and catalog maintenance," the report states.

After flight demonstrations of the primary deflection concepts are completed, further experiments would be integrated into scientific or exploration missions. The planetary defense program budget could then recede to operations and maintenance levels, approximately $50 million to $75 million annually, the report explains.

The task force report "strongly recommends" that the cost of NASA planetary defense activities be explicitly budgeted by the administration and funded by the Congress as a separate agency budget line, not diverted from existing NASA science, exploration, or other mission budgets.

Driving philosophy

As explained in the task force report, the "driving philosophy" behind the national and international defense against NEOs should be, "find them early."

Early detection of NEOs – especially those larger than 140 meters in size – is key to mounting an effective and cost-effective planetary defense effort. An adequate search, detection and tracking capability could find hazardous objects several years or decades before they threaten impact.

Early detection and follow-up tracking of hazardous NEOs eliminates any need for a standing defense capability by mission-ready deflection spacecraft with their high attendant costs, the report points out.

While the task force report underscores the importance of NASA taking a leadership role in planetary defense, there's no obligation by NASA leadership, or the White House to follow the recommendations.

The next shoe to drop on dealing with the NEO issue is expected to come mid-month by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. It has been deliberating on how best the U.S. government should move out on in-coming NEOs hazardous to Earth.

5 Reasons to Care About Asteroids
Brilliant Fireball Over New Mexico Caught in Video
'X' Marks the Spot: Hubble Reveals Collision Between Asteroids
Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines and has written for SPACE.com since 1999.


From: http://allmysteries.com/10665/ufos/space-weaponization-planetary-defense-coordination-office-proposed-to-fight-asteroids-and-comets
Space Weaponization – Planetary Defense Coordination Office Proposed to Fight Asteroids and Comets
According to media reports a new report calls on NASA to establish a Planetary Defense Coordination Office to lead national and international efforts in protecting Earth against impacts by asteroids and comets. The final report of the Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense of the NASA Advisory Council was delivered to the Council this month, proposing five recommendations that suggest how the space agency should organize, acquire, investigate, prepare, and lead national and international efforts in planetary defense against near-Earth objects. Or in simple words they are talking about weaponization of space. Back in 1974 late Dr Wernher von Braun (became one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Germany and the United States) the father of rocketry in the first three and a half hours of meeting with Dr. Carol Rosin told Carol that she will have to stop the weaponization of space! But what Dr Wernher von Braun had feared 36 year back now sadly turning in to reality..

From: http://blogs.physicstoday.org/newspicks/2010/10/planetary-defense-office-propo.html
Planetary defense office proposed to protect Earth against asteroid impacts
By Physics Today on October 20, 2010 9:17 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
Space.com: To protect Earth from asteroids and comets, the Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense issued a report to the NASA Advisory Council recommending the establishment of a planetary defense coordination office. The task force called for NASA to organize, acquire, investigate, prepare, and lead national and international efforts in planetary defense against near-Earth objects. Such a planetary defense program could cost $250 million to $300 million per year over the next decade; the task force "strongly recommends" that the funding be explicitly set aside by Congress as a separate agency budget line and not be diverted from existing NASA science exploration. This isn't the first time such a proposal has been made: The International Astronomical Union and some member countries of the European Union have come up with similar suggestions, but the NASA council report is the first to provide a specific roadmap for developing such an institution.

From: http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/4595817
NASA urged to consider planet 'defense'
Tuesday, October 19, 2010 8:05 PM
Oct. 19, 2010 (United Press International) -- NASA should establish a Planetary Defense Coordination Office to lead efforts should the Earth be threatened by asteroids and comets, a U.S. report says.

The report, by the Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense of the NASA Advisory Council, offers suggestions on how the agency should prepare to lead national and international plans for defending Earth from collisions from near-Earth objects, SPACE.com reported Tuesday.

"This was a very important step in the process of the United States government defining its role in protection of life from this occasional, but devastating natural hazard," former astronaut Russell Schweickart, co-chairman of the task force, said.

