from: http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2008/04/planetary_protection.phpb
y Lee Billings * Posted April 16, 2008 11:38 PMUntil very recently, the devastating 1908 explosion of a space rockover the isolated Tunguska region of Siberia was thought to be aonce-in-a-millennium event. Based on comparisons to nuclear weaponblast effects, many experts estimated the Tunguska object to be 50 to 100 meters. But new simulations by Mark Boslough at Sandia NationalLaboratories suggest the Tunguska object was much smaller thanpreviously believed. And since smaller near-Earth objects (NEOs) are more common than larger ones, the implication is that the gap betweens uch impacts may be centuries rather than millennia."Chances are we're not going to discover one of these before it hits,"Boslough says, pointing out that the vast number of small NEOs faroutweighs the capabilities of the few surveys currently seeking them.
In 2005, the US Congress builtoff mandates from the 1990s, directing NASA to catalog 90 percent ofpotentially hazardous NEOs greater than 140 meters in diameter by the year 2020. Congress also asked NASA to study ways to deflectthreatening NEOs. But burdened with completing the International SpaceStation and replacing the Space Shuttle fleet, NASA has yet to allot funds to the project.
"Most Americans have faith that the federal government is doing what'snecessary to protect us against threats that could destroy our countryor leave large numbers of Americans dead," says US Representative DanaRohrabacher, who introduced legislation last December calling for NASAto devote more resources to NEO research. "The fact that we haven'teven formulated what our reaction would be to a potential threat fromspace is disturbing, considering the magnitude of the risk involved.You'd think there would be a plan ready, but there isn't."
Increasingly, coordinated private efforts are working to fill the gapin Earth's NEO defenses. Motivated in part by the upcoming USpresidential election, leading space scientists recently attended aninvite-only workshop at Stanford University to discuss shifting NASA'spriorities away from a return to the Moon and toward manned missionsto NEOs. And the B612 Foundation, a group co-founded by Apolloastronaut Rusty Schweickart, is gathering funds to test deflectionstrategies on an NEO by 2015. Earlier this year, Microsoft alumni BillGates and Charles Simonyi donated a combined $30 million to the LargeSynoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), keeping it on track for first lightin 2014. One of LSST's chief missions is to detect and catalog NEOs.As for Arecibo, Jim Cordes, a Cornell astronomer who frequently worksat the observatory, says that in the absence of government funding, aconsortium of universities may have to step in to fund the facility'soperations beyond 2010.Schweickart summarized what's at stake in a prepared statement at aNovember 2007 Capitol Hill hearing, where NASA and Congress clashedover how to address the NEO threat: "If we live up to ourresponsibility, if we wisely use our amazing technology, and if we aremature enough, as a nation and as a community of nations, there maynever again be a substantially damaging asteroid impact on the Earth.We have the ability to make ourselves safe from cosmic extinction. Ifwe cannot manage to meet this challenge, we will, in my opinion, havefailed to meet our evolutionary responsibility."
20 April 2008
Tracking Extrasolar Planet Discoveries
Find stats & maps of extrasolar planet discoveries here:
http://www.ikg.rt.bw.schule.de/virkla/names/schuels/simon/swxtrsol.htm
Solar System's 'look-alike' found (hopefully the first of many)
From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7333155.stm
Astronomers have discovered a planetary system orbiting a distant star which looks much like our own. They found two planets that were close matches for Jupiter and Saturn orbiting a star about half the size of our Sun.
"It looks like this may have formed in a similar way to our Solar System. And if this is the case, it looks like [our] Solar System cannot be unique in the Universe. There should be other similar systems out there which could host terrestrial planets."
Only a Billion Years left to make our mark!
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From: http://www1.uea.ac.uk/cm/home/services/units/mac/comm/media/press/2008/apr/homepagenews/Is%2Bthere%2Banybody%2Bout%2Bthere%253F
Is there anybody out there? Probably not, according to a scientist from the University of East Anglia. A mathematical model produced by Prof Andrew Watson suggests that the odds of finding new life on other Earth-like planets are low, given the time it has taken for beings such as humans to evolve and the remaining life span of Earth.
