Planetary Defense

From: http://www.space.com/news/moon-mining-rare-elements-security-101004.html
The seemingly barren moon may actually be a treasure-trove of priceless resources: a potentially bountiful, mineral-rich – yet untapped – cosmic quarry. Still, few see the moon as an alluring mining site, ripe for the picking of rare elements of strategic and national security importance...."Resource knowledge is one aspect of lunar exploration that certainly drives the non-US space-faring nations. It is disappointing that planners in our [U.S.] space program have not invested in that scope or time scale," Pieters added. "Other than the flurry over looking for water in lunar polar shadows, no serious effort has been taken to document and evaluate the mineral resources that occur on Earth's nearest neighbor. Frustrating!"

From: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/small-exploding-asteroids-big-risk-101005.html
Forget Big Asteroids: It's the Smaller Rocks That Sneak In and Blow Up
By Leonard David
SPACE.com’s Space Insider Columnist
posted: 05 October 2010
08:08 am ET

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.

"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."

From: http://fireballs-meteorites.blogspot.com/2010/10/october-2010.html

Disclosure and Comets

Laura Knight-Jadczyk
Sott.net
Thu, 30 Sep 2010 09:00 CDT

With all the rumblings about 'Disclosure' going on all around, I can't help but wonder why those who are interested in this topic seem to be missing the biggest cover-up of all: cometary/asteroid disruptors/destroyers of history.

Destroying history means, of course, destroying large segments of the human population who pass history on to their offspring. When you find a blank spot in history, a discontinuity, you can pretty well figure out that something really awful must have happened.

I've recently been wading through the complete works of Anatoly Fomenko. Those of you who have read my book The Secret History of the World know that I referred to him and his theories, but this was based on the available articles about it in English at the time. I've now been gifted with volumes 1 through 4 of his 7 volume work, along with the images from the final three volumes which are still being translated. It's a real revelation.

Now, for those of you who are familiar with this work, let me assure you that I am not reading uncritically. What I do find is that Fomenko's deconstruction is masterful. His method and results that prove that our history has been falsified are, in my opinion, incontrovertible. The numbers simply do not lie. What I am not very impressed by are some of his interpretations of what he does accept as data and his reconstruction is not satisfactory at all. He seems to be entirely unaware of why history must have needed to be re-written: repeated cometary destruction of Europe and the Mediterranean regions over the past 2000 years or more. That general ignorance is widespread and it has a powerful bearing on the 'Disclosure' issue, I think.

Some of the recent 'Disclosure' trends seem to include information from 'government insiders' who have told their stories, or whispered hints of amazing technology just waiting for all of us when this 'inevitable' event happens. Sorry, but I think its all wishful thinking. Why? Because what is interesting to me is the fact that, with all the tracking of government documents and conspiracies and so on, it seems that no one has mentioned to the purveyors of 'Disclosure' just how interested the government actually is in cometary impacts.

On 4 November 1996, Edward Teller wrote to then British Prime Minister, John Major:

Every few human lifetimes, there is a bombardment event like that which occurred in Siberia in 1908, wiping out most life over an area of about 10,000 square miles... Quantitatively, the time-averaged loss-of-life is comparable to that due to large floods, earthquakes and aeroplane crashes... The advent during the last half-century of reasonably large-scale rocket propulsion has given us the technological means necessary to avert such impacts.

Teller, apparently, believed that the greatest threat to humankind is not nuclear war, but asteroid or comet impact.

Some groups within the military believe the problem to be very serious indeed. A document on the subject of impact threat - now cleared for public release but formerly classified - was prepared by the U.S. Department of Defense in 1996. (Planetary Defense: Catastrophic Health Insurance for Planet Earth, 1996)

Due to a lack of awareness and emphasis, the world is not socially, economically, or politically prepared to deal with the vulnerability of impacts and their potential consequences. Further, in terms of existing capabilities, there is currently a lack of adequate means of detection, command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C41), and mitigation...

In terms of courses of action in the event of a likely impact of an ECO, [earth crossing object], other than a nuclear option, no defensive capability exists today. However, new technologies may yield safer and more cost-effective solutions by 2025. These authors contend that the stakes are simply too high not to pursue direct and viable solutions to the ECO problem. Indeed, the survival of humanity is at stake.

Dr. Jasper Wall, director of Britain's Royal Greenwich Observatory, Cambridge noted that the Tunguska blast could have had far more serious consequences, would have changed history, if it had occurred at a different time.

