Experts Push for a NASA Asteroid-Hunting Spacecraft

From:
http://www.space.com/news/nasa-neo-asteroid-spacecraft-101221.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40772812/ns/technology_and_science-space/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20101221/sc_space/expertspushforanasaasteroidhuntingspacecraft


Experts Push for a NASA Asteroid-Hunting Spacecraft
By Leonard David
SPACE.com’s Space Insider Columnist
posted: 21 December 2010
04:12 pm ET
NASA needs an asteroid-hunting spacecraft to finally get serious about the potential threat of nearby space rocks that could slam into Earth, experts say. Lately, support is building to finally develop such a mission for both safety and scientific reasons.

An asteroid hunter might take the form of an infrared imaging telescope placed in a Venus-like orbit around the sun. This high-tech spotter scope could view a much larger portion of the sky for possible asteroid threats than could observatories from the Earth.

Such a mission could also provide a rapid means of compiling an inventory of viable Near-Earth Object (NEO) targets for potential human exploration – now on NASA's to-do list as called for by President Barack Obama.

Moreover, a dedicated NEO-studying spacecraft could help humanity finally come up with a plan for how to thwart ominous NEOs on track to smack our fragile world.

Census mandate

NASA already has a congressional mandate to catalogue nearby space rocks.

Named after the late congressman, the George E. Brown, Jr., Near-Earth Object Survey section of the 2005 NASA Authorization Act called upon the space agency to detect, track, catalogue and characterize the physical characteristics of at least 90 percent of potentially hazardous NEOs larger than roughly 460 feet (140 meters) in diameter by the end of the year 2020.

But blue-ribbon panels of experts looking into the matter for the National Research Council reported in back-to-back reports in 2009 and 2010 that a lack of cash and political muscle make it "infeasible" that such a NEO census can be accomplished by 2020.

"If we seriously want to find all the asteroids which could be an impact hazard to the Earth, as well as find the asteroids which would be good destinations for human spaceflight, then a space-based survey telescope in solar orbit interior to Earth's would be the most rapid way to do that," NASA's Lindley Johnson told SPACE.com. Johnson is the space agency's NEO Observations Program Executive in the planetary science division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C.

Last October, the final report of the Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) was released.

It reported, among a number of findings, that to achieve NASA's NEO search goals in a timely manner as directed by the George E. Brown NEO Survey legislation, the nation will likely need a new space probe in addition to ground-based systems.

"A spacecraft operating with sensors in the infrared band from an orbit sunward of Earth's (such as a Venus-like orbit) offers great advantages in rapid search and repeat observation frequency," the NAC task force wrote. Essentially, the observatory would be able to monitor space rocks over time to determine their hazard potential.

Detailed appraisal

One concept that has already been fleshed out is dubbed the NEO Survey mission, a detailed appraisal done by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation in Boulder, Colo.

Results of a study by Ball Aerospace highlighted how best to meet the George E. Brown objectives for detecting NEOs. [5 reasons to care about asteroids.]

As explained in a Ball Aerospace white paper review provided to SPACE.com, in only 1.6 years, a spacecraft could locate all of the roughly 165 feet (50 meter) diameter, and larger, nearby space rocks that are potentially accessible for human spaceflight, and within 7.5 years could catalogue 90 percent of all NEOs greater than 459 feet (140 meters) in diameter.

"We have more work to do, but what we've created is a very high-quality existence proof. We have a point design based on real engineering with real parts," said Robert Arentz, a Ball Aerospace Advanced Systems Manager.

Arentz told SPACE.com that the NEO survey spacecraft draws upon the firm's heritage of working on NASA's space-based observatories – from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Kepler exo-planet hunter to the Spitzer infrared telescope and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, along with the company's comet-smacking Deep Impact spacecraft.

Tractable problem

The internally funded Ball Aerospace concept has not yet been given a green light by NASA, noted Kevin Miller, a Ball Advanced Systems Manager, but the point design does showcase proven capabilities and an affordable approach, he said. The work uses a recipe "to establish confidence that, yes, this really is a very tractable problem," Miller said.

In order to meet the George E. Brown requirements to find 90 percent of all NEOs larger than some 460 feet (140 meters) within 7 years, the NEO Survey mission would cost roughly $638 million. The catalog it would yield is a superset of the targets that NASA human spaceflight planners would find of interest for piloted excursions to selected space rocks.

Given a go, the NEO hunter from start to launch should take around 42 months to develop, Arentz added.

But there are technological challenges in building the NEO survey spacecraft.

Dealing with solar radiation is one. The heat load from a location so near the sun means the spacecraft would need a large thermal shield and cryocooler hardware. Also, the telescope's photon-gathering array requires highly advanced engineering.

The key is to prevent the intense solar radiation at Venus from reaching the telescope. This is done by careful design of the spacecraft's solar array and use of two thermal shields between the main array and the telescope.

The spacecraft design, Arentz said, is based largely on the Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft design to reduce cost and risk.

And, if two NEO-hunting spacecraft were placed in roughly opposite locales in a Venus-like orbit, this would allow a binocular view of space rocks, and scientists could chart them with an even greater degree of tracking accuracy.

Moral imperative

Needless to say, space-based searches for NEOs come with technical challenges. But finding the funding for the concept within an already over-subscribed NASA presents another challenge altogether.

"There's also a compelling need to generate momentum and show some positive progress towards this general class of mission in the near-term," Miller said.

Scientists say there would be a significant payoff, eventually.

By the end of the proposed spacecraft's lifetime – in the range of seven to eight years after launch – the NEO catalog would contain somewhere between half a million and a million new objects.

Beyond feeding the scientific community a wealth of new information, the telescopic capability also supports NASA's desire to fly both robotic and human expeditions to select asteroids. Furthermore, the spacecraft would enable a planetary defense response if any Earth-threatening NEOs are found, proponents say.

"It's a moral imperative," Arentz said, whether there's no planetary defense problem at all or our planet has a problem child headed our way.

"So it's exactly like cancer. The sooner you know, the better it is. You either know you're safe or you've got the necessary lead time to fix it," Arentz added.