According to Prof Watson a limit to evolution is the habitability of Earth, and any other Earth-like planets, which will end as the sun brightens. Solar models predict that the brightness of the sun is increasing, while temperature models suggest that because of this the future life span of Earth will be ‘only’ about another billion years, a short time compared to the four billion years since life first appeared on the planet.
His model, published in the journal Astrobiology, suggests an upper limit for the probability of each step occurring is 10 per cent or less, so the chances of intelligent life emerging is low – less than 0.01 per cent over four billion years.
Is there anybody out there? Probably not, according to a scientist from the University of East Anglia. A mathematical model produced by Prof Andrew Watson suggests that the odds of finding new life on other Earth-like planets are low, given the time it has taken for beings such as humans to evolve and the remaining life span of Earth.
According to Prof Watson a limit to evolution is the habitability of Earth, and any other Earth-like planets, which will end as the sun brightens. Solar models predict that the brightness of the sun is increasing, while temperature models suggest that because of this the future life span of Earth will be ‘only’ about another billion years, a short time compared to the four billion years since life first appeared on the planet.
His model, published in the journal Astrobiology, suggests an upper limit for the probability of each step occurring is 10 per cent or less, so the chances of intelligent life emerging is low – less than 0.01 per cent over four billion years.
16 April 2008
More threats to (complacent) life
From: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/409/1
ScienceNOW Daily News April 9, 2008
The relatively quiet black hole atthe center of our Milky Way galaxycould one day reignite, spewingforth so much radiation that the skywould never darken. That grimscenario has become more likelybased on a new survey by Liverpool John Moores University astronomers. They used data from the SloanDigital Sky Survey to surveyspectral lines...It's not understood what is causing the black holes to become newly active, because in most cases there is no evidence of collisions or mergers. The answers have more than scientific relevance. The Milky Way's central black hole is currently quiet, but if for some reason it roared to life again, it could spew out deadly gamma rays and x-rays, possibly in our direction.
ScienceNOW Daily News April 9, 2008
The relatively quiet black hole atthe center of our Milky Way galaxycould one day reignite, spewingforth so much radiation that the skywould never darken. That grimscenario has become more likelybased on a new survey by Liverpool John Moores University astronomers. They used data from the SloanDigital Sky Survey to surveyspectral lines...It's not understood what is causing the black holes to become newly active, because in most cases there is no evidence of collisions or mergers. The answers have more than scientific relevance. The Milky Way's central black hole is currently quiet, but if for some reason it roared to life again, it could spew out deadly gamma rays and x-rays, possibly in our direction.
30 March 2008
NSS Posts Dedicated Space Solar Power Issue!
At last! A full dedicated issue to one of the two most important space goals of our generation (the other being Planetary Defense against Comets and Asteroids). Way to go NSS!
19 March 2008
Ex-astronaut pushes for international asteroid impact policy.
On the front page of its Marketplace section, the Wall Street Journal reports, "Ex-astronaut Rusty Schweickart wants to save the world from an incoming asteroid -- the multimegaton variety blamed for killing the dinosaurs -- and he thinks that the only sure-fire way to keep them away is by using, of all things, diplomacy." Schweickart maintains that "[t]he hard part of asteroids involves finding a way to reach a global agreement on how the planet would respond should an asteroid head our way." To that end, he hopes to meet with secretary-general of the United Nations this fall. Schweickart explains that certain factors, such as increased risks for certain countries when changing an asteroid's trajectory away from Earth, could lead to a badly-timed crisis, and that "the only fair way to proceed is to have a decision-making formula drawn up well in advance, thus unaffected by the political heat of an actual crisis." He adds that it is also important "to overcome global suspicion that a unilateral American anti-asteroid effort would be a ruse to militarize space."
