This area will cover relevant news of the threat to the planet from Near Earth Objects (NEOs) including concepts and designs for mitigation. All opinions are those of the author.

20 March 2007

Leonard David on Rusty's Alternative Analysis of Alternatives (and on getting the full NEO AoA report)

Leonard David (space.com, LiveScience) also talks about Rusty's Alternative Analysis of Alternatives, from Leonard's blog on LiveScience...


"NASA’s Congressionally-requested report on asteroids — and what to do about worrisome, Earth-smacking space rocks — is in the cross-hairs of former Apollo astronaut, Russell Schweickart.

For one, the study spotlighted use of nuclear standoff explosions to divert a potentially hazardous object, suggesting that such a technique is 10-100 times more effective than the non-nuclear alternatives analyzed by NASA study officials.

That conclusion has been flagged by an asteroid expert as one of the greatest stupidities in the report.

Meanwhile, Schweickart has launched his own report deflection campaign, requesting NASA chief, Mike Griffin, to support open discussion and examination of the report’s findings. Schweickart is mounting an effort to bring out basic issues either not considered or ignored in the NASA report to Congress.

“Outsiders” to the NASA study — Near Earth Object Survey and Deflection Analysis of Alternatives — have been denied access to the larger, over 270-page “limited edition” of the final report. That makes it essentially impossible to know, let alone critique, the sources used to prop up the NASA report conclusions, Schweickart says."

Link: LiveScience Blog on Rusty's Analysis

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