Potential cost benefit

Former astronaut Rusty Schweickart, who served as co-chair of the NASA Advisory Council Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense told SPACE.com: "If perfect tracking were possible using [ground-based] telescopes we'd never have to launch a mission to verify whether or not a NEO were going to impact ... we'd know and launch only if we were definitely going to be hit."

Schweickart said that with current, and even future ground-based telescope tracking, missions would have to be launched from time to time to rendezvous with a threatening NEO to verify whether or not the NEO was in fact headed for a bruising impact with Earth.

This would be necessary, he said, both due to the limits inherent in any telescopic image and to the intermittent nature of tracking, which comes with long data drop-outs.

"With a telescope in a Venus-like orbit, the episodic tracking component of the tracking challenge will all but disappear, the result of which will be a reduction in the need for transponder rendezvous missions," Schweickart said.

The potential cost benefit of improving tracking by deploying a telescope in a Venus-like orbit, and thereby eliminating transponder missions, can only be determined by doing a rigorous analysis, Schweickart said – a step recommended by the NAC task force.

This logic, while critical to planetary defense and cost-saving, only comes into play when one goes beyond finding NEOs into deflecting them, Schweickart suggested. Indeed, a recent White House policy letter for the first time assigns NASA responsibility beyond simply finding, characterizing and cataloging NEOs.

That's welcome news, Schweickart said.

"The interesting thing is that a telescope in a Venus-like orbit contributes to so many different interests... discovery, tracking and building up the catalog for exploration. But planetary defense is the primary rationale for its deployment," Schweickart concluded.

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

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.

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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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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

IS THE WORLD READY FOR AN ASTEROID THREAT?

From: http://www.spaceguarduk.com/news/305-is-the-world
IS THE WORLD READY FOR AN ASTEROID THREAT? APOLLO’S SCHWEICKART PUSHES FOR ACTION

If we discover an asteroid heading directly towards Earth, are we ready to deal with the challenges of either deflection strategies or an evacuation prior to impact?

Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart has spent years championing the need for the human race to prepare for what will certainly happen one day: an asteroid threat to Earth. Schweickart is Chairman of the Board of the B612 Foundation, a non-profit private foundation that supports the development and testing of a spaceflight concept to protect the Earth from future asteroid impacts, and he says we have the technology today to deal with it, but nothing has been verified or tested. “We need to mobilize that technology and achieve an international consensus on what actions should be taken,” he said.

Schweickart also co-chairs — with another former astronaut, Tom Jones — the Planetary Defense Task Force of the NASA Advisory Council. On October 6, 2010, the Task Force submitted a list of five recommendations to the Council to suggest how NASA should organize, investigate, prepare, and lead national and international efforts defending our planet from an asteroid impact.

“Our report and recommendations are a necessary, but not sufficient element of a sequence of actions which hopefully will lead to humanity being able to prevent future asteroid impacts with Earth,” Schweickart explained. “Assuming positive action by OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy) and the Congress, we’ll be well on our way to preventing future impact disasters.”

The report stresses that NASA should significantly improve the ability to discover and track potential NEO impactors to allow for early detection, develop effective impact mitigation techniques, and prepare an adequate response to the range of potential impact scenarios.

These recommendations have been approved by the Advisory Council, and the report was submitted to the NASA Administrator. Then, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is supposed to make a decision by tomorrow – Friday, October 15, 2010 –to make assignments in the US government as to what the breakdown of work should be to protect the Earth from an asteroid impact.

Among the recommendations in the PDTF report is developing mitigation techniques. But could NASA do this type of work within their new budget? “People intuitively think that if you’re going to be pushing asteroids around, that work will take over NASA,” said Schweickart said in a phone interview with Universe Today . “Wrong. It would be a ripple in NASA’s budget, a pimple, 1.5-2.0 percent at the most of NASA’s annual budget for 10 years then dropping back to less than 0.5%. It does not displace anything else that NASA is doing. It would be a small budgetary issue, but the importance of it is huge. This saves lives, protects the global environment, and saves future generations.”

The technology needed exists today, Schweickart said, “that is, we do not have to go into a big technology development program in order to deflect most asteroids that would pose a threat of impact. However, that technology has not been put together in a system design, and not been verified, tested or demonstrated that it could actually deflect an asteroid. So, we need to test everything – test the very sequence we would use for a deflection campaign.”

The best way to test it would be to have NASA, or perhaps a consortium of space agencies, carry out an actual mission to test the entire system.

“Not with an asteroid that threatens an impact,” said Schweickart, “but with an asteroid that is just minding its own business, and we’d have the opportunity to show we can change its orbit slightly in a controlled way.”

Schweickart said the B612 foundation, and the Association of Space Explorers (ASE; the professional organization of astronauts and cosmonauts from around the world) and every planetary defense conference held recently has discussed the need for such a capability validation.

But the recommendations made by the PDTF are, for now just suggestions, and certainly not a mandate for NASA to prepare in a meaningful way for an asteroid threat.

“There’s no official design of a deflection mission because there is no responsibility to do it,” Schweickart said. “Right now, NASA’s assignment is only to find these asteroids. Period. That’s it.”

But, with the October 15 deadline almost here, Schweickart is hopeful. “Hopefully, that will begin the process of NASA actually having this responsibility,” he said, “and that Congress will respect that and a budget be allocated in order to do the job. Then mission planners can start designing demonstration missions.”

However, if the past is any indication, any mandate wouldn’t necessarily mean a mission would happen soon.

Congress directed NASA to do the “Spaceguard” survey to find all asteroids around 40 meters and larger by 2020. “To come close to achieving that, we need to have new telescopes that will have greater capabilities than what we’ve been using to date,” said Schweickart. “Right now the Pan-STARRS telescope has the equivalent of one eye squinting, and it is not exactly knocking everybody’s socks off. LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope) is still hundreds of millions of dollars before being a fully funded project.”

