NASA: It is okay to fight meteors, but ... lack of funds!

' We know what to do, but . lack of funds to implement! ', NASA representative said at the Conference to protect the anti-meteorite planet hit Earth. This conference takes place in Washington, DC, from 5-8 March.

NASA needs $ 1 billion

Reported at the Conference, NASA estimated the cost between now and 2020 to detect at least 90% of the 20,000 asteroids and comets that could threaten the Earth at $ 1 billion (about 760 million euros or £ 519 million).

The above 20,000 asteroids are objects with a diameter greater than 460 feet (about 140 meters). Even if they do not touch the Earth and they explode near the Earth when they are heated in the atmosphere - the destructive power of the tremors will be terrible.

According to NASA, such an explosion has the equivalent of 100 million tons of dynamite explosives, enough to disrupt a small state, like Maryland, in the United States.

" Lack of money to hunt meteors " . NASA thinks they don't have the financial resources to detect meteors from now until 2020. (Photo: Techshout)

In 2005, the US Congress asked NASA to develop a plan to detect and track dangerous meteorites and devise ways to deflect their orbit. However, NASA said that because of the lack of funds, they still have not reached the planned meteorite schedule. Simon Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center, said: 'We know what to do; we just lack money to do it. '

So far, NASA has detected and identified the trajectory of 769 of 1,090 asteroids larger than 1 km (about 0.6 miles) in diameter, capable of destroying most life on Earth, It's like the explosion that extinguished the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

However, none of these objects are moving in the direction that can hit Earth . But, a much smaller asteroid is becoming a real threat. .

It is the asteroid 99942 Apophis, which is expected to hit Earth in 2036 with a probability of 1 / 45,000 .

Mr. Clark Chapman, planetary science expert at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, thinks that even if Apophis falls into the Pacific Ocean, it will cause a disaster similar to the tsunami that devastated Indonesia. and neighboring countries in 2004.

Speaking at the conference, Simon " Pete " Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, said the US had enough technology to fulfill the mission to deflect an asteroid like Apophis. , but the US government has not proposed funding for that.

NASA only has a budget of 4 million USD / year for studying asteroids threat. Mr. Worden said: ' We do not have enough resources to carry out that mission .'

Must enhance the ability to detect meteors

NASA has discovered and identified the trajectory of 769 asteroids that are likely to cause disaster for the Earth.(Photo: space.com)

Speaking at the conference, John Logsdon, director of the Space Policy division at George Washington University, said the discovery and tracking of dangerous asteroids like Apophis should be further strengthened. If not, then how can we deflect them, he stressed

NASA said it needed to implement more technical measures to locate small but still dangerous objects. According to the agency, although an Italian observatory is doing that, the United States is the only country that has a program to detect and track asteroids.

One solution is to build a new terrestrial telescope dedicated to the detection of asteroids, at a cost of about $ 800 million (€ 611.5 million).

Another option, which is faster to detect, is to launch a telescope to use infrared onto space , at a cost of $ 1.1 billion (EUR 840 million). However, according to NASA scientist Lindley Johnson, the White House and NASA think both solutions are too expensive.

Another proposition was to install new telescopes above the telescope of other agencies , at a cost of only about $ 300 million (229.3 million euros). But this solution is not approved either.

Mr. Johnson said: 'NASA currently cannot decide how to solve this problem!'.

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