Had Earth moved for another three hours or so before the impact occurred, the target would not have been a barely populated corner of Siberia, but Moscow itself. Ten million people would have died. [interview conducted by Austen Atkinson, 1998]

Tunguska sized events occur every 30 to 100 years and smaller incidents occur more frequently. Just such an event occurred in Brazil in 1931. They seem to be increasing, so any day there could be another Tunguska anywhere on the planet... or multiple Tunguska-size events.

The technology needed to detect and deflect these 'small' high-speed objects simply does not exist.

Something like 250 atomic-bomb-sized detonations due to comets and asteroids have been registered by the USA's nuclear-detection system and spy satellites over the course of a single decade up through 1999. These explosions were all at relatively high altitudes, but came with a frequency of at least 2 per month. The recent closing of this data to scientists and the public suggests that there is something to be hidden.

There is a 1-in-24,000 chance that you will be killed by a comet or asteroid impact during a 70 year lifespan. The chances of you getting CJD (mad-cow disease) is 1-in 15 million during the same lifespan. Despite the fact that you are 625 times more likely to die from a comet or asteroid impact and are extremely unlikely to die from CJD, the CJD risk has been highly propagandized, British beef was banned from tables, and everyone totally ignored the far more pressing problem of possible imminent death from space rocks. The MOD has taken no action while the Ministry of Agriculture certainly did.

Why such a strange state of schizophrenia?

Perception. The people perceive that the government can do something about a disease, but can do nothing about space rocks.

The approach of those promoting 'Disclosure' reflects the general lack of knowledge of the problems we face that are real and far more pressing than aliens on our planet. Mike Baillie points out that there is still enormous ignorance of the dangers even within the archaeological community. There is still no archaeological or historical paradigm to deal with the historical presence and influence of impacts. This is particularly troublesome in regards to 'Disclosure' since strange sightings in the skies and strange beings and events historically accompany cometary events. It's as though there is some dimensional doorway-opening capacity connected to the comets/asteroids.

Mike Baillie once asked for a show of hands at an archaeological conference, when he asked the audience if they were aware of the impact phenomenon and its probable role in killing off the dinosaurs and its relevance to human history. Only 10% raised their hands.

Is this an example of "ignorance is bliss"? Do people really think that all will be well if we close our eyes and minds to reality? Unfortunately, Nature is not usually very kind to the slothful or apathetic. It's not adaptive and such individuals may not pass on their genes to future generations.

Because of the hold that religious uniformitarianism has on the minds of most members of our civilization, the concept of cometary impacts has been relegated to popular fiction and entertainment. The scientific community has been uniformly slow in understanding the wider implications across disciplines from astronomy to geology to economics and history.

It all seems so remote to them... what with our Earthly troubles, politics, war, economic troubles, etc. If people could only step back for a moment and really understand that those problems are meaningless in the context of the fact that it all could come to a sudden, fiery end in an instant; death that is unwelcome, terrible, and without mercy.

In 1979, Victor Clube and Bill Napier published their seminal scientific paper in the British journal Nature, titled "A Theory of Terrestrial Catastrophism". There was little notice paid to this paper. It was seven months later that Luis Alvarez and his son, Walter, linked this theory with their geological mystery: the extinction of the dinosaurs. They published their work in 1980 in the American journal, Science. There was an uproar and an immediate backlash from the Uniformitarian school. In 1990, ten years after the Alvarez paper, the K/T impact crater was found in data obtained from oil drilling geophysicists. Here we notice that it is private industry that is controlling the scientific data that is needed so desperately by all of humanity. This should change!

Nowadays, the detractors of the impact theory are in the minority and look increasingly like lunatics in denial. The Uniformitarian view has gripped science for so long that some of them will go to their graves denying the overwhelming evidence. Some of them will accept the K/T impact, and then comfort themselves with the idea that it only happens at millions of years intervals.

Not so.

We must not be seduced into thinking that this is a threat that is remote from us, nor be hypnotized by thinking only about large, global extinction impactors such as the K/T event. The primary threat is that of the 'deathrock' in the size range of 300 meters to 2 kilometers. The risk from these objects is very, very real and can produce catastrophes that kill millions, if not billions, and render vast tracts of the globe uninhabitable for long periods.