Schweickart said the Task Force heard presentations on perhaps better ways to complete that Congressional goal and their report indicates that at least 87% of the large asteroids whose impacts could pose a global threat to our civilization have been discovered. Right now, none pose a credible threat of a collision with Earth for the foreseeable future. But the discovery rate of the much more numerous smaller NEOs, — which represent a regional or local impact hazard — “will soon confront us with objects presenting worrisome but uncertain probabilities for a future collision with Earth. Such situations will appear more frequently as the discovery rate increases, and the nation presently has no clear policy on how to address such a situation,” the report says.

“Congress’s favorite thing to do is to tell you to do something and not give you any money for it,” Schweickart said. “That is not very responsible and it doesn’t always work and it’s not the right way a government should operate, especially where public safety is at issue. Therefore it is important that the OSTP lead the way on this issue on October 15.”

The Spaceguard Centre, Llanshay Lane,
Knighton, Powys, LD7 1LW. United Kingdom.

Tel: 01547 520247     mail@spaceguarduk.com

How to Deflect an Asteroid with Today’s Technology

From: http://www.universetoday.com/75816/how-to-deflect-an-asteroid-with-today%E2%80%99s-technology/
Oct 15th
2010
How to Deflect an Asteroid with Today’s Technology
Posted in: Asteroids, Earth by Nancy Atkinson (11 Comments »)

Artist concept of a space tug. Credit: NASA

Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart is among an international group of people championing the need for the human race to prepare for what will certainly happen one day: an asteroid threat to Earth. In an article on Universe Today published yesterday, Schweickart said the technology is available today to send a mission to an asteroid in an attempt to move it, or change its orbit so that an asteroid that threatens to hit Earth will pass by harmlessly. What would such a mission entail?

In a phone interview, Schweickart described two types of “deflection campaigns” for a threatening asteroid: a kinetic impact would roughly “push” the asteroid into a different orbit, and a gravity tractor would “tug slowly” on the asteroid to precisely “trim” the resultant change course by using nothing more than the gravitational attraction between the two bodies. Together these two methods comprise a deflection campaign.

Artist Impression of Deep Impact - Credit: NASA

“In a way, the kinetic impact was demonstrated by the Deep Impact mission back in 2005,” said Schweickart. “But that was a very big target and a small impactor that had relatively no effect on the comet. So, we haven’t really demonstrated the capability to have the guidance necessary to deflect a moderately sized asteroid.”

Most important, the gravity tractor spacecraft would arrive prior to the kinetic impactor, precisely determine the asteroid’s orbit and observe the kinetic impact to determine its effectiveness. Following the kinetic impact it would then determine whether or not any adjustment trim were required.

“You want to know what happens when you do a kinetic impact, so you want an ‘observer’ spacecraft up there as well,” Schweickart explained. “You don’t do a kinetic impact without an observation, because the impactor destroys itself in the process and without the observer you wouldn’t know what happened except by tracking the object over time, which is not the best way to find out whether you got the job done.”

So, 10-15 years ahead of an impact threat — or 50 years if you have that much time — an observer spacecraft is sent up. “This, in fact, would also be a gravity tractor,” Schweickart said. “It doesn’t have to be real big, but bigger gets the job done a little faster. The feature you are interested in the outset is not the gravity tractor but the transponder that flies in formation with the asteroid and you track the NEO, and back on Earth we can know exactly where it is.”

Schweickart said even from ground tracking, we couldn’t get as precise an orbit determination of an NEO as we could by sending a spacecraft to the object. Additionally, generally speaking, we may not know when we send an observer spacecraft what action will be required; whether an impact will be required or if we could rely on the gravity tractor. “You may launch at the latest possible time, but at that time the probability of impact may be 1 in 5 or 1 or 2,” Schweickart said. “So the first thing you are going to do with the observer spacecraft is make a precise orbit determination and now you’re going to know if it really will impact Earth and even perhaps where it will impact.”

Artist concept of an impactor heading towards an asteroid. Credit: ESA

After the precise orbit is known, the required action would be determined. “So now, if needed you launch a kinetic impactor and now you know what job has to be done,” Schweickart said. “As the impactor is getting ready to impact the asteroid, the observer spacecraft pulls back and images what is going on so you can confirm the impact was solid, –not a glancing blow — and then after impact is done, the observer spacecraft goes back in and makes another precision orbit determination so that you can confirm that you changed its velocity so that it no longer will hit the Earth.”

The second issue is, even if the NEO’s orbit has been changed so that it won’t hit Earth this time around, there’s the possibility that during its near miss it might go through what is called a “keyhole,” whereby Earth’s gravity would affect it just enough that it would make an impact during a subsequent encounter with Earth. This is a concern with the asteroid Apophis, which is projected to miss Earth in 2029, but depending on several factors, could pass through a keyhole causing it to return to hit Earth in 2036.

“So if it does go through that keyhole,” said Schweickart, “now you can use the gravity tractor capability of the spacecraft to make a small adjustment so that it goes between keyholes on that close approach. And now you have a complete verified deflection campaign.”

Schweickart said a Delta-sized rocket would be able to get a spacecraft to meet up with an asteroid. “A Delta rocket would work,” he said, “but if there is a more challenging orbit we might have to use something bigger, or we may have to use a gravity assist and do mission planning for type of thing which hasn’t been done yet. So we can get there, we can do it – but ultimately we will probably need a heavy lift vehicle.”
As for the spacecraft, we can use a design similar to vehicles that have already been sent into space.

“A gravity tractor could be like Deep Space 1 that launched in 1998,” Schweickart said. “ You can make any spacecraft into a gravity tractor fairly easily.”

Rusty Schweickart

But it hasn’t been demonstrated and Schweickart says we need to do so.

“We need to demonstrate it because we – NASA, the technical community, the international community — need to learn what you find out when you do something for the first time,” he said. “Playing a concerto in front of an audience is quite different from playing it alone in your house.”

Next week: What will it take until the world gets serious about planetary defense?

Forget Big Asteroids: It's the Smaller Rocks That Sneak In and Blow Up

From: http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20101011/sc_space/forgetbigasteroidsitsthesmallerrocksthatsneakinandblowup
Forget Big Asteroids: It's the Smaller Rocks That Sneak In and Blow Up
Leonard David

Put aside the vision of Bruce Willis wrestling with huge space rocks threatening to doom Earth "Armageddon"-style. It turns out that people should be more worried about smaller space rocks that explode in our atmosphere.