17 March 2008
Delta V
Nice Delta-V Chart for interplanetary Missions:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3o.html
And a Delta-V Calculator: http://www.strout.net/info/science/delta-v/intro.html
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3o.html
And a Delta-V Calculator: http://www.strout.net/info/science/delta-v/intro.html
12 March 2008
ProSpace "MarchStorm" Storms Hill
This year's March Storm, has chosen Commercial Access to Space, Space-Based Solar Power, and Planetary Defense for its key topics. It is asking to expand COTS, sign a letter of support for SBSP, requesting the first NSSO recommendation be acted upon, and assign the National Science and Technology Council the task of sorting out organizational responsibilities for Planetary Defense.
http://www.prospace.org/?q=node/8 Pro-Space was a spin-off activity of the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF) http://www.space-frontier.org/ which is one of the founding organizations of SSAFE, and the original host of the NSSO study blog http://spacesolarpower.wordpress.com/ and its own Space Solar Project: http://www.space-frontier.org/Projects/spacesolarpower/
11 March 2008
Black holes could bump asteroids our way
From: http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19726465.000-black-holes-could-bump-asteroids-our-way.html
Some physicists think these little black holes, invisible remnants of the early universe, could be a candidate for the dark matter making up much of the universe's mass. Alexander Shatskiy of the Lebedev Institute in Moscow, Russia, points out that if all dark matter, is black holes they would likely pass through the asteroid belts in our galactic backyard. Since a metre-sized primordial black hole can have the mass of the Earth, it would need only to pass near an asteroid to knock it out of a safe orbit and towards our planet, he says
Some physicists think these little black holes, invisible remnants of the early universe, could be a candidate for the dark matter making up much of the universe's mass. Alexander Shatskiy of the Lebedev Institute in Moscow, Russia, points out that if all dark matter, is black holes they would likely pass through the asteroid belts in our galactic backyard. Since a metre-sized primordial black hole can have the mass of the Earth, it would need only to pass near an asteroid to knock it out of a safe orbit and towards our planet, he says
10 March 2008
A New View of the Solar System
From: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/03/09/0309solarsystem.html
First, until recently, people thought that there were two parts to the solar system: four small, rocky inner planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars — and four gas giant outer planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus..."That was the old view,"...Under the new definition, the International Astronomical Union has officially recognized 11 planets: eight traditional ones plus three "dwarf planets." The dwarfs are Pluto; Ceres, which was thought to be an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter; and Eris, an object that's slightly larger than Pluto and farther from the sun. At least 40 more dwarf planets have been found even farther out and are awaiting official recognition. They bear names such as Quaoar, Sedna, Orcus, Varuna and Ixion. Dozens of others are known only by code numbers.
Stern said the solar system now was thought to be composed of three zones instead of two.
The four rocky planets make up the inner zone. The gas giants form a "middle solar system." Beyond them lies an enormous third zone composed of the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, both named for the astronomers who predicted their existence.
"This third class of planets vastly outnumbers the terrestrial planets and gas giants," Stern said.
The Kuiper Belt, which was discovered in the 1990s, is a ring of dwarf planets, including Pluto, and smaller icy objects that range from 3 billion to 5 billion miles beyond the sun.
More than 1,000 Kuiper Belt objects have been detected, and astronomers say there might be 50,000 to 100,000 more. Most are small, but some rival Pluto in size. Some have atmospheres and moons of their own, and some may have warm, wet interiors.
Far outside the Kuiper Belt looms the Oort Cloud, which Stern calls "the solar system's attic." The cloud is a gigantic sphere with an outer edge almost 5 trillion miles from the sun and is nearly a quarter of the way to the next nearest star, Proxima Centauri.
"If the Oort Cloud were the diameter of a football stadium, the inner solar system would be the size of a washer one-eighth of an inch in diameter," said David Aguilar, a spokesman for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.
The Oort Cloud is thought to contain at least 1,000 planetary bodies, some as large as Earth or larger, and as many as a trillion comets. Periodically, a passing star knocks an Oort comet loose and sends it diving toward the sun.
