'Planet Killer' Not in the Stars, Asteroid Research Indicates

[Ian David]

Bush must be "The Asteroid President," since we haven't been hit by an Asteroid during his presidency.

I guess his trickle-down theory of asteroid-management is working.

By cutting the NASA asteroid-detection and study budget, the benefits will "trickle-down" to the asteroid belt, which will then steer clear of us. Tracking the asteroids would only embolden them.

In any case, if an asteroid were to hit us, we can rest assured that the Republick Party will react with the speed, efficiency and competency we saw after Hurricane Katrina.

And the Republickers will show the compassion evidenced by Newt Gingrich, who will call us too unprepared and uneducated to "literally get out of the way of a rock the size of a mountain."

NASA Urged to Find Ways to Deflect Smaller Threats

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 9, 2007; Page A03

The risk that an asteroid capable of wiping out humanity will crash into Earth is minuscule, new calculations suggest, but the chances of a smaller one destroying a city or setting off a catastrophic tsunami remain unclear and may be higher than previous estimates.

The calculations were presented at a four-day meeting in Washington this week, leading scores of scientists present to conclude that NASA needs to move aggressively to meet a congressional deadline for identifying most of the potentially hazardous smaller asteroids and to develop ways to deflect them if they home in on Earth.

But in a report released to Congress yesterday, the space agency said it does not have the funds to do the precautionary work, called for in its 2005 authorization bill.

The agency said it is technically feasible to meet the congressional goal of identifying most small "near Earth objects" by 2020, but it said it would have to rely on telescopes built for other purposes and on spacecraft being developed by other agencies. It did not address who would fund research on ways to destroy or divert an asteroid before it became a danger.

<snip>

NASA's asteroid-tracking is being done under the "Safeguard Survey" program, which is receiving $4.1 million a year until 2012 to find problem asteroids. NASA officials and scientists at the conference said most smaller asteroids cannot be spotted with current telescope technology. Two telescope projects under development by other agencies and by organizations in Chile and Hawaii could provide high-powered help to find such asteroids, but both projects lack NASA participation and secure funding.

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/08/AR2007030802019.html?nav=rss_nation/science

[Zenlitened]

1. "Tracking the asteroids would only embolden them." LOL!

:hi:

[NoodleyAppendage]

2. If stupidity is non-adaptive, then we deserve to be extinct.

Seems like a I remember that there's a 1-in-45,000 chance of an impact in 2036. But, I guess those odds are not important enough to safeguard our society.

J

[denverbill]

3. Shouldn't we be fighting them 'out there' so they don't follow us here?

Unlike the cut-and-run Defeatocrats, who would only try to destory asteroids likely to hit the earth, Republickers would send an enormous missile armada to the asteroid belt to grind up any asteroid bigger than Newt Gingrich.

[semillama]

4. I say send Newt Gingrich to the asteroid belt

and he can grind up space rocks with his big mouth.

[anotherdrew]

12. if Newt were accelerated to a high enough velocity, HE could be used to deflect an asteroid. n/t

[Nihil]

19. "In space, no-one can hear you *splat* ..." (n/t)

[Javaman]

5. "cutting the NASA asteroid-detection and study budget"...

does that mean we will be...tightening the old astroid belt?

Just let it hang there it will get funny...

Thank you folks, I'll be here all week!

[0rganism]

8. just more politics-as-usual from asteroid beltway insiders

:silly:

[HuffleClaw]

6. wow, what a great example of wilful ignorance

scary stuff indeed. i read a quote that said the comet that slammed into jupiter (hale-bop?) was the astronomical equivalent of having a bullet whiz by your ear close enough to singe any stray hairs and SHOULD have served as a stark warning.

[krispos42]

11. Then look at the pucker factor on this baby

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis

[HuffleClaw]

17. meep

but i'm sure that some timely PRAYER will save us all!

[Thor_MN]

7. NASA Urged to Find Ways to Deflect Smaller Threats, like imaginary Cubans?

[saigon68]

14. The Heads of NASA could wear Depends to their meetings

That way they could "Sit for Hours" and properly address the problem

[Uncle Joe]

9. The Dinosaurs had an excuse,

they were relatively stupid.

[magellan]

10. We have an excuse too

The Republicans ARE stupid.