While smaller than Earth-busting asteroids, these "airbursters" — like the space rock that exploded in 1908 high over Tunguska, Siberia — are more immediate threats, scientists say. They can cause localized destruction and may intrude in our airspace with little warning time.

When an airbursting asteroid, called a bolide, exploded over an island region of Indonesia late last year, it rocked the residents' world with an estimated energy release of about 50 kilotons, equal to some 110,000 pounds of TNT.

Such objects are expected to impact the Earth on average every two to 12 years. [Brilliant Fireball Video]

Physics of airbursts

The risks of exploding asteroids and the need to keep watch for hazardous near-Earth objects took center stage at September's Space 2010 conference in California, �sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

"We used to think that the only real threat was from impacts that hit the ground ... and that the atmosphere would protect us from the small ones," said physicist Mark Boslough of Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M. "We never really thought about the physics of airbursts. ... There hasn't been that much research."

Given his modeling of airbursts, Boslough pointed out that smaller NEOs detonating in the atmosphere release intense heat and create very high blasts of wind that can reach the ground.

"So yes, you do have to sweat the small stuff," Boslough told SPACE.com.

Also, a space rock big enough to make it deeper into the Earth's atmosphere before it explodes can result in a sizzling jet of gases that incinerates anything volatile on the ground. Vegetation would be vaporized. Rocks would melt to form glass — in short, a hellish explosion.

A similar situation is thought to have occurred in the Libyan desert some 30 million years ago, Boslough said. The region was strewn with surface material fused into glass. Large deposits of shattered glass were discovered where there should be none.

"Just statistically, it's almost certain that the next destructive impact will be an airburst," Boslough said.

More and more of the big NEOs are being found, he said, so the statistical probability of Earth getting slam-dunked by a large object is going down.

"But there are many, many more small ones," Boslough said, advocating a priority on spotting less hefty, imminent impactors. "If big dollars are to be spent, I think they should be spent on more telescopes."

If a small NEO were discovered, say, two weeks in advance, "we have no choice but to take the hit," Boslough said.

In terms of planetary defense and mitigation efforts, Boslough advised focusing more attention on small airbursting objects, with "mitigation being a form of civil defense."

Tunguska fallout

The classic asteroid event occurred 102 years ago in Tunguska, Boslough said. It involved an object that broke up in a cascading way, leading to a rapidly expanding fireball and subsequent blast wave.

"That blast wave hit the ground, and the wind associated with it was high enough to actually blow over trees," he said.

The downed trees covered at least 2,000 square kilometers (more than 770 square miles) — with no crater associated with the explosion located.

Boslough said that, in his opinion, the Tunguska asteroid was probably a 40-meter (131-foot) object. "Tunguska wasn't the lower threshold. You could imagine something 30 meters (98 feet) across," he said, and in that case, it would explode with a little bit less energy and a little higher in the atmosphere.

[Video: Plane's emergency landing on highway]

"But if you just happened to be directly under it, yes, it could be fatal," Boslough added.

Boslough stressed that the probability of a Tunguska is on the order of once every thousand years. "But the next object that has the chance of killing somebody is almost certainly going to be an airburst like Tunguska — maybe bigger, maybe smaller," he said.

Continuing threat

Other panel members of the AIAA session, while highlighting varying aspects of NEO research, concurred about the troublesome issue of smaller incoming objects.

"We talk about the big ones all the time, and we're getting rid of the threat for those," said Bill Ailor, director of the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies.

"But the small ones are going to be a continuing threat. And the challenge is what do we do about that," said Ailor, also a leading planetary defense expert at The Aerospace Corp. in El Segundo, Calif. �"We might not see them in time."

Similar in view was Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"We're doing very well with detecting the large ones. But we've got a long way to go for the small ones," Yeomans added.

His message regarding planetary defense:

"We need to find them before they find us."

    * 5 Reasons to Care About Asteroids
    * Images - Asteroids Up Close
    * Brilliant Fireball Over New Mexico Caught in Video

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.

Asteroid? Our leaders are on the case.

From: http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/09/16/asteroid-our-leaders-are-on-the-case/

Asteroid? Our leaders are on the case.

Already the UN is think-tanking a proposal to facilitate naming a Special Envoy
by Scott Feschuk on Thursday, September 16, 2010 4:00pm - 6 Comments

GETTY IMAGES/ REUTERS/ ISTOCK/ PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY TAYLOR SHUTE

Look up, waaaaay up. See anything suspicious? Canadian and American astronauts have warned that our planet is a sitting duck for massive asteroids—one of which may ultimately smash into Earth, dooming billions to death and prompting thousands to turn to their god and plaintively inquire: “Why? Why couldn’t this have happened in 1983 when I still had six LPs left on my Columbia House obligation?”

The warning comes from an organization headed by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. It’s called the Association of Space Explorers, which surely ranks among the most badass and awesome-sounding of private clubs out there—although members do have to put up with Buzz Aldrin ending every argument with younger astronauts by hollering: “How did your moon walk go? Oh, right, you never walked on the moon like I walked on the moon! [pause] Moon!”

The association’s report about the asteroid menace got some coverage in the media. Permit me to direct you to a critical sentence from one of the news articles: “The United Nations is currently studying the report, which outlines plans to detect and deflect any objects that might threaten the planet.”

Did you catch that? The UN’s got our backs. They’re totally on top of this. Even as you read these words, the Executive Secretary to the Director-General of the Under-Under-Secretariat is totally think-tanking the Proposed Action Item of facilitating the appointment of a Special Envoy for The Asteroid That Will Kill Us All. This will be followed by a decade of fruitless negotiations with the hurtling death rock.

Special envoy: If you turn your agenda to page four, you’ll see it’s time to discuss the heritage of your basaltic crust, after which I will talk reason with your nickel-iron core.

Asteroid: [methodically maintains speed and course to apocalyptic impact]

Special envoy: Good idea. Muffin break.

I’m telling you: one toothless embargo and a series of empty, sternly worded resolutions later, the General Assembly will finally be ready to take decisive action against the imminent asteroid threat by passing a resolution condemning Israel for something.