Tree-ring chronologies along with ice-cores have been very valuable in assessing the possibility that impacts have been far more frequent, and dangerous, than ever previously suspected. Many events have occurred since 2345 BC and have continued to the present day.

Historical records can also provide precious clues if they are looked at properly. There are many historical accounts of what can only be understood as impact phenomena in history that have been, up to now, wrongly interpreted.

The only way to develop coherent understanding and theories about these matters is via cross-disciplinary studies. There is so much information available in all fields that, if it is all cross-referenced and correlated, a true picture of our past - and future - can be had.

Unfortunately, very few scientists are studying the matter in a polymathic way. I'm not a scientist, but I guess I'm a polymath. More of such are needed, desperately.

The U.S. Military is, apparently, as I've already noted, quite concerned about these matters and it is surprising that the 'Disclosure' advocates have missed this fact. A 1 kilometer asteroid traveling at an average speed of 50 km/s will impact the Earth with an explosive force equivalent to 30,000 megatons of TNT. That is the equivalent of 2.5 million Hiroshima-sized bombs!

Smaller impactors in the 50 to 1 meter range can generate H-bomb-sized explosions, the equivalent of 10 to 20 megatons of TNT. Tunguska experienced just such an event in 1908, as did Brazil in 1931.

The Tunguska event produced a global scattering of iridium discovered in the Greenland ice cores.

As noted, you have a 1-in-24,000 chance of being killed by a comet or asteroid. This is about the same risk factor you experience when you get on an airplane. See the problem? An enormous amount of money is spent on aircraft safety, and virtually none spent on the same time-averaged risk of impact threat.

Since the 'Disclosure' advocates have gotten so close to the military technology people (according to them), perhaps they are aware that military contractors such as Lockheed Martin and government agencies such as NASA, have become extremely concerned by the potential impact threat. Lockheed Martin used its energy laboratory at Sandia to research the impact threat. Using energy equations similar to those developed by Teller, which take into account environmental and atmospheric factors, Sandia's team of scientists were able to create virtual-reality simulations of a catastrophic impact. This project was led by David Crawford and Arthurine Breckenridge. They modeled the impact of a 1.4 kilometer-diameter comet, weighing approximately 1,000 million tons and traveling at 60 km/s as it strikes the Atlantic Ocean 25 miles south of New York. This work was done with the most advanced computation equipment on the planet. This was no computer game. Sandia's team also modeled the impacts of Shoemaker-Levy on Jupiter with stunning accuracy.

The conclusions were horrifying.

The comet impacts with the ocean and instantly vaporizes 300 to 500 cubic kilometers of water forming a temporary cavity in the ocean. The equivalent of 300 gigatons of TNT energy is released at that instant - ten times the explosive power of all the world's nuclear weapons together. The heat generated is in excess of 5,000 degrees Celsius.

Five seconds after the comet hits the ocean, a tremendous impact plume composed of superheated debris, earth and water, smothers most of Long Island.

Eleven seconds after impact, the New York coastline is swept by superheated steam and ejected debris. At the same time, a large proportion of the ejected debris has now penetrated Earth's atmosphere in sub-orbital trajectories. Molten ejecta begins to fall on New York and the heat generated by the impact has begun to incinerate everything in its path - entire cities and forests are turned into cinders almost instantly.

Finally, the global debris cloud rapidly lowers temperatures worldwide and this is followed by the moisture evaporated into the atmosphere starting to fall as snow. David Crawford, leader of the Sandia team, said:

It's almost like doing an experiment - one you could never do. One you would never want to do. {Sandia National Laboratory, PR: 5 May 1998}

What is interesting is how our "fearless leaders" are looking at this problem. Their question is: "Is Earth and its human population worth saving?"

My guess is that they are trying to get everything locked down so that they can eliminate a lot of people with plausible excuses, and get away with it; that is, do it without risking the entire population turning against the PTB. And so, they play war games, they create terrorism, they play out farces of being at odds with one another when it is really the average human being in all countries who is the enemy of the leaders, all of whom - even if they play at being opposed to one another - are in the same club. 

NASA panel weighs asteroid danger

From: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100908/full/467140a.html

NASA panel weighs asteroid danger

Telescopes in space could help pin down the risk of a deadly impact.

Eugenie Samuel Reich

Some time in the next decade, a US president will probably be presented with this dilemma: is it worth spending US$1 billion to deflect a space rock that may never hit Earth?

