12.19.2005
Yes worries
Spin the worry wheel and you will hit the near-earth asteroid (NEA), eventually. And not just any NEA, but the one that's aiming to decimate Earth. Should Congress shell out deep impact money? On Out of the Cradle, former Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart talks about his efforts to secure cosmic collision insurance for the home planet.
According to Rusty, "the general public isn’t yet aware enough of the threat itself to have any sense that prevention is of importance. Consequently the pressure on Congress to take action on this issue is low to non-existent. B612 Foundation is continually wrestling with the question, given its extremely limited resources, of where to apply its efforts, lobbying Congress for action, educating the general public, or focusing on our primary goal of getting a demonstration of deflection capability off the ground."
As Rusty mentions, and I've previously posted, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) has sponsored a bill to allocate $20 million for NASA to track near-Earth asteroids and comets of 100 meters or more in diameter. So far, NASA has no asteroid busting plan. We're on our own.
(Xanax anyone?)
According to Rusty, "the general public isn’t yet aware enough of the threat itself to have any sense that prevention is of importance. Consequently the pressure on Congress to take action on this issue is low to non-existent. B612 Foundation is continually wrestling with the question, given its extremely limited resources, of where to apply its efforts, lobbying Congress for action, educating the general public, or focusing on our primary goal of getting a demonstration of deflection capability off the ground."
As Rusty mentions, and I've previously posted, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) has sponsored a bill to allocate $20 million for NASA to track near-Earth asteroids and comets of 100 meters or more in diameter. So far, NASA has no asteroid busting plan. We're on our own.
(Xanax anyone?)