(Not that the wholesale annihilation of our species would be all bad. For one thing, it would save me from confronting the backyard. We had a bunch of people over and my “landscaping” consisted of taking a large flower pot and placing it strategically over the gaping hole in our rotting deck. Sure, the lawn was still patchy and brown, part of the fence was falling down and there was a tire fire burning over in one corner—but that splintery limb trap was now somewhat less likely to claim a child’s life. Look for me on the cover of next month’s Lawsuit-Avoidance Gardening.)

Hadfield and colleagues say we urgently need to build on the efforts of Spaceguard, which sounds like an astronaut’s deodorant but is actually an ongoing survey of the skies that scans for potential threats.

But why bother? If a big-time asteroid is coming our way, we’re done for. In the movies, it’s Bruce Willis and his gang of character actors to the rescue, saving humanity with the power of macho posturing and Aerosmith power ballads. But real life brings with it the grim fact of real governments. And how would they respond?

I think it’s safe to say that Russia would fire off several nuclear warheads at the asteroid. These missiles would destroy the moon. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck would encourage Americans to run simultaneously in the same direction, thinking perhaps that this will speed up the Earth’s rotation and let China take the worst of the impact. In Canada, Stephen Harper would dispatch an emergency mission to the asteroid, but only to spruce it up a bit and put a government stimulus sign on it.

The New York Times recently reported that nine years after the 9/11 attacks, and after billions of dollars spent, U.S. officials still haven’t figured out how to allow firefighters and police officers from different jurisdictions to talk to each other over their radios at emergency sites. Nine years! And these guys are going to successfully deflect a 200-million-ton planetoid travelling at 30 km per second? Riiiight.

I don’t care how much Spaceguard you apply—we’d might as well move straight to the widespread looting.

Will An Asteroid Hit Earth?

From: http://news.discovery.com/space/will-an-asteroid-hit-earth.html
Will An Asteroid Hit Earth?

By Robert Lamb | Fri Jul 23, 2010 03:27 PM ET

PS1_dome_skyThe Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pann-STARRS) scans the sky. (Image courtesy University of Hawaii)
If you happen to live in fear of asteroids, then here's a sobering fact for you: Our planet absorbs asteroid impacts like a truck grille eats bugs. Plus, according to NASA's Dr. Donald K. Yeomans, most of them aren’t worth getting bent out of shape over.

"On a daily basis, we're hit with basketball-sized objects, and Volkswagen-sized objects come in a few times a year," Yeomans says. "Fortunately, the limiting size for something that will actually do ground damage is about 30 meters [98 feet], and you'd expect something like that to come in every 200 years or so on average."

SLIDE SHOW: Top 10 Ways to Stop an Asteroid

Fireball
WATCH VIDEOS: From meteors to asteroids, browse the Discovery News playlist and discover what it takes for a piece of space rock to turn potentially hazardous for life on Earth.
Yeomans heads NASA's Near Earth Object (NEO) Program Office, which continues to spearhead the global effort to identify and track significantly large asteroids in near-Earth space. That directive includes rocks more than a kilometer (0.6 miles) across, which typically hit the Earth in million-year intervals. These asteroids are capable of causing global consequences. Larger objects, including the ten kilometer “dinosaur killer” that occurred 65 million years ago, are capable of plunging the globe into apocalyptic winters that last for years. Fortunately, these large object impacts are even less frequent, hitting Earth at intervals in the tens of millions of years.

"Asteroid size has this interesting distribution where there are very few of the big ones," says Lowell Observatory research scientist Bruce Koehn. "The smaller the size, the more there are."

Just think of a bag of potato chips that's been shaken and crushed in a cramped grocery bag. How many full-sized chips do you think you'll find? Outer space, however, is a lot larger than a bag of chips.

"We've discovered almost 90 percent of the total population of NEOs larger than a kilometer, and none of them are a threat," Yeomans says. "So the next step is to extend the survey down to 140 meters [459 feet], which Congress has asked NASA to handle. That will take larger, wider field telescopes, which hopefully will come on line within a few years. Actually one of them is already on line, the Pan-STARRS telescope on Maui."

SLIDE SHOW: The top 10 asteroids and near-Earth objects as selected by the Discovery News team.

Cosmic Intelligence Gathering
It's a situation where knowledge is power, and just knowing where the asteroids are has decreased Earths' estimated risk factor tremendously.

"When our project started in the late '90s, the risk of dying from an asteroid impact was approximately the same as dying from an airplane crash," says Koehn. "Twelve years of near-Earth asteroid surveys have reduced the risk simply by increasing our knowledge. So the risk of being hit by something we haven't found is 10 times less than it was."

Will an asteroid hit the Earth? Certainly. A small asteroid might be burning up in the atmosphere or touching down in the wilderness right now without any consequence. Meanwhile, the risk of catastrophic impact continues to grow ever fainter. Still, Yeomans admits that the NEO search will likely continue for the foreseeable future.

astrophysicist asteroid
WATCH VIDEO: Astrophysicist Andy Puckett explores the universe, especially undiscovered asteroids that could one day smack into our planet.
"We'll never completely find every object that has an Earth-threatening trajectory," Yeomans says. "Some of them are quite small and difficult to find till they're almost upon us."

Plus as Bruce Koehn points out, our solar system's dance of asteroids is hardly set in stone.

"Orbits change," Koehn says. "They change due to interactions with major planets and large asteroids. They change because of [close approaches between asteroids] and for a variety of other reasons. So while we know whether most of these asteroids are coming near the Earth, we don't know the details of these interactions because we don't know the orbits well enough to calculate these close approaches. So there is kind of a fundamental level beyond which we cannot know, and we'll always have that level of risk."

Eyes on the Future
As scientists continue to watch the skies, it's important to realize that charting NEOs is far from merely a matter of planetary defense. They're also items of great scientific interest.

"The asteroids in the most Earth-like orbit are the ones that threaten us most, but they're also the ones that are easiest to get to," Yeomans says. "The Obama administration has said that the next human space flight target is likely an asteroid, so these near-Earth asteroids are not only a threat, but they're opportunities for exploration and future space resources."

