Report: NASA can't keep up with killer asteroids

[Kadie]

Report: NASA can't keep up with killer asteroids

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
Wednesday, August 12, 2009

(08-12) 08:00 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

NASA is charged with seeking out nearly all the asteroids that threaten Earth but doesn't have the money to do the job, a federal report says.

That's because even though Congress assigned the space agency this mission four years ago, it never gave NASA money to build the necessary telescopes, the new National Academy of Sciences report says. Specifically, NASA has been ordered to spot 90 percent of the potentially deadly rocks hurtling through space by 2020.

Even so, NASA says it's completed about one-third of its assignment with its current telescope system.

NASA estimates that there are about 20,000 asteroids and comets in our solar system that are potential threats to Earth. They are larger than 460 feet in diameter — slightly smaller than the Superdome in New Orleans. So far, scientists know where about 6,000 of these objects are.

more...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/08/12/national/w080007D45.DTL&tsp=1

[Ian David]

1. Bush Admin cut the program down to almost nothing. n/t

[Canuckistanian]

2. This really should be an international effort

This kind of important program shouldn't be left to the vagaries of NASA funding from a dysfunctional Congress.

[Kadie]

3. Should be.

I just re-read the article... this is interesting...

snip...
Disaster movies like "Armageddon" and near misses in previous years may have scared people and alerted them to a serious issue. But when it comes to doing something about monitoring the threat, the academy concluded "there has been relatively little effort by the U.S. government."

And the U.S. government is practically the only government doing anything at all, the report found.


So the US is being blamed for not doing enough, even though we are doing more than others.

[redqueen]

4. Definitely. (nt)

[G_j]

5. both Jupiter & Venus apparently were struck very recently

NASA missed those..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x54299

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x54694


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