[anotherdrew]

13. well, america has decided to become a backward country. others will fund this search

ESA will most likely pick up the slack and get the job done for us...

[Strelnikov_]

15. "Risk of "death by asteroid" ... about the same as dying in an airplane crash . .

if you fly once a year."

Wonder if they factored in societal collapse. A hit by a relatively small object in the right place in the oceans could start the collapse of modern industrial society, and a culling of the population this system supports.

Post from a couple of months ago.

+++++

Ancient Crash, Epic Wave (Mega-Tsunami Every 1000 Years?)

This could be one of the most significant geophysical findings in generations. The 'impact' of this theory on the sustainability of modern industrial society, as currently configured, is monumental. Imagine the loss of most of the Pacific rim cities in an instant. Loss of the entire Persian Gulf or Atlantic basin (including GOM) petroleum infrastructure, in an instant. With these events having a, say, 1/2000 chance of occurring any given year.

As a comparison, I work in an industry (dams/hydrology/hydraulics) where we design for a safety factor of anywhere from 1/500 to 1/10,000 (dam upstream of 'urban' area) chance of occurring any given year. I began thinking about the frequency of tsunami following stories of the Indian Ocean tsunami where indigenous tribes understood that the water pulling away from shore signaled a need to move inland, fast. This knowledge was obviously passed down by oral history, which indicates to me tsunami on the scale of the one two years ago may be a lot more frequent than we think. The problem is a limited record to estimate the frequency of infrequent, extreme events.

When these (theorized) objects struck in the past, humans far enough away from the impact and resultant waves simply had land to colonize a few generations later. In our modern interconnected industrial society, the effects will be felt throughout all but the most undeveloped parts of the world in the form of economic collapse, famine, and more than likely conflict as the warlords inevitably try to grab what they can in the chaos. Consider that 80% of the world's population lives within 200 ft. of sea level. We may have one more reason for industrialized society to move a significant enough amount of its resources away from the oceans to provide some redundancy.

It all may come to nothing, but the evidence presented so far is intriguing.

Ancient Crash, Epic Wave
By Sandra Blakeslee
November 14, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/science/14WAVE.html?ex=1321160400&en=35b395ffd080eb47&ei=5090

. . .

Most astronomers doubt that any large comets or asteroids have crashed into the Earth in the last 10,000 years. But the self-described "band of misfits" that make up the two-year-old Holocene Impact Working Group say that astronomers simply have not known how or where to look for evidence of such impacts along the world's shorelines and in the deep ocean.

Scientists in the working group say the evidence for such impacts during the last 10,000 years, known as the Holocene epoch, is strong enough to overturn current estimates of how often the Earth suffers a violent impact on the order of a 10-megaton explosion. Instead of once in 500,000 to one million years, as astronomers now calculate, catastrophic impacts could happen every 1,000 years.

The researchers, who formed the working group after finding one another through an international conference, are based in the United States, Australia, Russia, France and Ireland. They are established experts in geology, geophysics, geomorphology, tsunamis, tree rings, soil science and archaeology, including the structural analysis of myth. Their efforts are just getting under way, but they will present some of their work at the American Geophysical Union meeting in December in San Francisco.

. . .

Dr. Masse analyzed 175 flood myths from around the world, and tried to relate them to known and accurately dated natural events like solar eclipses and volcanic eruptions. Among other evidence, he said, 14 flood myths specifically mention a full solar eclipse, which could have been the one that occurred in May 2807 B.C. Half the myths talk of a torrential downpour, Dr. Masse said. A third talk of a tsunami. Worldwide they describe hurricane force winds and darkness during the storm. All of these could come from a mega-tsunami.

[glitch]

16. Great article, thanks for posting. nt

[mcscajun]

18. Two statements that sound so similar to me: one factual, one fictional.

"But in a report released to Congress yesterday, the space agency said it does not have the funds to do the precautionary work, called for in its 2005 authorization bill."

"Well, our object collison budget's about a million dollars. That allows us to track about 3% of the sky, and beggin' your pardon sir, but it's a big-ass sky."

[opihimoimoi]

20. Our current Bush leadership depends heavily on Fantasy and not Reality

Is America Nuts??? We reward Ineptness/Failures/Excuses/etc of the BushCo....?

Are we Insane?????