Near earth asteroids may even unlock secrets about the origins of life on Earth, as asteroid likely brought life-necessitating water and carbon-based molecules to the early planet.

So if you've ever cowered under your covers at the thought of an asteroid impact, lighten up and try to focus on their scientific importance. Even if a real threat should present itself, scientists already have mitigation strategies lined up to deflect them.

"The risk is quite small," Koehn says. "It was never anything to lose sleep about, but it's even less now."

More on NASA's Asteroid Mission

From: http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978484620

The planned manned asteroid mission is heavily viewed as a “Plymouth Rock” opportunity to set foot on Mars or another celestial body beyond our moon. NASA believes it will be a chance to gain a wealth of intelligence and data about the possibility of going even deeper into space.

Others view it as a mission for planetary defense as we contend with the possibility of a “killer asteroid” impacting our earth at some point in the future. With so many cosmic bodies floating around in space, the possibility of a close encounter is always factored into any equation of planetary defense.

A manned asteroid mission is tentative at best, and could launch by 2025. This “dress-rehearsal” would be a lead-in to the so called “Plymouth Rock” plans to step foot on Mars by the mid to late 2030’s.

From: http://sunteaching.vox.com/library/post/plymouth-rock-deep-space-mission-asteroid-idea-gains-ground.html?_c=feed-atom

The workshop's primary goals Were "to Increase the collective understanding of NEOs, communiquer NASA's plans for a human mission to a NEO in the 2024-2026 timeframe, and Receive community input on mission objective," Said Douglas Cooke, NASA's associate administrator for Exploration Systems .

Determining What technologies and Other Information Will Be Even Before Attempting year required asteroid-bound mission with astronauts, gold setting planetary defense plans in case of potential impacts is Vital

ALSO: videos of the conference and Q&A discussion on Planetary Defense can be found here:
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/new_space_enterprise/home/neoworkshop.html

NASA Office Considered for Planetary Defense

From: http://spacecoalition.com/blog/nasa-office-considered-for-planetary-defense

The NASA Advisory Council’s Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense is grappling with a set of recommendations – one of which could have the space agency set up a coordination office to help protect Earth from Near Earth Objects (NEOs).

A special seven-person task force includes former astronauts, Russell Schweickart and Tom Jones. The two space travelers are co-chairs of the ad-hoc study group.

Among the topics the task force is reviewing as possible recommendations to NASA leadership:

– A Planetary Defense Coordination Office should be set up within the space agency.

– To help speed up observations of potentially menacing NEOs, a space-based infrared detector spacecraft, placed into a “Venus-like orbit” should be considered.

– Given a new coordination role in the NEO issue, NASA needs to initiate dialogue with emergency responders and disaster management agencies – including the Department of Homeland Security. Furthermore, NASA should outreach to other space agencies and other groups on an international basis to help shape detection and tracking efforts, as well as consider steps to mitigate any Earth- threatening NEOs.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is apparently on track to meet an October 15 deadline of identifying an agency to be responsible for Near Earth Object (NEO) mitigation.

By Leonard David

From: http://www.space.com/news/nasa-asteroid-impact-near-earth-objects-planetary-defense-100726.html
NASA Panel Calls for Asteroid Defense Office
By Leonard David
SPACE.com’s Space Insider Columnistposted: 26 July 2010
01:33 pm ET

BOULDER, Colo. — Protecting Earth from menacing space rocks that could impact our planet should be designated a top-level NASA strategic goal, according to an agency task force.  To achieve that goal, NASA should establish a Planetary Defense Coordination Office to oversee the effort, the task force said.

The seven-person NASA Advisory Council's Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense called for the new asteroid-watching office after reviewing ideas for detecting, characterizing and deflecting threatening near-Earth objects (NEOs), as well as discussing international coordination to deal with the issue.

The task force, which met here July 8-9, is reviewing its advocacy of launching an infrared detector spacecraft placed into a Venus-like orbit to provide a long-distance lookout for NEOs, which could speed up surveillance duties by decades compared to relying solely on ground-based observations.

Pro-active prevention

Former astronauts Russell Schweickart and Tom Jones are co-chairs of the Ad-Hoc Task Force, which is made up of members from academia and scientific institutions including NASA.

"At the end of our process, our recommendations will go to the NASA Administrator and for the first time will address the overall issue of protecting the planet from asteroid impacts," Schweickart told SPACE.com. "Those recommendations will include not only finding NEOs that potentially pose a threat, but pro-active prevention of impacts...and working with the international community in order to be prepared to take that kind of action," he said. [Gallery: Holes in the Earth]

The group's output "will be the first time NASA will have that kind of serious, internal set of recommendations," Schweickart added.

"It really is a turning point," said Don Yeomans, a task force member and Manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"For decades we were bumping along, barely aware that there were near-Earth objects. When NASA got involved in the mid-1990s... there's been a dramatic increase in the discovery rate. It was sort of an 'ah-ha' moment for the community in terms of science," he told SPACE.com.

Emergency management issues

The task force members are investigating using off-the-shelf hardware to fabricate a ground-based short-term warning capability. Such gear could provide many days or hours of warning about smaller, incoming space rocks. Furthermore, using commercially-available equipment could help build a system that's inexpensive but powerful, and can be easily deployed around the globe.

The task force is also considering emergency management matters, such as what to do if Earth appears poised for a bruising impact. 

Speaking to that topic via remote conferencing was Dennis Mileti, professor emeritus and former director of the Hazards Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is an expert on societal aspects of hazards and disasters.

If NASA takes a lead role in planetary defense, the job of detecting threatening NEOs falls to the agency, Mileti advised. It is important, he said, to structure a highly reliable warning and messaging system, coupled with a public education campaign.

Blending NEO space scientists with emergency responders and disaster management agencies — including the Department of Homeland Security — is critical, Mileti said. "That's really mixed soup to weave together," he told the task force.

Mileti's message to NASA: "They'll need to provide the leadership to reach out to the emergency management community ... because it will not go the other way around."