"Happily, in the instance of asteroid impacts, this is a natural disaster which can be prevented ... only, however, if we properly prepare and work together with other nations around the world."

The task force, led by Schweickart and fellow former astronaut Thomas Jones, included members from academia, a space research institute and NASA itself.

The "driving philosophy" behind the national and international defense against near-Earth objects, the report said, should be to "find them early."

Early detection is paramount in mounting an effective and cost-effective planetary defense effort, the report said.

(Source: UPI )
(Source: Quotemedia)

From: http://news.softpedia.com/news/NASA-Calls-for-Planetary-Defense-Council-Against-NEO-161838.shtml
NASA Calls for Planetary Defense Council Against NEO
It is imperious that NASA established the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), as a means of coordinating national and international efforts of protecting the planet against collisions with near-Earth objects (NEO).

This category of space objects includes everything from micrometeorites to asteroids, and generally refers to space rocks that fly close to our planet undetected.


 While most NEO will never reach our atmosphere, and most of those who do will burn up upon reentry, there are still some that can pose a great danger to Earth, such as was the case with the 1908 Tunguska event.

An airburster asteroid made its way into our planet's atmosphere, and then exploded some 5 to 10 kilometers above the surface, causing widespread damage to the Siberian forest.

At the time, there were no technologies capable of detecting and tracking NEO in real-time, but advances in science have made that possible now.

However, what is currently lacking is an organized, wide-scale approach to keeping track of the thousands of NEO that may lurk around Earth.

The NASA Advisory Council told an Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense to elaborate a report on what the American space agency should do to play a more active role in NEO defense.

The establishing of the PDCO would be a huge step forwards, experts in the task force told NASA officials when they delivered their final report, earlier this month.

A total of five recommendations are delivered in the new document, which argues that the space agency should organize, acquire, investigate, prepare, and lead efforts to prevent NEO disasters, both nationally and internationally.

“This was a very important step in the process of the United States Government defining its role in protection of life from this occasional, but devastating natural hazard,” says former astronaut Russell Schweickart for Space.

“Happily, in the instance of asteroid impacts, this is a natural disaster which can be prevented […] only, however, if we properly prepare and work together with other nations around the world,” he adds.

“With the support of the Administration and the Congress, the US will be in the position of being able to work with and provide leadership in protecting life on Earth from these preventable cosmic disasters,” the space flyer adds.

According to the NASA task force, operating a NEO defense program would cost the United States around $250 million to $300 million per year over the next ten years.

Follow the editor on Twitter @tudorvieru

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http://steelturman.typepad.com/thesteeldeal/2010/10/the-office-of-planetary-defense-coordination-alien-world-landscape-rocketship-futuristic-scene.html

19 October 2010

Small Asteroid Warning: Scientist Warns of Asteroid Impact [VIDEO]

From: http://www.mhcmagazine.com/blog/small-asteroid-warning/

Small Asteroid Warning: Scientist Warns of Asteroid Impact [VIDEO]

Small asteroids could wipe out a city! An (iron) asteroid a mere 100 feet across could essentially destroy Manhattan Island if it hit in the middle of Central Park.
A 100 foot asteroid impacting the Earth would produce a crater 1/2 mile wide and 575ft deep. Everything within this 1/2 mile wide crater would be completely and utterly demolished.
At 1 mile from the center of the impact people will feel the ground shake like an Earthquake of 4.5 on the Richter scale. The air-blast from this impact will cause multistory buildings to collapse, bridges will collapse, glass windows will shatter, and up to 90% of trees will be blown down branches stripped from their trunks. The peak overpressure felt by humans 1 mile from impact is 35.1 psi (60-80 is enough to be lethal). This means if you were standing 1 mile from the impact point you would most likely suffer some sort of physical internal injuries, which may or may not be life threatening. If the pressure doesn’t get you, falling and flying debris probably will. An asteroid impact of this size would produce wind speeds in excess of 687MPH. That’s like an F11 Tornado! It would rip asphalt from the road, throw cars trucks, tear block and brick houses from their foundations, and destroy wood frame houses like they were made of cardboard.
At 3 miles from the center of impact there would still be hurricane force winds upwards of 123MPH. Wood frame houses would be destroyed, and 30% of trees would be stripped of branches and blown down. People would probably survive this if they have a safe place to shelter, perhaps in a basement or solid block or brick home.
At 5 miles though glass windows will still shatter at this distance, the air blast dissipates to around 55 MPH, and you would probably be out of the danger zone from flying debris.
“…Mark Boslough says more money, attention, and telescopes need to be focused on finding small asteroids….”

