- Asteroids and comets will get increased
attention at NASA as a new program office is formed to coordinate data
from spacecraft and ground-based observations of celestial bodies. This
office will help avoid a repeat of the media frenzy surrounding the early
March announcement that Earth might be on the receiving end of an asteroid
in 2028, a possibility later retracted. The new office will increase financial
support for the detection and characterization of Near Earth Objects (NEOs).
It will work with other groups in the United States and abroad to create
an inventory of NEOs. One of its goals will be to identify asteroids at
sizes down to 1 km in diameter. Scientists estimate that 2000 Earth-crossing
asteroids at least a kilometer in size have yet to be identified.
-
- The yet-to-be-named program office will
be located at a NASA field center within the next few weeks, though some
responsibilities will be maintained at NASA Headquarters in Washington,
said Tom Morgan, discipline scientist for planetary astronomy. Morgan is
shaping the duties of the new office.
-
- "The first job is to understand
what is out there, increase the numbers of detections and get good orbits
for them," Morgan told Space News March 27. He said the new office
will strengthen NASA?s ground-based program and study data from spacecraft
missions to asteroids and comets.
-
- Some $3 million is now being earmarked
for the new program, a doubling of current NASA funding NEO work, he said.
. . .
-
- "Part of our ongoing plan is to
understand the composition, the mineralogy, the physical condition of increasing
numbers of NEOs," Morgan said. . . .
-
- David Morrison, director of space for
NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., said the recent public
interest in asteroid 1997 XF11 shows the general concern about impact dangers
and indicates potential public support for efforts to protect the planet.
Morrison said an asteroid the size of XF11 striking Earth would release
a million megatons of energy, probably leading to the death of millions
of people. "The first step has to be to search for threatening objects.
If we don?t look, we can be taken entirely by surprise,: Morrison said
March 26.
-
-
- ___________________________________
-
- From the Strategic Plan for the NASA
Space Science Enterprise November 1997
-
- * from Introduction
-
- Many questions remain to be answered.
. . Can we develop the scientific base of information necessary to save
the Earth from an incoming asteroid like the one we believe ended the epoch
of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago? . . .
-
- * Space Science Goals (total of 11)
-
- 9. Understand the external forces, including
comet and asteroid impacts, that affect life and the habitabilty of Earth.
-
- * Space Science Objectives (total of
19)
-
- 17. Complete the inventory and characterize
a sample of near-Earth objects down to 1-km diameter
-
-
- _____________________________________
-
-
- From Testimony by NASA Administrator
Dan Goldin before the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics of the House
Committee on Science
-
- February 5, 1998 Asteroids
-
- Congressman Weldon asked about NASA's
asteroid study. Mr. Goldin described a series of missions tracking these
small bodies in cooperation with the Department of Defense. A new NASA
Program Office is being put together which would integrate all of the NASA
programs and research which is being done involving near-earth-crossing
objects to study potential collisions with Earth and evasive actions that
can be taken.
-
-
- _____________________________________
-
-
- From: NO MORE 'NEVER-MINDS', THEY VOW
Boston Globe, April 6, 1998
-
- By David L. Chandler
-
- . . . Boosted by all the public attention
generated by the [XF11] affair -
-
- and perhaps by the imminent arrival of
two Hollywood blockbusters about asteroid impacts - the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration decided last week to double its spending this
year on efforts to track down most of the rocks hurtling through space
that might have Earth's name on them.
-
- . . . Because of the way the [XF11] episode
played out, [Carl] Pilcher
-
- said, NASA last week drafted preliminary
guidelines for any future reports of threatening asteroids. The plan, drafted
after a long and heated meeting among the specialists last month in Houston,
in essence calls for private consultation among the groups involved before
any public announcement is made.
-
- ''I think the obligation we have as a
community is to provide the best possible information about whatever is
out there, in the shortest possible time,'' said Pilcher, NASA's acting
science director for solar system exploration. With 1997 XF11, that ''best
information'' was compiled the day after the initial announcement. . .
. ''We have the goal in our strategic plan to identify all the objects
greater than 1 kilometer in diameter'' - those large enough to be capable
of producing global damage if they were to strike Earth - ''and do that
in a decade. That is our objective.'' But that will require a significant
increase over the present efforts, which are finding ''potentially hazardous
asteroids'' at a rate of about one a month.
-
-
- __________________________________
-
-
- NASA Proposed Interim Roles and Responsibilities
for NASA-funded researchers on Reporting Potentially Hazardous Objects
(PHOs)
-
- 1 April 1998 1. No hazard or threat prediction
statements will be released without verification and consensus.
-
- 2. Astrometric data on Near-Earth Objects
(NEOs) or suspected NEOs received by the Minor Planets Center (MPC) of
the International Astronomical Union at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center
for Astrophysics will be made available to the scientific community, generally
within 24 hours of receipt.
-
- 3. Should a member of the NEO search
community2 note a future, possibly threatening, close approach to the Earth,
the other members of the NEO search community will be notified so that
calculations can be checked and archival files can be searched for prediscovery
observations. The response will be coordinated by a point of contact to
be designated by the NASA Office of Space Science (OSS), and the search
community will make an effort to reach consensus as to the nature of the
threat within 48 hours of being informed.
-
- 4. The NASA OSS will be informed at least
24 hours in advance of any public report of a PHO.
-
- 5. NASA, in coordination with appropriate
national and international organizations, will sponsor a study of how best
to communicate NEO issues to the public. This study will include an international
workshop to develop detailed recommendations concerning procedures, roles,
and responsibilities regarding observations, orbit calculations, and
-
- communications with the public and policy-making
officials.
-
- 1 These interim guidelines represent
an agreement among NASA-supported NEO searchers and dynamicists.
-
- 2 The NEO search community includes all
major NEO searchers, dynamicists, and data archivists.
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