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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday June 30 2015, @11:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the overlooked-and-underfunded dept.

Asteroid threats seems only taken seriously when the last close call is fresh in memory. But it didn't last long enough to establish consistent funding. On March 23, 1989, when an asteroid 300 meters in diameter called 1989FC passed within 684 000 kilometers from Earth. New York Times wrote, "In cosmic terms, it was a close call." This event also woke up the powers that were after this arguably close brush with total annihilation. The US Congress asked NASA to prepare a report on the threat posed by asteroids. The document from 1992, "The Spaceguard Survey: Report of the NASA International Near-Earth-Object Detection Workshop," was rather bleak.

If a large Near-Earth Object (NEO) were to hit the Earth, the report said, its denizens could look forward to acid rain, firestorms, and an impact winter induced by dust being thrown kilometers into the stratosphere. After reports from the National Research Council made it clear that meeting the discovery requirement outlined in the Congressional mandate was impossible given the lack of program funding, NEOO got a tenfold budget increase from 2009 to 2014. Yet it still faces a number of difficulties. An audit of the program released September 2014 described the NEOO program as "a one-man operation that is poorly integrated and lacking in objectives and oversight".


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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday July 01 2015, @12:29AM

    by frojack (1554) on Wednesday July 01 2015, @12:29AM (#203585) Journal

    so everyone could get observing time.

    Everyone? Seriously?

    Do we not have computers or are they all busy serving ads, sending spam, or skript-kiddy-ing their way into my ssh server?

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  • (Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Wednesday July 01 2015, @02:48AM

    by el_oscuro (1711) on Wednesday July 01 2015, @02:48AM (#203611)

    or are they all busy serving ads, sending spam, or skript-kiddy-ing their way into my ssh server?

    yes.

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