A second upheaval in planetary science is the realization that most members of the solar system weren't born where they are now. Instead, gravitational forces forced them to migrate from their birthplaces to their present homes.
"This is a true revolution," Stern said.
"The planets didn't necessarily form where we see them today," said Douglas Lin, an astronomer at the University of California-Santa Cruz. "They move all over the place."
For example, the giant planets Neptune and Uranus formed where Saturn now lives and drifted outward to their present orbits.
The third revolution in planetary science is the realization that making planets is a common process in the universe. In the past dozen years, 276 planets — some of them forming miniature solar systems — have been detected orbiting other stars. One such system has at least five planets. Astronomers discover an average of 25 planets each year.
NASA will launch a new spaceship, named Kepler, next year hoping to find hundreds more of such faraway planets.
First, until recently, people thought that there were two parts to the solar system: four small, rocky inner planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars — and four gas giant outer planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus..."That was the old view,"...Under the new definition, the International Astronomical Union has officially recognized 11 planets: eight traditional ones plus three "dwarf planets." The dwarfs are Pluto; Ceres, which was thought to be an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter; and Eris, an object that's slightly larger than Pluto and farther from the sun. At least 40 more dwarf planets have been found even farther out and are awaiting official recognition. They bear names such as Quaoar, Sedna, Orcus, Varuna and Ixion. Dozens of others are known only by code numbers.
Stern said the solar system now was thought to be composed of three zones instead of two.
The four rocky planets make up the inner zone. The gas giants form a "middle solar system." Beyond them lies an enormous third zone composed of the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, both named for the astronomers who predicted their existence.
"This third class of planets vastly outnumbers the terrestrial planets and gas giants," Stern said.
The Kuiper Belt, which was discovered in the 1990s, is a ring of dwarf planets, including Pluto, and smaller icy objects that range from 3 billion to 5 billion miles beyond the sun.
More than 1,000 Kuiper Belt objects have been detected, and astronomers say there might be 50,000 to 100,000 more. Most are small, but some rival Pluto in size. Some have atmospheres and moons of their own, and some may have warm, wet interiors.
Far outside the Kuiper Belt looms the Oort Cloud, which Stern calls "the solar system's attic." The cloud is a gigantic sphere with an outer edge almost 5 trillion miles from the sun and is nearly a quarter of the way to the next nearest star, Proxima Centauri.
"If the Oort Cloud were the diameter of a football stadium, the inner solar system would be the size of a washer one-eighth of an inch in diameter," said David Aguilar, a spokesman for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.
The Oort Cloud is thought to contain at least 1,000 planetary bodies, some as large as Earth or larger, and as many as a trillion comets. Periodically, a passing star knocks an Oort comet loose and sends it diving toward the sun.
A second upheaval in planetary science is the realization that most members of the solar system weren't born where they are now. Instead, gravitational forces forced them to migrate from their birthplaces to their present homes.
"This is a true revolution," Stern said.
"The planets didn't necessarily form where we see them today," said Douglas Lin, an astronomer at the University of California-Santa Cruz. "They move all over the place."
For example, the giant planets Neptune and Uranus formed where Saturn now lives and drifted outward to their present orbits.
The third revolution in planetary science is the realization that making planets is a common process in the universe. In the past dozen years, 276 planets — some of them forming miniature solar systems — have been detected orbiting other stars. One such system has at least five planets. Astronomers discover an average of 25 planets each year.
NASA will launch a new spaceship, named Kepler, next year hoping to find hundreds more of such faraway planets.
