Key Reports and Papers

United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Draft report of the Working Group on Near-Earth Objects, February 17, 2010. Also in Arabic, French, Spanish, Russian and Chinese.

Legal Aspects of NEO Threat Response and Related Institutional Issues, February 9, 2010. The Executive Summary can be downloaded here.

NASA Falling Short in Eying Near Earth Objects - NASA is falling short in its U.S. Congress-assigned sky-watching duties to chart the whereabouts of certain-sized Near Earth Objects (NEOs) that may threaten our planet. The prestigious National Research Council (NRC) released today a set of interim findings in a two-part study that looks into issues in the detection of potentially hazardous Near Earth Objects (NEOs) and approaches to thwarting identified hazards to our planet. The NRC appraisal is a congressionally-mandated review of NEOs that orbit the Sun and approach or cross Earth’s orbit. The committee’s blue ribbon panel of experts has issued five findings:

• Congress has mandated that NASA discover 90 percent of all near-Earth objects 140 meters in diameter or greater by 2020. The administration has not requested and Congress has not appropriated new funds to meet this objective. Only limited facilities are currently involved in this survey/discovery effort, funded by NASA’s existing budget.
• The current near-Earth object surveys cannot meet the goals of the 2005 NASA Authorization Act directing NASA to discover 90 percent of all near-Earth objects 140 meters in diameter or greater by 2020.
• The orbit-fitting capabilities of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts are more than capable of handling the observations of the congressionally mandated survey as long as staffing needs are met.
• The Arecibo Observatory telescope in Puerto Rico continues to play a unique role in characterization of NEOs, providing unmatched precision and accuracy in orbit determination and insight into size, shape, surface structure, multiplicity, and other physical properties for objects within its declination coverage and detection range.
• The United States is the only country that currently has an operating survey/detection program for discovering near-Earth objects; Canada and Germany are both building spacecraft that may contribute to the discovery of near-Earth objects. However, neither mission will detect fainter or smaller objects than ground-based telescopes.

This interim report addresses some of the issues associated with the survey and detection of NEOs. The committee is continuing to gather information and will produce a final report on a broader range of NEO issues by year’s end.  

The Detection and Deflection of Near-Earth Objects: Challenge and Opportunity

Willox, Paul. The Detection and Deflection of Near-Earth Objects: Challenge and Opportunity, November 27, 2008.  

Natural Impact Event Interagency Planning Exercise

Future Concepts and Transformation Division (AF/A8XC) hosted a Natural Impact Event Interagency Planning Exercise, December 4, 2008, in Alexandria, Virginia. Twenty Seven Subject Matter Experts from across US Government, including DOD, DOE, DOS, DHS, NASA, and NSC participated in a single day tabletop exercise to explore “whole of government” response to an impending asteroid strike. The specific scenario involved a mythical asteroid, “2008 Innoculatus.” It was a binary asteroid consisting of a 270-meter rocky rubble pile projected to strike the Gulf of Guinea and a 50-meter metallic companion asteroid projected to strike in the National Capital Region (NCR). Peter Anthony Garretson (Council of Foreign Relations) and Lindley N. Johnson (Planetary Science Division, HQ NASA) also wrote a paper summarizing the findings.

The scenario was selected to maximize exposure to the diversity of threat (variation in size, composition, land/water strike), stress both national and international notification, and provide useful pre-planning should an actual effort need to be mounted against the asteroid Apophis when it has a small probability to pass through a gravitational keyhole in 2029 and perhaps return to strike the Earth seven years later in 2036. Players were broken into two teams. The first team focused on disaster response and was told the asteroid was discovered 72 hours from impact. The second team focused on deflection/mitigation was told the asteroid had been discovered seven years from impact, and to design a “strawman” deflection plan using existing capabilities. Major findings include:

• The NEO impact scenario is not captured in existing plans
• The NEO impact scenario should be elevated to higher level exercises with more senior players
• Proper planning and response to a NEO emergency requires delineation of organizational responsibilities including lead agency and notification standards,
• Players were not able to achieve consensus on which agency should lead the NEO deflection/mitigation effort
• There is a deficit in software tools to support senior decision-making and strategic communication for disaster response and mitigation for a NEO scenario
• There are significant effects a NEO impact would generate that are not adequately captured in existing models
• The public may be aware of an impending NEO impact before senior decision-makers
• Lead time for evacuation requires decisions be made before best information is available
• Public safety and tranquility require that the federal government be able to rapidly establish a single authoritative voice and tools to present critical information
• The preferred approach for short-notice NEO deflection was stand-off nuclear

Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response

The Association of Space Explorers (ASE) Committee on Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) and its Panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation have completed a two-year effort to help the international community protect the Earth from future asteroid impacts. Their report and recommendations, Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response, will be introduced in the 2009 sessions of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN/COPUOS) in Vienna, Austria.

Near-Earth Object Survey and Deflection Analysis of Alternatives

On March 8, 2007, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released a report, Near-Earth Object Survey and Deflection Analysis of Alternatives, as directed by Congress on techniques for surveying and deflecting asteroids that have a high probability of impacting the Earth. This report was to be delivered no later than one year from the enactment of the George E. Brown, Jr. Near-Earth Survey Act of 2005. B612 Foundation Chairman Rusty Schweickart found errors in the report, both of "omission and comission," and was denied input to the analyses conducted by NASA on the subject.

• The House Science Committee conducted a hearing on November 8, 2007 regarding the NASA report. A background paper was prepared, and Rusty Schweickart's testimony is provided here, which included Attachment One and Attachment Two.
• A cover letter was written to NASA Administrator Michael Griffin on the 2007 NASA Report, accompanied by two critiques from Rusty Schweickart and Clark Chapman of the Southwest Research Institute.