A NASA panel is wrestling with this question, which is growing more pertinent as scientists' ability to find asteroids that pose a potential risk, termed near-Earth objects (NEOs), outstrips their capacity to track them accurately. The Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense, set up to suggest ways for the agency to protect Earth against a deadly impact, is expected to release its report next month. But public deliberations and interviews with its members have revealed their thinking.

The dilemma stems from a 2005 congressional mandate directing NASA to log 90% of the estimated 20,000 NEOs larger than 140 metres in diameter by 2020. NASA seems unlikely to meet the goal, but the agency is stepping up its detection and tracking of smaller objects.

    “Missions to deflect all potential threats will be prohibitively expensive.”

That will create a new problem: if the pace of NEO detections (see graph) grows but precision tracking of orbits lags behind, observers will start to find more rocks — perhaps a few per year — that seem, at first, to have a significant chance of hitting Earth, say panel members. "I don't think that issue has been understood outside the NEO community," says Lindley Johnson, NEO programme officer at NASA and a member of the panel. Launching missions to track or deflect all potential asteroid threats will be prohibitively expensive, but even a small probability of regional or global devastation may not be politically palatable.

Click for a larger version.SOURCE: A. CHAMBERLIN/JET PROPULSION LAB.; DEFENDING PLANET EARTH/NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

One solution from the panel is to increase the amount that the United States invests in NEO detection and tracking from the current $5.5 million a year. The panel may also recommend the launch of a survey telescope into a solar orbit similar to that of Venus. It would orbit faster than Earth and, looking outwards, would see asteroids in Earth-crossing orbits more often than would ground-based instruments (see diagram). This could improve follow-up observations, narrow estimated trajectories and remove as many asteroids as possible from the threat list. It could also spot and track asteroids on the sunward side of Earth, removing a worrisome blind spot in ground-based surveys. "It is a wonderful rapid technique to track bodies down to 140 metres and smaller," says Tom Jones, a former astronaut and panel co-chair.

Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation, a manufacturer of spacecraft based in Boulder, Colorado, has proposed building such a remote scope at a cost of $600 million. But Irwin Shapiro, an astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who chaired the 2010 Committee to Review Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies for the US National Research Council, says that ground-based observatories such as the planned Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) on Cerro Pachón in Chile are better value for money than space telescopes, because they last longer and are less expensive. He says the LSST is also more likely to command funding, as it is the top priority recommended by the Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey, released in August by the National Academies. Putting a space telescope in a Venus-like orbit "would in effect start from scratch", he says.

Owing to a 2008 law passed by Congress, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has until 15 October to decide which agency will be responsible for protecting the planet from an asteroid strike. Members of the task force say NASA expects to be given part or all of that responsibility. To meet it, the panel discussed the creation of a Planetary Protection Coordination Office (PPCO) within NASA, with an annual budget of $250 million–$300 million. It would detect and track asteroids — and develop a capability to deflect them. "You want to use a proven capability when you're talking about an actual threat," says Rusty Schweickart, a former astronaut and the other panel co-chair.

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The PPCO would also challenge other countries to fund defence against asteroids, perhaps through the United Nations. Canada already plans to launch the NEO Survey Satellite in 2011, and Germany's AsteroidFinder is slated for launch in 2012, but neither is expected to come close to the NEO-logging goal by 2020.

Shapiro stresses that it is unclear whether Congress will give further funds to planetary protection, noting that if it doesn't, there is a risk of the money being taken away from space science. Yet without better detection and tracking there will inevitably be uncertainty about asteroid positions in the future — and even greater expense if the uncertainty leads to unnecessary efforts to thwart an apparent pressing threat.

From: http://www.jacktimes.com/science/asteriod-impact-expected-in-this-decade.html
NASA is constantly keeping an eye on the asteroid danger that is expected to make a very strong impact on the earth.

According to officials, it is expected that there will be a very strong impact on the US and the president will be informed about this dilemma.

They further stated that the investment of US$1 billion in order to make a space a rocket to deflect the asteroid so that it never hits the earth is an important and worthy step to take this minute.

The Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense is working upon the issue lately and they are going to present a report next month setting up proposals for defense of earth.