05 March 2008
Binary 'deathstar' has Earth in its sights
From: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1878
SYDNEY: A spectacular, rotating binary star system is a ticking time bomb, ready to throw out a searing beam of high-energy gamma rays – and Earth may be right in the line of fire..."When it finally explodes as a supernova, it could emit an intense beam of gamma rays coming our way", said Peter Tuthill, lead researcher of the team that report their findings in the current Astrophysical Journal...At a distance of 8,000 light-years from Earth, the pair of stars are a short hop away in galactic terms, and just one quarter of the way to the centre of our Milky Way galaxy....A 2005 study showed that a gamma-ray burst originating within 6,500 light-years of Earth could be enough to strip away the ozone layer and cause a mass extinction. Researchers led by Adrian Melott at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, U.S., suggest that such an event may have been responsible for a mass extinction 443 million years ago, in the late Ordovician period, which wiped out 60 per cent of life and cooled the planet.
SYDNEY: A spectacular, rotating binary star system is a ticking time bomb, ready to throw out a searing beam of high-energy gamma rays – and Earth may be right in the line of fire..."When it finally explodes as a supernova, it could emit an intense beam of gamma rays coming our way", said Peter Tuthill, lead researcher of the team that report their findings in the current Astrophysical Journal...At a distance of 8,000 light-years from Earth, the pair of stars are a short hop away in galactic terms, and just one quarter of the way to the centre of our Milky Way galaxy....A 2005 study showed that a gamma-ray burst originating within 6,500 light-years of Earth could be enough to strip away the ozone layer and cause a mass extinction. Researchers led by Adrian Melott at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, U.S., suggest that such an event may have been responsible for a mass extinction 443 million years ago, in the late Ordovician period, which wiped out 60 per cent of life and cooled the planet.
The Next Great White Fleet
http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=1477-7622&volume=6&issue=1&spage=50&uno_jumptype=alert&uno_alerttype=author,email
The author argues for using the US Air Force as a catalyst for positive change in space to advance and maintain the international system, and discusses Space Solar Power, Planetary Defense, and debris de-orbit.
The author argues for using the US Air Force as a catalyst for positive change in space to advance and maintain the international system, and discusses Space Solar Power, Planetary Defense, and debris de-orbit.
27 February 2008
ESA starts SSPS Wiki, to have workshop 29 Feb 2008
http://atlas.estec.esa.int/SPS/index.php/Main_Page
The rising interest in renewable energy solutions, the public debate on global warming and what is called "peak oil", the increasingly accepted need for sustainable energy systems, a recent white paper on SPS from URSI, the successful Furoshiki experiment as well as the attention for solar power from space created by the recent report initiated by an office within the US DoD makes this the right time to initiate the second phase of the SPS programme plan.
Therefore, we are seeking input, comments and criticism on the scope and content of the second phase from you. We have set up this collaborative website/discussion forum (wiki) for this purpose, and will organise a dedicated meeting/workshop of the SPS network at ESTEC on February 29, 2008.
Also, check out this excellent presentation on Space Solar from the Lift conference by Guy Pignolet:
http://www.liftconference.com/space-solar-power
Here also is the link for Marty Hoffert presenting at Google:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9YD9-_WTjk
And an outstanding video from NASA featuring John Mankins:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6849120419741037023&hl=en
The rising interest in renewable energy solutions, the public debate on global warming and what is called "peak oil", the increasingly accepted need for sustainable energy systems, a recent white paper on SPS from URSI, the successful Furoshiki experiment as well as the attention for solar power from space created by the recent report initiated by an office within the US DoD makes this the right time to initiate the second phase of the SPS programme plan.
Therefore, we are seeking input, comments and criticism on the scope and content of the second phase from you. We have set up this collaborative website/discussion forum (wiki) for this purpose, and will organise a dedicated meeting/workshop of the SPS network at ESTEC on February 29, 2008.
