From The New Scientist:The technology to detect and deflect dangerous space rocks already exists – all that's missing is someone to coordinate its use.
That is the finding of a two-year investigation by the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), an international group of astronauts, cosmonauts, and members of space community. The group unveiled the results of its research at the offices of the Google Foundation in San Francisco yesterday.
The report asks the UN to assume responsibility for responding to potentially catastrophic asteroid threats. "For 4.5 billion years, we've been bashed continuously by asteroids. It's time for that to stop," former Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart told the assembly.
The ASE's vision is first for a global information network, coordinated by the UN, that uses data from ground- and space-based telescopes to find, track and rate the risk of near-Earth objects (NEOs).
Currently, NASA is watching 209 NEOs, none of which is considered to be dangerous. But a threat is likely to be detected within the next 15 years, according to the ASE. "New telescopes coming online will increase these discoveries by a factor of 100," said Ed Lu, astronaut on space shuttle Atlantis.
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