The agency is doing detection taking over NASA’s job in order to detect all the Near Earth Objects (NEOs).
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/about/planetarydefense_taskforce_prt.htm

Next giant leap: With support growing, NASA takes a small step toward walking on an asteroid

From: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/7188211.html

Hollywood fancies that when an asteroid threatens Earth, NASA will respond by rounding up a crew and nuking the space rock.

Before doing this, though, it would be nice to know exactly what we'd be nuking, and the fact is scientists just don't know.

But that may soon change.

There's growing support for the idea that NASA's next human flight beyond low-Earth orbit should target a near-Earth asteroid, rather than our already visited celestial neighbor, the moon.

"It's a concept that I think a lot of people can relate to," said Laurie Leshin, deputy administrator for NASA's Exploration Program.

As a destination, an asteroid appeals to NASA because it's a challenging but doable mission that will test much of the technology that would be needed for a flight to Mars.

Innumerable small asteroids, remnants from the formation of the solar system that weren't swept up by planets, glide around the sun on orbits bringing them close to Earth. About the size of a house or a small building, they could at a minimum destroy a large city on impact.

...Such a mission also appeals to scientists, Leshin said, who know little about the interior of asteroids and would like to study large samples that could be returned.

And there's the planetary defense community, which is interested to know the interior composition of asteroids, in case one needs to be deflected.

Finally, the mission has the potential to capture the public's attention, which already has been primed to fear killer asteroids by Hollywood.

Public Backs Planetary Defense

From: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/americans-back-space-exploration-know-little-about-proposed-policy-changes-everett-group-space-poll-finds-91154014.html
Americans Back Space Exploration, Know Little About Proposed Policy Changes, Everett Group 'Space Poll' Finds
CROFTON, Md., April 17 /PRNewswire/ -- As Pres. Barack Obama vows continued commitment to space exploration, including increased funding to explore the solar system and the ultimate goal of landing astronauts on Mars, he finds support from many Americans.
Most Americans have a positive image of NASA, the country's space agency, and one-third say it's very important to them that the U.S. continue to explore the solar system (with one-third more saying it's somewhat important to them).
Their reasons? Protection of the planet, according to the national scientific survey's findings. Among those who think it's important to explore space, 63 percent cited protecting the Earth from collisions with comets and asteroids, and 57 percent said understanding climate change were important reasons for the U.S. to continue exploring space. Not on many people's list: Finding extraterrestrial life, cited by only 18 percent.
Those are some of the findings from an independent "space poll," a landline and cell phone survey of 1,200 randomly-selected adults fielded nationwide between Mar. 27 and Apr. 12, just before Pres. Obama's Thursday speech on space policy. The poll's findings have a maximum margin of sampling error of 3.7 percentage points, plus or minus.
The Everett Group, an opinion and market research company headquartered near Washington, DC, found that, in the days before Obama's speech, many Americans were not familiar with the proposed changes in space policy. Two-thirds said they were either slightly or not at all familiar, while only one in 10 said they were very familiar with the issue.
Obama's Kennedy Space Center speech in Florida came on the heels of bipartisan concern about jobs and national status that would be lost if NASA's "Constellation" program were to be scrapped. Americans' main concerns about proposed changes in NASA's direction included job losses and threats to national security (both at 54 percent), but even more (63 percent) had major concern the changes would cause a loss of inspiration for America's youth to study science and math, according to the poll.
Obama's space policy counts on "commercial space entrepreneurs" to be able eventually to launch humans into Earth orbit – a feat one-third of Americans think already is being done today.
Government spending continues to be an issue for many. "Americans are split right down the middle on which should be a bigger priority for the government -- reducing the deficit or maintaining America's space leadership," said Steve Everett, Principal of The Everett Group. "Forty-five percent said cut spending on the space program to reduce the deficit, while 47 percent said increase the space budget to maintain U.S. leadership.
A summary report of the study findings is posted on the Everett Group's "Space Poll" Web site (www.spacepoll.com).  For more information about this or other Everett Group studies, contact Steve Everett (301-261-6448, see@everettgroup.com).

SOURCE The Everett Group


To download your own copy of the results summary, please use one of the links below:
 http://www.everettgroup.com/survey2-09/summary.htm
PDF version
Microsoft PowerPoint version
http://www.everettgroup.com/survey2-09/pilotsummary.pdf

It's a matter of time

From: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/matter+time/2699844/story.html

It's a matter of time

 

We humans can avoid the fate of our dinosaur predecessors if we start to prepare now to detect and avoid the next major asteroid strike

 

BY WILLIAM AILOR, CITIZEN SPECIALMARCH 19, 2010

We have all heard the stories about the reign of dinosaurs being ended by one or more impacts of asteroids. But that was millions of years ago -- is there really any chance that such a thing could happen to us? And surely, such an event is far in the future -- should we care now?