Also, check out this excellent presentation on Space Solar from the Lift conference by Guy Pignolet:
http://www.liftconference.com/space-solar-power
Here also is the link for Marty Hoffert presenting at Google:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9YD9-_WTjk
And an outstanding video from NASA featuring John Mankins:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6849120419741037023&hl=en
JAXA Testing Power Beaming
http://www.pinktentacle.com/2008/02/jaxa-testing-space-solar-power-system/
On February 20, JAXA will take a step closer to the goal when they begin testing a microwave power transmission system designed to beam the power from the satellites to Earth. In a series of experiments to be conducted at the Taiki Multi-Purpose Aerospace Park in Hokkaido, the researchers will use a 2.4-meter-diameter transmission antenna to send a microwave beam over 50 meters to a rectenna (rectifying antenna) that converts the microwave energy into electricity and powers a household heater. The researchers expect these initial tests to provide valuable engineering data that will pave the way for JAXA to build larger, more powerful systems.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.iat.jaxa.jp/res/amrc/ssps/03.html&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=3&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DSSPS%2Bsite:%2Bjaxa%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox%26rlz%3D1I7TSHA%26pwst%3D1
Planetary Society awards $25,000 prize
From: http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13381-asteroidtracking-proposal-wins-25000-prize.html
the non-profit Planetary Society, based in Pasadena, California, US, has announced the winner of a competition to design a mission to track Apophis and determine whether it poses a threat to Earth. The Planetary Society received 37 mission proposals from 20 countries. The winner was a proposal by SpaceWorks Engineering Inc., of Atlanta, Georgia, US. Dubbed "Foresight", the mission would put a small spacecraft in orbit around Apophis, where it would send pictures and data about the asteroid back to Earth. Its designers say if they got funding, they could launch the mission as early as 2012 and arrive at the asteroid in 2013.
the non-profit Planetary Society, based in Pasadena, California, US, has announced the winner of a competition to design a mission to track Apophis and determine whether it poses a threat to Earth. The Planetary Society received 37 mission proposals from 20 countries. The winner was a proposal by SpaceWorks Engineering Inc., of Atlanta, Georgia, US. Dubbed "Foresight", the mission would put a small spacecraft in orbit around Apophis, where it would send pictures and data about the asteroid back to Earth. Its designers say if they got funding, they could launch the mission as early as 2012 and arrive at the asteroid in 2013.
HR 4917 Proposed NEO Defense Bill
A proposed bill would further attempt to embroil NASA in a mission it does not want, while ignoring the DOD: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.4917:
directed from: http://gaiashield.com/NEOPrep/
Submitted by Rep Rohrabacher, and rumored to have been written or prompted by Rusty Schweikert. Sections of particular interest:
(1) Asteroid and comet collisions rank as one of the most costly natural disasters that can occur.
(2) According to the October 2007 report to Congress by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (in this Act referred to as `NASA'), 140-meter-in-diameter asteroid collision will generate the equivalent power of a 100 megaton TNT explosion.
(3) There are approximately 100,000 near-Earth objects 140 meters wide or larger.
(4) The time needed to eliminate or mitigate the threat of a collision of a potentially hazardous near-Earth object with Earth is measured in decades.
(5) Unlike earthquakes and hurricanes, asteroids and comets can provide adequate collision information, enabling the United States to include both asteroid- and comet-collision disaster recovery and disaster avoidance in its public-safety structure.
(6) Basic information is needed for technical and policy decisionmaking for the United States to create a comprehensive program in order to be ready to eliminate and mitigate the serious and credible threats to humankind posed by potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids and comets.
(9) The public safety of the United States and the planet requires the competence and expertise found in NASA to prepare and to validate the potentially hazardous near-Earth object deflection situation and decisionmaking analysis, as well as to select systems and procedures, to prepare the United States for readiness to avoid or to mitigate collisions with potentially hazardous near-Earth objects.
(a) Establishment- The Administrator shall establish the Office of Potentially Hazardous Near-Earth Object Preparedness (in this Act referred to as `Office'). The purpose of the Office shall be to prepare the United States for readiness to avoid and to mitigate collisions with potentially hazardous near-Earth objects in collaboration with other Agencies through the identification of situation- and decision-analysis factors and selection of procedures and systems.
directed from: http://gaiashield.com/NEOPrep/
Submitted by Rep Rohrabacher, and rumored to have been written or prompted by Rusty Schweikert. Sections of particular interest:
(1) Asteroid and comet collisions rank as one of the most costly natural disasters that can occur.