Source: KRQE
Recently Richard Kowalski of the Catalina Sky Survey in Tucson Arizona discovered the very first asteroid predicted to impact Earth. In fact this asteroid impacted Earth less than 24hours after is was discovered! Asteroid 2008 TC3 broke up in the atmosphere over Sudan and rained down in a meteorite fall scattering debris for miles.
This historical event has ushered in a new age of awareness about the threat of asteroids like no other. For the first time in human history, we were able to discover an asteroid “before” it impacted Earth.

The constant threat of asteroid impact is real, and we’re just now learning how real that threat truly is as evidenced by Asteroid 2010 TD54 a 33 feet wide asteroid which was spotted just this week. Calculations placed it’s path only 28,000 miles from Earth. In cosmic terms that’s very close. The Moon is 238,897 miles away. The Earth is only 8000 miles wide. This means that asteroid 2010 TD54 passed by us at a distance of only 3.5 times the the diameter our our planet. This asteroid really posed no danger to us, however, it raises some concern.
If we just found this small asteroid so close to us, how many more are out there that we don’t know about? Could one hit tomorrow? Yes! Is it likely, No. Do we know? No. We don’t. However we’ve come a LONG way.
See this video which shows the asteroids found from 1980-2010

Planetary defense is vitally important. Knowing what’s out there BEFORE we’re surprised with an impact is crucial. The likelihood of an impact of an asteroid large enough to do serious damage is very low. However it has happened a mere 102 years ago in Tunguska Russia.
Tunguska Event

The Tunguska Event was apparently an air-burst. Scientists and UFO enthusiast have tried to explain this event. Some scientists believe and have suggested it was an asteroid or comet exploding in the air above the forest with a force of 1000 times the energy released when the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima Japan.
It’s my opinion we should set up some sort of amateur asteroid hunter network which employs the power of numbers by tapping into the amateur and hobbyist astronomers. On the federal and international level there are programs like Catalina Sky Survey, NASA’s NEO program, and many others which are looking out and tracking asteroids. We need more eyes on the skies.
There are billions of asteroids out there. We just have to find them before they find us.
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There’s an article titled “Hunting Meteorites With a Telescope” by Richard Kowalski on pages 12-13 of the July issue of Meteorite Hunting & Collecting Magazine regarding the TC3 event.

UN Eco-Meeting May Ban Planetary Defense

From: http://www.thegwpf.org/international-news/1717-un-eco-meeting-may-ban-planetary-defense.html
 UN Eco-Meeting May Ban Planetary Defense
Monday, 18 October 2010 13:13 Tim Wall, Discoverey News

Blotting out the sun has been the dream of many arch-villains, including The Simpson's Mr. Burns. Their schemes may soon be foiled by the United Nations' Convention on Biological Diversity. Super villains aren't the only ones who want to shade the Earth from the sun. Blocking some of the sun's rays could slow climate change by reducing the amount of sunlight warming the Earth, say some researchers, such as Roger Angel of the University of Arizona.

The Convention may consider banning or limiting research into space sunshades. Some question their wisdom. A space sunshade would have a rapid effect on global warming and provide time to develop more permanent measures, they say. The technique has already received serious attention from NASA and other organizations.