Scientists still debate what actually terminated the dinosaurs, but it is generally agreed that Earth, like our moon, has been struck many times in the past by asteroids and comets, with at least one large impact occurring late in the time of the dinosaurs and doubtless playing a substantial role in their demise.

Impacts of space rocks have not stopped. About a dozen small fragments survive atmospheric entry and impact daily, with most hitting the ocean. Occasionally, fragments puncture a roof or dent a car -- or injure a human.

Perhaps the best known recent impact is the Tunguska event, where an asteroid or comet estimated to be 30 to 40 metres in diameter entered the atmosphere over a remote area in Siberia and exploded a few kilometres above the surface. The event levelled more than 2,000 square kilometres of the forest below, devastating an area larger than that of Washington, D.C. The force of that explosion has been estimated to be between three and five megatons of TNT.

In 1998, NASA began a search for potentially threatening objects that are one kilometre in diameter and larger -- objects large enough to cause a global catastrophe should one impact Earth. Through early 2010, we've found 887 such objects -- approximately 90 per cent of those thought to exist -- plus more than 6,700 smaller objects. While none of the larger objects poses an immediate threat, the survey did find an object that may -- an asteroid 270 metres in diameter known as Apophis.

In 2029, Apophis will pass very close to Earth, closer than our geosynchronous satellites. Earth's gravity will bend its trajectory as it passes and if it bends the precise amount, Apophis could return and strike Earth in 2036. At present, the probability of such an event is approximately one in 250,000. It will be a very bad day for our planet should it hit; not bad enough to erase humanity, but bad enough to affect millions of people and cause considerable damage in a local area.

Currently, we aren't looking for objects in the size range of Apophis. A plan to look for objects as small as 140 metres in diameter has been developed, but it has not yet been funded. Predictions are that perhaps 25,000 more threatening objects will be found once the expanded survey begins.

The likelihood of surprise impact by an object in the size range of Apophis is small, but as the Tunguska event shows, impacts by objects smaller than 140 metres can also have devastating consequences if the impact occurs in a populated area. The likelihood of a surprise impact by such an object is not that small: about one in 10 this century.

Given that threats from asteroids and comets are inevitable, what should we do to minimize the risk of impacts?

First, we must find the threatening objects. While the effort to discover objects larger than 140 metres in diameter is obviously necessary and should begin soon, some believe that we should expand the search to include smaller, 50-metre-class objects. Of course, the difficulty and cost of the discovery effort increases as the size of the objects decreases.

Second, we must find the threatening objects early. The impulse required to deflect an object away from our planet increases as the object gets closer, so we want to intercept it years before impact. Factoring in the requirement that we must build and launch a deflection campaign and that the vehicles used require time to actually reach their target, it is clear that maximizing the time to act is critical.

Third, we need to have proven techniques to deflect an asteroid or comet. Proposals include both fast-acting techniques such as nuclear explosives and impacting the object with high-speed projectiles; or slowly tugging an object using the gravitational attraction between it and a nearby spacecraft, or using lasers or focused sunlight to impart a small force. The size of the threatening object, the time remaining and other factors will affect which techniques might be applicable in a particular case. And, since some of the launches and spacecraft may fail, we can't simply launch one interceptor. We're "betting the planet" on the success of the deflection mission, so we must include mission failures in the overall campaign design.

Fourth, we must decide when to act. This may be our most difficult challenge: since time is critical, we must begin to develop the deflection hardware before we are absolutely certain the object will impact. This means that elected officials must provide funding and allocate resources without certainty that the effort is required.

Finally, such a threat will be a global concern like none other our species has faced. Nations must share responsibilities for the decision to act, and nations with capabilities to respond must co-ordinate their activities.

So what do we do now? Clearly, we need to move forward aggressively to find threatening objects. Assuming that none will be a threat in the next 50 years, we should identify, develop and test the most promising deflection techniques; we should design deflection campaigns for threats of various sizes and characteristics; we should educate the public and elected officials on the nature of the threat; and we should develop national and international protocols for making a decision to act and for working together to eliminate the threat.