(2) According to the October 2007 report to Congress by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (in this Act referred to as `NASA'), 140-meter-in-diameter asteroid collision will generate the equivalent power of a 100 megaton TNT explosion.
(3) There are approximately 100,000 near-Earth objects 140 meters wide or larger.
(4) The time needed to eliminate or mitigate the threat of a collision of a potentially hazardous near-Earth object with Earth is measured in decades.
(5) Unlike earthquakes and hurricanes, asteroids and comets can provide adequate collision information, enabling the United States to include both asteroid- and comet-collision disaster recovery and disaster avoidance in its public-safety structure.
(6) Basic information is needed for technical and policy decisionmaking for the United States to create a comprehensive program in order to be ready to eliminate and mitigate the serious and credible threats to humankind posed by potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids and comets.
(9) The public safety of the United States and the planet requires the competence and expertise found in NASA to prepare and to validate the potentially hazardous near-Earth object deflection situation and decisionmaking analysis, as well as to select systems and procedures, to prepare the United States for readiness to avoid or to mitigate collisions with potentially hazardous near-Earth objects.
(a) Establishment- The Administrator shall establish the Office of Potentially Hazardous Near-Earth Object Preparedness (in this Act referred to as `Office'). The purpose of the Office shall be to prepare the United States for readiness to avoid and to mitigate collisions with potentially hazardous near-Earth objects in collaboration with other Agencies through the identification of situation- and decision-analysis factors and selection of procedures and systems.
Only 7.6 Billion Years to get our act together and one more use for an asteroid
Scientists Predict When World Will End http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,332429,00.html
Scientists have nailed down how and when the Earth will cease to exist.The sun will slowly expand into a red giant, pushing the Earth farther out into space, but not far enough.Our home planet will be snagged by the sun's outer atmosphere, gradually plunging to its doom inside the fiery stellar furnace."The drag caused by this low-density gas is enough to cause the Earth to drift inwards, and finally to be captured and vaporized by the sun," explains astronomer Robert Smith of the University of Sussex in southern England.Previous projections had all figured that the Earth would avoid falling into the sun, even during our star's red-giant phase.The good news: This won't happen for another 7.6 billion years.The bad news: Life on Earth will end long before then.In fact, we've only got a billion years left before the slowly expanding sun boils off the oceans and reduces our planet to an uninhabitable cinder, says Smith.That may sound like a long time, but in fact life on Earth's been around a lot longer than that - a total of 3.7 billion years, according to the latest estimates.For those first three billion years, true, we were nothing but pond scum. Still, the new figures indicate the long story of life on our fair blue-green planet may be entering its last act.Is there any way our future descendants can save themselves? Why, yes, explains Smith.He cites a recent study emanating from the University of California, Santa Cruz. It proposes taming an asteroid to swing by the Earth every few thousand years, slowly nudging the Earth into higher solar orbit, enough to outpace the sun's own outward growth."This sounds like science fiction," says Smith. "But it seems that the energy requirements are just about possible and the technology could be developed over the next few centuries."
Scientists have nailed down how and when the Earth will cease to exist.The sun will slowly expand into a red giant, pushing the Earth farther out into space, but not far enough.Our home planet will be snagged by the sun's outer atmosphere, gradually plunging to its doom inside the fiery stellar furnace."The drag caused by this low-density gas is enough to cause the Earth to drift inwards, and finally to be captured and vaporized by the sun," explains astronomer Robert Smith of the University of Sussex in southern England.Previous projections had all figured that the Earth would avoid falling into the sun, even during our star's red-giant phase.The good news: This won't happen for another 7.6 billion years.The bad news: Life on Earth will end long before then.In fact, we've only got a billion years left before the slowly expanding sun boils off the oceans and reduces our planet to an uninhabitable cinder, says Smith.That may sound like a long time, but in fact life on Earth's been around a lot longer than that - a total of 3.7 billion years, according to the latest estimates.For those first three billion years, true, we were nothing but pond scum. Still, the new figures indicate the long story of life on our fair blue-green planet may be entering its last act.Is there any way our future descendants can save themselves? Why, yes, explains Smith.He cites a recent study emanating from the University of California, Santa Cruz. It proposes taming an asteroid to swing by the Earth every few thousand years, slowly nudging the Earth into higher solar orbit, enough to outpace the sun's own outward growth."This sounds like science fiction," says Smith. "But it seems that the energy requirements are just about possible and the technology could be developed over the next few centuries."