• Images — Asteroids Up Close, Astronauts on Asteroids
• NASA's New Asteroid Mission Could Save the Planet
• Will an Asteroid Hit Earth? Are We All Doomed?

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://news.softpedia.com/news/NASA-Should-Focus-on-Planetary-Defense-149169.shtml 

According to a panel of investigators from the American space agency, NASA should focus more on devising planetary defense strategies. The Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense, a division of the NASA Advisory Council, explains that safeguarding Earth from the effects of impacts with large space rocks should be the main priority of most – if not all – space agencies worldwide. The new report shows that the creation of a Planetary Defense Coordination Office would be a large step in the right direction. International collaboration in the field is also indicated, Space reports.

The task force that is now releasing its recommendations met between July -9 in Boulder, Colorado. Its seven members looked at existing and planned methods of detecting, intercepting, deflecting and destroying incoming space rocks, and then determined that a more unified, thorough approach is needed. One of the primary things the group considered essential for our planet's safety is the construction and launch of a sensitive infrared observatory, which should be placed in a Venus-like orbit.

This type of spacecraft would allow for a more accurate and early detection of dangerous near-Earth objects (NEO), which may be lurking in the inner solar system. The panel explains that the time of protecting our planet by conducting ground-based observations alone has passed, and that space-based studies are now required as well.

“At the end of our process, our recommendations will go to the NASA Administrator and for the first time will address the overall issue of protecting the planet from asteroid impacts. Those recommendations will include not only finding NEO that potentially pose a threat, but pro-active prevention of impacts […] and working with the international community in order to be prepared to take that kind of action,” explains former astronaut Russell Schweickart.

The new conclusions represent “the first time NASA will have that kind of serious, internal set of recommendations,” he adds. The spaceflight expert was the co-chair of the Ad-Hoc Task Force, together with former NASA astronaut Tom Jones. “It really is a turning point. For decades we were bumping along, barely aware that there were near-Earth objects. When NASA got involved in the mid-1990s... there's been a dramatic increase in the discovery rate. It was sort of an 'ah-ha' moment for the community in terms of science,” says Don Yeomans. He is the manager of the NASA NEO Program Office, which is based in Pasadena, California, at the Jet Propulstion Laboratory (JPL).

More on the upcoming meeting: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=34590
NASA Advisory Council Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense Meeting August 2010

STATUS REPORT
Date Released: Sunday, July 25, 2010
Source: NASA Advisory Council

[Federal Register: July 26, 2010 (Volume 75, Number 142)] [Notices] [Page 43565] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr26jy10-86]

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

[Notice: (10-084)]

NASA Advisory Council; Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense; Meeting

AGENCY: National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

ACTION: Notice of meeting.

SUMMARY: In accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, Public Law 92-463, as amended, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announces a two-part meeting of the Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense of the NASA Advisory Council.

DATES: Tuesday, August 17, 2010, 12 p.m.-3 p.m., and Friday, August 20, 2010, 12 p.m.-3 p.m. All times are Eastern Daylight Time.

ADDRESSES: The meeting will be held via WebEx/Teleconference on both dates.

August 17, 12 p.m.-3 p.m.: To view briefings, log in to Web site at https://nasa.webex.com. Meeting Number: 993 545 318. Passcode: Tuesday817! Join teleconference by dialing toll-free 888-566- 1673. Passcode: 12080.

August 20, 12 p.m.-3 p.m.: To view briefings, log in to Web site at https://nasa.webex.com. Meeting Number: 995 328 530. Passcode: Friday820! Join teleconference by dialing toll-free 888-566- 1673. Passcode: 12080.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Jane Parham, Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Headquarters, Washington, DC 20546, 202-358-1715, jane.parham@nasa.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The agenda topic is: Drafting of the Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense Final Report to the NASA Advisory Council. The meeting will be open to the public up to the capacity of WebEx and teleconference lines. It is imperative that the meeting be held on these dates to accommodate the scheduling priorities of the key participants.

For questions, please call Jane Parham, 202-358-1815, jane.parham@nasa.gov.

Dated: July 19, 2010. P. Diane Rausch, Advisory Committee Management Officer, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. [FR Doc. 2010-18147 Filed 7-23-10; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE P

 More info here: http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pages/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=109&extmode=view&extid=360&tmpl=component
 

Harrison "Jack" Schmitt on Cancelling Constellation

Jack gets it right regarding the importance of the Moon, but wrong on Constellation.  Constellation would not have put us on the path to space settlement or permanence on the Moon, and would have likely worked against it in the long run, and was premature.  We need to begin every part of our architecture with permanence in mind--that mean precursor steps in In Situ Resource Utilization, serious pre-cursor surveys, a robotic presence and presence of supplies.  What we intend to do there needs to consider commercial interests and contracts from the start.


New Space Policy Cedes Moon To China, Space Station To Russia, And Liberty To The Ages
February 6, 2010 by Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, Apollo 17
Filed under: Civil Space Flight
The Administration finally has announced its formal retreat on American Space Policy after a year of morale destroying clouds of uncertainty.  The lengthy delay, the abandonment of human exploration, and the wimpy, un-American thrust of the proposed budget indicates that the Administration does not understand, or want to acknowledge, the essential role space plays in the future of the United States and liberty.  This continuation of other apologies and retreats in the global arena would cede the Moon to China, the American Space Station to Russia, and assign liberty to the ages.

The repeated hypocrisy of this President continues to astound.  His campaign promises endorsed what he now proposes to cancel. His July celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the first Moon landing now turns out to be just a photo op with the Apollo 11 crew.  With one wave of a budget wand, the Congress, the NASA family, and the American people are asked to throw their sacrifices and achievements in space on the ash heap of history.

Expenditures of taxpayer provided funds on space related activities find constitutional justification in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, that gives Congress broad power to ”promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts.”  In addition, the Article I power and obligation to “provide for the Common Defence” relates directly to the geopolitical importance of space exploration at this frontier of human endeavor.  A space program not only builds wealth, economic vitality, and educational momentum through technology and discovery, but it also sets the modern geopolitical tone for the United States to engage friends and adversaries in the world.  For example, in the 1980s, the dangerous leadership of the former Soviet Union believed America would be successful in creating a missile defense system because we succeeded in landing on the Moon and they had not. Dominance in space was one of the major factors leading to the end of the Cold War.