It's human nature to act when the threat is certain, but we can't wait until we are absolutely sure to move forward in this area. We humans can avoid the fate of our dinosaur predecessors if we accept the challenge and initiate a stable and ongoing effort to find threatening objects and build the plans, protocols, and technologies to deflect an asteroid or comet.

As we begin this effort, let's hope we have the most precious resource we'll need -- time.

William Ailor is co-chair of the 2nd IAA Planetary Defense Conference to be held in Bucharest, Romania in May, 2011

Russia weighs in on asteroid worries Space chief joins debate, calls for mission to divert near-Earth object

msnbc.com staff and news service reports

updated 9:34 p.m. ET Dec. 30, 2009

MOSCOW - Russia’s space chief said Wednesday that a spacecraft may be dispatched to shift an asteroid's course and reduce the chances of Earth impact, even though U.S. experts say such a scenario is unlikely.

Anatoly Perminov, the head of Russia's Federal Space Agency, told Golos Rossii (Voice of Russia) radio that officials would hold a meeting soon to assess a mission to the asteroid Apophis. He said his agency might eventually invite NASA, the European Space Agency, the Chinese space agency and others to join the project.

When the 270-meter (885-foot) asteroid was first discovered in 2004, astronomers estimated its chances of smashing into Earth in its first flyby, in 2029, at 1 in 37.

Further studies have ruled out the possibility of an impact in 2029, when the asteroid is expected to come no closer than 18,300 miles (29,450 kilometers) from Earth’s surface, but they indicated a small possibility of a hit on subsequent encounters.

Researchers currently put the chances that Apophis could hit Earth in 2036 at 1 in 233,000, and NASA says another close encounter in 2068 involves a 1-in-330,000 chance of impact. The collision risk is expected to fall to zero as more observations are made.

“It wasn’t anything to worry about before. Now it’s even less so,” said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Four years ago, NASA drew up a plan that called for a spacecraft to be sent to Apophis in 2019 if the threat did not disappear entirely by 2013, when the asteroid will be well-placed for detailed study.

The head of NASA's Near Earth Object Program, Don Yeomans, said in an e-mail that more accurate calculations "will almost certainly remove any possibility of an Earth collision" in 2036. "While Apophis is almost certainly not a problem, I am encouraged that the Russian science community is willing to study the various deflection options that would be available in the event of a future Earth threatening encounter by an asteroid,” Yeomans said.

Without mentioning NASA's findings, Perminov said that he heard from a scientist that Apophis is getting closer and may hit the planet. "I don't remember exactly, but it seems to me it could hit Earth by 2032," Perminov said.

"People's lives are at stake. We should pay several hundred million dollars and build a system that would allow to prevent a collision, rather than sit and wait for it to happen and kill hundreds of thousands of people," Perminov said.

How to dodge an asteroid
Scientists have long theorized about asteroid deflection strategies. Some have proposed sending a probe to rendezvous with a dangerous asteroid and use subtle gravitational effects to change its trajectory. Such a strategy, employing an "asteroid tractor," would require years or even decades to work.

Others have suggested sending a spacecraft to collide with the asteroid and alter its momentum, or using nuclear weapons to hit it.

Perminov wouldn't disclose any details of the project, saying they still need to be worked out. But he said the mission wouldn't require any nuclear explosions.

Hollywood action films "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon," have featured space missions scrambling to avoid catastrophic collisions. In both movies, space crews use nuclear bombs in an attempt to prevent collisions.

"Calculations show that it's possible to create a special-purpose spacecraft within the time we have, which would help avoid the collision without destroying it (the asteroid) and without detonating any nuclear charges," Perminov said. "The threat of collision can be averted."

Boris Shustov, the director of the Institute of Astronomy under the Russian Academy of Sciences, hailed Perminov's statement as a signal that officials had come to recognize the danger posed by asteroids.

"Apophis is just a symbolic example, there are many other dangerous objects we know little about," he said, according to RIA Novosti news agency.

Questions about Russian role
NBC News space analyst James Oberg agreed that the asteroid impact threat merited more international attention, but he worried that the Russian statements were "way overblown" and might be counterproductive.

"Naturally, Russia wants to link up with U.S. and European scientists to work out a plan, at our expense. This is a consistent Russian goal," he said in an e-mail. "Russia really has nothing to contribute to such an effort aside from cheap boosters — and all of them too small for any serious asteroid deflection effort."

