A 2005 congressional mandate involve NASA to memorialise 90 % of the 20,000 + near Earth object ( NEOs ) sized 140 + meters in diameter . NASA has until 2020 to catalogue them but miss sentence and funding . Ah , the political sympathies of doomsday prevention .
A late article in Naturenotes the political and logistic difficulty underlying in logging those NEOs that could reach Earth . Scientists are consider several option , include building a NEO - detection telescope with an celestial orbit similar to that of Venus and creating a panel to catalog the situation and number of NEOs . In any case , fund asteroid detection and bar is a corporate action snafu on both an external and domestic level :
Launching commission to track or stave off all possible asteroid scourge will be prohibitively expensive , but even a small chance of regional or global devastation may not be politically palatable . [ … ] One solution from the control board is to increase the amount that the United States put in NEO detection and tracking from the current $ 5.5 million a class . The panel may also commend the launch of a [ $ 600 million ] survey telescope into a solar ambit similar to that of Venus . It would orb quicker than Earth and , looking outwards , would see asteroid in Earth - crossing orbits more often than would ground - based instruments [ … ]
Owing to a 2008 law run by Congress , the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has until 15 October to adjudicate which agency will be responsible for for protect the satellite from an asteroid strike . member of the task military unit say NASA carry to be given part or all of that duty . To meet it , the panel discourse the creation of a Planetary Protection Coordination Office ( PPCO ) within NASA , with an annual budget of $ 250 million–$300 million [ … ] The PPCO would also challenge other countries to fund defence against asteroids , perhaps through the United Nations . Canada already contrive to launch the NEO Survey Satellite in 2011 , and Germany ’s AsteroidFinder is slate for launching in 2012 , but neither is expected to derive close to the NEO - logging goal by 2020 .
Obviously , there are deal of earthbound job for Congress to carry on with , but the whimsy of routinely reserve taxpayer money towards infinite rock - induced global extinction prevention is just plain phantasmagorical . fund a giant space drill , now that ’s a plan voters can envelop their brain around .
[ NatureviaFP Passport . Graph via A. Chamberlin / Jet Propulsion Lab . ; Defending Planet Earth / National Research Council . ]
asteroidsNASAPoliticsSpace
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