With a new Cold War looming before us, involving the global ambitions and geopolitical challenge of the national socialist regime in China, President George W. Bush put America back on a course to maintain space dominance. What became the Constellation Program comprised his January 14, 2004 vision of returning Americans and their partners to deep space by putting astronauts back on the Moon, going on to Mars, and ultimately venturing beyond.  Unfortunately, like all Administrations since Eisenhower and Kennedy, the Bush Administration lost perspective about space.

 Inadequate budget proposals and lack of Congressional leadership and funding during Constellation’s formative years undercut Administrator Michael Griffin’s effort to implement the Program after 2004.  Delays due to this under-funding have rippled through national space capabilities until we must retire the Space Shuttle without replacement access to space.  Now, we must pay at least $50 million per seat for the Russians to ferry Americans and others to the International Space Station.  How the mighty have fallen.

Not only did Constellation never receive the Administration’s promised funding, but the Bush Administration and Congress required NASA 1) to continue the construction of the International Space Station (badly under-budgeted by former NASA Administrator O’Keefe, the OMB, and ultimately by the Congress), 2) to accommodate numerous major over-runs in the science programs (largely protected from major revision or cancellation by narrow Congressional interests), 3) to manage the Agency without hire and fire authority (particularly devastating to the essential hiring of young engineers), and 4) to assimilate, through added delays, the redirection and inflation-related costs of several Continuing Resolutions.

Instead of fixing this situation, the current Administration let go Administrator Griffin, the best engineering Administrator in NASA’s history, and now has cancelled Constellation.  As a consequence, long-term access of American astronauts to space rests on the untested success of a plan for the “commercial” space launch sector to meet the increasingly risk adverse demands of space flight.

Histories of nations tell us that an aggressive program to return Americans permanently to deep space must form an essential component of national policy.  Americans would find it unacceptable, as well as devastating to liberty, if we abandon leadership in space to the Chinese, Europe, or any other nation or group of nations.  Potentially equally devastating to billions of people would be loss of freedom’s access to the energy resources of the Moon as fossil fuels diminish and populations and demand increase.

In that harsh light of history, it is frightening to contemplate the long-term, totally adverse consequences to the standing of the United States in modern civilization if the current Administration’s decision to abandon deep space holds.  Even a commitment to maintain the International Space Station using commercial launch assets constitutes a dead-end for Americans in space.  At some point, now set at the end of this decade, the $150 billion Station becomes a dead-end and would be abandoned to the Russians or just destroyed, ending America’s human space activities entirely.

What, then, should be the focus of national space policy in order to maintain leadership in deep space?  Some propose that we concentrate only on Mars.  Without the experience of returning to the Moon, however, we will not have the engineering, operational, or physiological insight for many decades to either fly to Mars or land there.  Others suggest going to an asteroid. As important as diversion of an asteroid from collision with the Earth someday may be, just going there hardly stimulates “Science and the useful Arts” anything like a permanent American settlement on the Moon!  Other means exist, robots and meteorites, for example, to obtain most or all of the scientific value from a human mission to an asteroid.  In any event, returning to the Moon inherently creates capabilities for reaching asteroids to study or divert them, as the case may be.

Returning to the Moon and to deep space constitutes the right and continuing space policy choice for the Congress of the United States.  It compares in significance to Jefferson’s dispatch of Lewis and Clark to explore the Louisiana Purchase. The lasting significance to American growth and survival of Jefferson’s decision cannot be questioned.  Human exploration of space embodies the same basic instincts as the exploration of the West – the exercise of freedom, betterment of one’s conditions, and curiosity about nature.  Such instincts lie at the very core of America’s unique and special society of immigrants.

Over the last 150,000 years or more, human exploration of Earth has yielded new homes, livelihoods, know how, and resources as well as improved standards of living and increased family security.  Government has directly and indirectly played a role in encouraging exploration efforts.  Private groups and individuals take additional initiatives to explore newly discovered or newly accessible lands and seas.  Based on their specific historical experience, Americans can expect benefits comparable to those sought and won in the past also will flow from their return to the Moon, future exploration of Mars, and the long reach beyond. To realize such benefits, however, Americans must continue as the leader of human activities in space. No one else will hand them to us. Other than buying our national debt, China does not believe in welfare for the U.S.

With a permanent resumption of the exploration of deep space, one thing is certain: our efforts will be as significant as those of our ancestors as they migrated out of Africa and into a global habitat. Further, a permanent human presence away from Earth provides another opportunity for the expansion of free institutions, with all their attendant rewards, as humans face new situations and new individual and societal challenges.

Returning to the Moon first and as soon as possible meets the requirements for an American space policy that maintains deep space leadership, as well as providing major new scientific returns.  Properly conceived and implemented, returning to the Moon prepares the way to go to and land on Mars.  This also can provide a policy in which freedom-loving peoples throughout the world can participate as active partners.

The Congressionally approved Constellation Program, properly funded, contains most of the technical elements necessary to implement a policy of deep space leadership, particularly because it includes development of a heavy lift launch vehicle, the Ares V. In addition, Constellation includes a large upper stage for transfer to the Moon and other destinations, two well conceived spacecraft for transport and landing of crews on the lunar surface, strong concepts for exploration and lunar surface systems, and enthusiastic engineers and managers to make it happen if adequately supported. The one major missing component of a coherent and sustaining deep space systems architecture may be a well-developed concept for in-space refueling of spacecraft and upper rockets stages. The experience base for developing in-space refueling capabilities clearly exists.

Again, if we abandon leadership in deep space to any other nation or group of nations, particularly a non-democratic regime, the ability for the United States and its allies to protect themselves and liberty will be at great risk and potentially impossible. To others would accrue the benefits – psychological, political, economic, and scientific – that the United States harvested as a consequence of Apollo’s success 40 years ago.  This lesson has not been lost on our ideological and economic competitors.

American leadership absent from space?  Is this the future we wish for our progeny?  I think not.  Again, the 2010 elections offer the way to get back on the right track.