Last year, space experts issued a report urging the world's governments to come up with contingency plans to address potential threats from near-Earth objects, with the final decision to be made by the U.N. Security Council. That report is currently under consideration by a U.N. committee.

"Asteroid deflection, and the much more pressing issue of orbital debris cleanup, must be undertaken in a world consensus mode, since unilateral efforts could be stymied by objections of some space powers not party to the project," Oberg said. "Once again, the problem is not in the stars, but in ourselves."

This report includes information from msnbc.com and The Associated Press.

We just don't know enough about the Comet Threat

A recent article in science magazine (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/325/5945/1211)suggests there is still a lot to learn about cometary object distributions. Author Martin Duncan states:

Simulations show that the inner Oort Cloud is the source of many more long-period comets

than expected.

The inner Oort Cloud was not previously thought to produce many LPCs, for the following

reason...The object might have spent most of its life in the inner cloud and very recently been nudged into its current (large aphelion) orbit by weak planetary perturbations when its perihelion was drawn in to just beyond the orbit of Saturn (see the fi gure). The simulations of Kaib and Quinn show that a large fraction of the LPCs are generated via this mechanism.

The results of these simulations not only change our view of where the progenitors of

LPCs are stored but may also provide constraints on models of planet formation and on

the properties of the stellar nursery in which the Sun spent its formative years

The Elegant Way to Save Earth From Asteroid Destruction

From: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/sciencenotfiction/2009/09/04/the-elegant-way-to-save-the-earth-from-asteroid-destruction/

The Elegant Way to Save Earth From Asteroid Destruction

The one fact in Deep Impact that we can all agree on is that we should not allow the Earth to get hit by a large meteor. Depending on its size, it could potentially destroy anything from a city to the entire planet. And nations it doesn’t destroy outright would still have to deal with big atmospheric and weather problems caused by dust and debris. General badness all around.

Where common sense and the film divide is just how best to dodge an oncoming meteor. I wrote a while back on the idea of painting one side of the asteroid black while beaming heat onto it, causing the asteroid to shift course. It’s a neat idea, but not nearly as neat as the gravity tractor, not just because this approach is more elegant, but because there’s a British company called EADS Astriumthat announced last week that they could actually build one if it were needed.

The idea for the tug first proposed by NASA scientists Edward Lu and Stanley Love in a paper inNature in 2005. The pair realized that sure, we could change an asteroid’s course by docking a rocket onto the asteroid and pushing it, but landing on an asteroid is really hard: The asteroid is an extremely fast-moving target, and often it rotates asymmetrically around its axis, meaning that a lumpy part of the asteroid could smash a relatively teeny rocket in its rotational path. But, the scientists argued, the spaceship could hover 200 meters or more above the asteroid and use their mutual gravitational attraction to form a “towline” between the two. Then ship could use its own propulsion to slowly pull the asteroid to another course. It would have to push very gently to avoid breaking the bond and flying away, but over the course of 15 to 20 years, the asteroid could be persuaded to miss our planet.

The idea of a gravity tractor has been refined (PDF) by scientist Bong Wie, working at Arizona State University, who proposed the use of solar sails to eliminate the problem of fuel capacity on the satellite. (Love and Lu’s proposal relied on nuclear energy generators for power in their design.) Solar sails capture the momentum from photons of solar radiation to provide propulsion. By properly angling the sail (Wie proposes 35 degrees), the body of the space ship can be moved in the desired direction. The sail can take months to build up significant velocity, but since it has a long time to accomplish its tugboat-like task, this isn’t inherently a showstopper. That said, solar sail technology is still in its infancy—it’s only been tested on a very small scale by American and Japanese scientists in space—so it’s not ready for large-scale deployment just yet.

EADS Astrium’s design uses four ion thrusters of the sort used on Deep Space 1. Each is aligned to keep the device hovering above the asteroid while gently pulling the asteroid via it’s gravitation “towline” off course. The ship will be 30 meters (about 98 feet) across and weigh about 10 tons. In news articles, Astrium representatives say they haven’t even built a prototype yet, but they’re convinced they can bang one out if necessary.

All of which puts us back to the question of whether there’s enough capacity to provide the necessary early warning to build and launch a gravity tractor in time to have it work. Since NASA currently tracks about 6,000 asteroids, of the 100,000 out there, I’m going to go with no.