However, until I hear what Paris Hilton has to say, I'm keeping all my options open.
Posted on 02/17/2007 8:31:38 AM PST by Loyalist
A draft UN treaty to determine what would have to be done if a giant asteroid was on a collision course with Earth is to be drawn up this year.
The document would set out global policies including who should be in charge of plans to deflect any object.
It is the brainchild of the Association of Space Explorers, a professional body for astronauts and cosmonauts.
At the moment, Nasa is monitoring 127 near-Earth objects (NEO) that have a possibility of hitting the Earth.
The association has asked a group of scientists, lawyers, diplomats and insurance experts to draw up the recommendations.
The group will have its first meeting in Strasbourg in May this year. It is hoped the final document will be presented to the UN in 2009.
"We believe there needs to be a decision process spelled out and adopted by the United Nations," said Dr Russell Schweickart, one of the Apollo 9 astronauts and founder of the Association of Space Explorers.
Known threat
The threat of an asteroid hitting the Earth is being taken more and more seriously as more and more NEOs are found.
In the US, Congress has charged Nasa with the task of starting a more detailed search for life-threatening space rocks.
"Congress has said that Nasa's efforts to date are not sufficient to the threat," said the US space agency's Dr Steven Chesley.
"They have changed Nasa's targets so that the cataloguing and tracking of asteroids is part of its mandate."
Congress has asked the agency to mount a much more aggressive survey.
At the moment, Nasa tracks all objects greater than 700m (2,300ft) in diameter. The agency's new goal is to track all objects greater than 70m (230ft) in diameter.
To do this, the agency needs to use a new suite of telescopes.
Alternatives include building a new Nasa-owned system or investing in other proposed telescopes such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) or the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-Starrs).
Pan-Starrs is a wide-field telescope being developed at the University of Hawaii, whilst the LSST is a proposed ground-based instrument being developed by the not-for-profit LSST corporation based in the US.
Nasa estimates that there are about 20,000 potentially threatening asteroids yet to be discovered.
"Out of those thousands, there will be without question many that look like they might hit the Earth with a high enough probability that the public and everyone else will be concerned," said Dr Schweickart.
"This has gone from being an esoteric statistical argument to talking about real events," added Dr David Morrison, an astronomer at the Nasa's Ames Research Center.
Future plans
The UN draft treaty would establish who should be in charge in the event of an asteroid heading towards Earth, who would pay for relief efforts and the policies that should be adopted.
In addition, it would set out possible plans to deflect the object.
Ideas could include hitting the asteroid with a spacecraft or rocket to deflect its orbit.
Other less destructive proposals include a "gravity tug" that would simply hover over the asteroid and use gravity as a "towline" to change its path.
But any decision to deflect an NEO could come with its own set of conundrums for the UN, as changing its path may simply alter its final target.
"It's important to understand when you start to deflect an asteroid that certain countries are going to have accept an increase in risk to their populations in order to take the risk to zero for everyone," said Dr Schweickart.
It is difficult decisions like this which can only be addressed by the UN, the Association of Space Explorers believes.
And it is under no illusion that the process can be sorted out quickly.
"You have to act when things look like they are going to happen - if you wait until you know for certain, it's too late," said Dr Schweickart.
Experts who will draw up the treaty include Lord Rees, the English Astronomer Royal and head of the Royal Society; the ex-director of science at the European Space Agency, Roger Bonnet; and former UK government advisor Sir Crispin Tickell.
The proposals were outlined at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in San Francisco, US.
Hopefully, in this version, Ben Affleck stays behind and dies twice! Thats better. :)
Nobody. There is no hardware to implement any asteroid deflection plan. In any case, such deflection would be a complete waste of valuable celestial resources. The asteroid should be captured and mined. By private industry--Repeal the Treaty.
The Mullahs probably smell like a wet goat.
I agree. We'd never need nickel or iron mines on Earth again, and the "heavies" would be in great supply.
I'm not going to sell short my osmium futures just yet, though.
Granted that we don't have the means now, once we do, someone will have the ability to land a 100 meter rock at 30,000 km/s anywhere they want to, and the issue will need to be dealt with.
And the UN is beginning to look at it!
This involvement by the UN, combined with the Chinese request for further space weapons treaties, guarantees that private enterprise will never be permitted in outer space, excepting tourism and other activities that don't use actual celestial resources. What the link might be between space development by private industry and space weapons I don't see, but evidently the politicians of the world who see global warming and other figments of overheated imagination, can at least see the posibility of further restricting individual initiative.
If I'm reading that article correctly, it implies that we're "due".
I think that eventually private space efforts will be more common- Rutan is a start, and anything will be more efficient than NASA.
I think it's statitical, we've been hit before and we'll be hit again, eventually. If statistics show that we get hit with a rock every 6000 years (to pick a random number) it does not mean that you MUST get hit, if you have gone 5999 years.
Do I think we'll get hit with a big rock? Yes, absolutely. When? There is no way to tell.
Someone just tied the Great Flood to an impact in the Indian Ocean that made debris piles in Madagascar and would have made it rain for a long long time- people would have remembered that for a thousand years.
I'm drawing up an action plan right now for an army of killer asteroids.
I think Paris was complaining about her asteroids just the other day.
Space tourism is light years from space development and will never amount to much except in overheated imaginations. Space development would eliminate global warming and save us all from killer asteroids. But, the Treaty precludes space development, so we are stuck with global warming, killer asteroids, and space tourism.
The UN draft treaty would establish who should be in charge in the event of an asteroid heading towards Earth, who would pay for relief efforts and the policies that should be adopted.
In addition, it would set out possible plans to deflect the object.
Ideas could include hitting the asteroid with a spacecraft or rocket to deflect its orbit.
Other less destructive proposals include a "gravity tug" that would simply hover over the asteroid and use gravity as a "towline" to change its path.
But any decision to deflect an NEO could come with its own set of conundrums for the UN, as changing its path may simply alter its final target.
Imagine the steelworkers union's response if you and me and a crew of a few hundred delivered more steel in a year, than could be produced on Earth in a dozen?
Plus, we crash the prices for irridium, osmium, and tantalum.
I have not read of much gold or uranium in NiFe rocks.
I don't think the treaty would be able to stop development, if it were currently possible to do so. Our current reach is less than 500 miles out, and there is not much to mine there.
China, Japan, and the US (weakly) have all expressed interest in a lunar base and more permanent space stations. That's a start.
Let those at, or closest to, the point of impact be made responsible, for after all it concerns them to a greater degree than anybody else.
Hopefully this will stop them.
The products are steel and aluminum. Asteroid mining has been possible for 1/4 century and the only reason there is no asteroid mining happening is that the Treaty precludes substantial investment by sane investors. This Treaty is known to be a severe impediment to space development. The Pres knows it, the Senate knows it, and NASA knows it. Thugs like Chavez know it and love it.
And if the incoming rock is as big as Chixsalub or Manson, that would be everybody everywhere. Heck, even the Chesapeake strike would have messed up Europe, not just the entire east coast of the US.
"Asteroid mining has been possible for 1/4 century "
I'm not as optimistic. We can't figure out how to get six people as far as Mars without cooking them with solar protons.
When we can do that, then we can consider snagging an asteroid.
Ever read Larry Niven? He has lots of stories about asteroid mining. Fun stuff.
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