But others, such as the ETC group, an environmental and social advocacy group, fear simply blocking the sun is a bandage, meant to cover up the problem, and allow humans to continue using fossils fuels. Another fear is that geoengineering, as techniques like this are called, could have unforeseen consequences on the weather, ecosystem and agriculture.

Past regulations by the Convention have proven controversial. A decision in 2008 limited the use of iron to fertilize the ocean to cause carbon dioxide absorbing algae blooms. When the algae die they carry the carbon to a watery grave at the bottom of the ocean. The Convention decided to limit the technique until more research was completed.

Can geoengineering really be a long term solution to climate change? It seems UN officials instead advocate working with the forces of nature, not bending them to allow us to keep our fossil fuel addiction.

Discovery News, 18 October 2010

2011 IAA Planetary Defense Conference: From Threat to Action

http://www.pdc2011.org/

2011 IAA Planetary Defense Conference: From Threat to Action
9-12 May 2011
Bucharest, Romania

The International Academy of Astronautics will hold its 
second conference on protecting our planet from impacts 
by asteroids and comets from 9 - 12 May 2011 in Bucharest, 
Romania. The 1st IAA Planetary Defense Conference: Protecting 
Earth from Asteroids, co-sponsored by the European Space Agency 
and The Aerospace Corporation, is the follow-on to three 
previous planetary defense conferences held in 2004 in Los 
Angeles and 2007 in Washington, D.C., and in 2009 in Granada, 
Spain.  For the upcoming conference in 2011, the call for papers 
is now open - see the menu item on the left for further details.

Asteroid Threat to Earth: Office of Planetary Defense Backed

From: http://spacecoalition.com/blog/asteroid-threat-to-earth-office-of-planetary-defense-backed
Asteroid Threat to Earth: Office of Planetary Defense Backed
October 15, 2010 Ask the Expert, Education Station, Exploration, International Cooperation, NASA, Our Solar System, Planet Earth, Space and Science

How best to deal with an incoming Near Earth Object – or NEO for short — is getting increased attention in Washington, D.C.

It’s called planetary defense, an ability to fend off an asteroid on a trajectory that will strike Earth. That vision has moved from giggle factor to factual study by various organizations within the United States and abroad.

For example, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has been delving into organizational responsibility for a planetary defense office. Their view of the situation is forthcoming.

Meanwhile, a seven-person Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense of the NASA Advisory Council has completed their report.

The task force was chaired by former astronauts, Russell Schweickart and Thomas Jones. Other members of the special study squad were from academia, NASA, as well as a space research institute.

Report recommendations

In their final report, the task force proposes five recommendations:

    * Organize for Effective Action on Planetary Defense

NASA should establish an organizational element to focus on the issues, activities and budget necessary for effective Planetary Defense planning; to acquire the required capabilities, to include development of identification and mitigation processes and technologies; and to prepare for leadership of the U.S. and international responses to the impact hazard.

    * Acquire Essential Search, Track, and Warning Capabilities

NASA should significantly improve the nation’s discovery and tracking capabilities for early detection of potential NEO impactors, and for tracking them with the precision required for high confidence in potential impact assessments.

    * Investigate the Nature of the Impact Threat

To guide development of effective impact mitigation techniques, NASA must acquire a better understanding of NEO characteristics by using existing and new science and exploration research capabilities, including ground-based observations, impact experiments, computer simulations, and in situ asteroid investigation.

    * Prepare to Respond to Impact Threats

To prepare an adequate response to the range of potential impact scenarios, NASA should conduct a focused range of activities, from in-space testing of innovative NEO deflection technologies to providing assistance to those agencies responsible for civil defense and disaster response measures.

    * Lead U.S. Planetary Defense Efforts in National and International Forums

NASA should provide leadership for the U.S. government to address Planetary Defense issues in interagency, public education, media, and international forums, including conduct of necessary impact research, informing the public of impact threats, working toward an internationally coordinated response, and understanding the societal effects of a potential NEO impact.

By Leonard David