UN-SPIDER
http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/pressrels/2008/unisos365.html
UN Space
The newly established space-system-based disaster management program(UN-SPIDER) was in the focus of the 45 session of COPUOS in Vienna,11-20 Feb. Possible dangers from near-Earth objects, space debrismitigation, and a safety framework for nuclear power sources in outerspace were also key agenda items.thSpace-System-Based Disaster Management Support. The Subcommittee heardreport on the implementation of the UN-SPIDER program for the period2008-2009 as well as other initiatives and long-term perspectives ofvarious Member States and space agencies in the area of disastermanagement. The new UN-SPIDER program which is implemented by the UNOffice for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), opened its first office inBonn, Germany, Oct 07, and will be opening an office in Beijing as wellas a liaison office in Geneva in 2008.Near-Earth objects. The Subcommittee endorsed the new multi-year workplan 2009-2011, under which the Working Group on NEO will reviewpolicies and procedures on the NEO threat at the international level inorder to draft an agreement on international procedures by 2012. Withinthe framework of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, the WorkingGroup will also try to raise awareness of the NEO threat. TheSubcommittee continues to consider NEOs due to their scientific value asremnant debris from the inner solar system formation processes, theirrichness in various natural resources as well as their potential dangerof collision with the Earth.
UN Space
The newly established space-system-based disaster management program(UN-SPIDER) was in the focus of the 45 session of COPUOS in Vienna,11-20 Feb. Possible dangers from near-Earth objects, space debrismitigation, and a safety framework for nuclear power sources in outerspace were also key agenda items.thSpace-System-Based Disaster Management Support. The Subcommittee heardreport on the implementation of the UN-SPIDER program for the period2008-2009 as well as other initiatives and long-term perspectives ofvarious Member States and space agencies in the area of disastermanagement. The new UN-SPIDER program which is implemented by the UNOffice for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), opened its first office inBonn, Germany, Oct 07, and will be opening an office in Beijing as wellas a liaison office in Geneva in 2008.Near-Earth objects. The Subcommittee endorsed the new multi-year workplan 2009-2011, under which the Working Group on NEO will reviewpolicies and procedures on the NEO threat at the international level inorder to draft an agreement on international procedures by 2012. Withinthe framework of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, the WorkingGroup will also try to raise awareness of the NEO threat. TheSubcommittee continues to consider NEOs due to their scientific value asremnant debris from the inner solar system formation processes, theirrichness in various natural resources as well as their potential dangerof collision with the Earth.
The NEO threats are smaller and more numerous!
Previously, Tunguska was thought to have been at least 50 meters...
- But the size of the Tunguska object was perhaps 30-40 meters in diameter - or loosely the size of the White House - and the process to track most of those will take longer, he said.
- "In the process of finding the bigger objects, you find some of the smaller ones," Schweikart said. "But there are perhaps 400,000 objects that are 45 meters in diameter out there, and we've found less than 1 percent of them so far."
- Prior estimates suggested that Tunguska-like events happened every 1,000 years or so. New estimates put that closer to the 300-400 year range, Boslough said.
- "The smaller ones at most could hit perhaps every 100 years or so," Boslough said. "And the last one was 99.5 years ago, but any estimates are based on a lot of uncertainty."
http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2007/dec/22/killer-asteroids-more-common-was-thought-sandia-sc/ - See animations here:
http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/asteroid.html
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/small-asteroids.html
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