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Projects: International Year of Astronomy 2009Protecting Earth from Space Hazards
The Planetary Society seeks to use the International Year of Astronomy to warn the public about the threat that Earth faces from a potentially catastrophic asteroid impact. One of our longest-running projects seeks help from members of the public to help understand the threat posed by near-Earth objects. The Shoemaker Near Earth Object Grant Program has, since 1997, awarded 29 grants totaling more than $184,000 to amateur or underfunded professional observers to participate in the search for and follow-up tracking of the potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid population. The hunt for potentially hazardous asteroids has been very successful; it is estimated than more than 70% of the one-kilometer or larger asteroids that cross Earth's orbit have now been discovered. But government support for searches and follow-up programs remains modest, so programs like The Planetary Society's Gene Shoemaker Near Earth Object Grants fill a vital niche. Grant winners are especially critical for carefully measuring positions of recently discovered objects. Once we know a near-Earth object is out there, we need to learn whether or not it will hit Earth. Shoemaker grant winners, past and present, operate many of the most successful asteroid follow-up observatories in the world. No asteroid has yet been discovered that is definitely on a collision course with Earth. That is very good news, because Earth is not yet prepared, technically or politically, to respond to an imminent impact threat. The Planetary Society is sponsoring activities designed to address both the technical and the political challenges that we will face when we have to choose how to mitigate the threat of an impending impact. With the Apophis Mission Design Competition, we challenged the world to consider what to do if an asteroid were found to be on course for a possible impact. We received 37 mission proposals from 20 countries on 6 continents, from private individuals, university teams, and the space industry, proposing a variety of scenarios that would permit us to track such an asteroid accurately enough to determine whether it will impact Earth, thus providing governments with the information they would need to decide whether or not to mount a deflection mission. In 2008 we also worked with the Space Generation organization on Move an Asteroid 2008, a competition to propose how to deflect an asteroid. We will build on these efforts throughout the International Year of Astronomy to encourage both the public and private sector to develop strategies for detecting and mitigating the threat of an asteroid impact. Although we are now addressing the technical challenges of mitigating the threat of an impact, governments have not yet faced the difficult political and ethical issues that surround impact threat mitigation. Is it ethical to mitigate a potential catastrophe of an impact in a heavily populated area by deflecting an asteroid toward a different area, not originally under threat? What if, by deflecting an asteroid away from land, it lands in an ocean and causes a tsunami that threatens people in many nations? What if deflection is impossible, but disruption is not? Which is worse, a large impact to one area or many small impacts over a much wider area? And what is the disaster plan for an impact from an asteroid or comet that we discover too late either to deflect or disrupt it? Whose job is it to support the search and mitigate the threat -- space agencies or defense departments? The Planetary Society has joined the Association of Space Explorers and the B612 Foundation in their efforts to develop an international framework for planetary defense, and we plan to hold both an invited workshop and a public meeting on these issues in the summer of 2009. When the time is right, we will push for action on this issue from the United Nations' Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. |
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