Fighting meteors: Does the US or the planet spend the same money?

NASA submitted to the US Congress for additional funding to prevent meteorites from hitting Earth. Opinion: The whole planet, why only the United States has to spend money?

NASA has submitted a report to the US Congress with the focus: Need more budget to improve technology; deflecting the NEO direction with remote nuclear detonation is most effective, and cooperation with foreign governments is necessary.

NASA: Need more funding, if not backward meteorite survey period of 6 years

After the end of the Planet Protection Conference, NASA submitted a report to the US Congress called 'Survey of Near Earth Objects-NEO' and analyzed NEO deflection '.

In this report, NASA once again confirmed that technically, they were able to track 90% of the 20,000 objects that could threaten the Earth.

However, there will not be enough funding to complete a project to survey the NEOs that threaten to touch the Earth that the project will have to end in 2020 - the deadline that the US Congress has assigned NASA to follow a law. signed by President Bush on December 30, 2005.

NASA said, with the Spaceguard Survey project, they have discovered about three-fourths of about 1,000 objects with a diameter greater than 1 km can be dangerous to the Earth. However, for smaller objects that could threaten the planet, NASA . cannot afford it.

Currently, the project is funded with $ 4.1 million per year until 2012 and only uses observation stations from the ground.

According to Donald K. Yeomans, Spaceguard Survey Project Manager, the construction, launch and operation of an infrared observation station with orbital space will require $ 700 million.

However, he argues that the goal of surveying 90% of potentially dangerous objects can still be achieved in a less expensive way by using only ground-based observation stations. If this "saving" plan is accepted, the US Congress may have to remove the deadline to complete NASA's mission until 2026 instead of 2020.

Meteors are still threatening to touch the Earth (Photo: VNN)

'Isn't the United States responsible only .?'

In the short term, NASA's report was criticized by US House of Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon.

In a statement, Gordon said: "We are still reviewing the NASA report, but it is clear that the solutions proposed by NASA are not a reliable plan to achieve the intended goal. clearly in the NASA Authorization Act of 2005. The Commission will continue to monitor this issue in the future to achieve a more positive solution. '

Meanwhile, William Ailor, an official of the Aerospace Corporation and also the host of the recent conference, said that the problem of finding dangerous objects could be solved more easily if many countries joined. join and share costs.

William Ailor asked the question: 'Isn't there only one country, that is the United States, responsible for the entire planet?' Mr. William Ailor also revealed that Europe has entered.

The European Space Agency is implementing a project called Don Quijote to test ways to deflect dangerous asteroids.

Don Quijote is a project of the European Space Commission aimed at deflecting dangerous asteroids with conventional spacecraft technologies (usually).

This project uses 2 spacecraft. A ship called Hidalgo is responsible for colliding on an asteroid about 500 meters in diameter at 10 km / sec. While the second ship Sancho will approach the asteroid at a certain distance, at a time before Hidalgo hits the asteroid, to determine the trajectory of this object before and after the That collision.

According to scientists, the Don Quijote project is a vehicle for assessing the level of NEO risk, thereby helping experts to devise specific measures to deflect NEOs that can threaten the Earth in future.

Illustrate the case where Hidalgo bumps into the NEO while Sancho is concerned
Observe changes before and after collisions. (Photo: VNN)

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