U.S. Congress Legislation on NEOs: H.R. 4917 NEO Preparedness Act

Dale Brownfield at the Gaiashield Group is trying to get people to sign up to support H.R. 4917 NEO Preparedness Act, a proposed bill in the U.S. House of Representatives sponsered by California Republican Dana Rohrabacher that seeks to establish a NEO office within NASA (referred to as the Office of Potentially Hazardous Near-Earth Object Preparedness). Notable sections of the legislation include the following...

SEC. 4. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE OFFICE OF POTENTIALLY HARADOUS NEAR-EARTH OBJECTS, IDENTIFICATION OF SITUATION- AND DECISION-ANALYSIS FACTORS, AND SELECTION OF PROCEDURES AND SYSTEMS.

(a) Establishment- The Administrator shall establish the Office of Potentially Hazardous Near-Earth Object Preparedness (in this Act referred to as `Office'). The purpose of the Office shall be to prepare the United States for readiness to avoid and to mitigate collisions with potentially hazardous near-Earth objects in collaboration with other Agencies through the identification of situation- and decision-analysis factors and selection of procedures and systems.

(b) Identification of Situation- and Decision-Analysis Factors- The Office shall identify situation- and decision-analysis factors, in collaboration with other Agencies, by determining--

(1) the needed objective technical and nontechnical criteria upon which to analyze potentially hazardous near-Earth object collision information and to base key threat elimination-decisions and options;

(2) the implications of such decisions and options;

(3) the human skills needed to make key threat elimination-decisions and the preparation required for individuals making such decisions;

(4) the factors needed to formulate key techical and policy questions involving such decisions;

(5) methods for determining and sequencing the minimum possible time periods needed to make such decisions;

(6) a model deflection and mitigation decision logic flow, including provisions for minimizing--

(A) human exposure,

(B) energy, cost, and time, and

(C) the risk of return of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects; and

(7) additional critical information needs, technological developments, public confidence building initiatives, and any other needs involving the threat of collisons of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects with Earth.

(c) Selection of Procedures and Systems- The Office shall select procedures and systems by--

(1) surveying the existing deflection proposals and examining each proposal for critical elements including capability, suitability, feasibility, cost, cost effectiveness, required human and capital resources, and maturity of needed key technologies;

(2) with the results from subsection (a) and input from other appropriate sources, performing an architectural tradeoff assessment and selecting a set of deflection proposals as primary procedures and systems that will provide the best opportunities for deflection-preparation, taking into account adequate- and short-warning collision timelines, as well as relevant asteroid and comet characteristics;

(3) for each selected primary procedure and system--

(A) identifying the best backup;

(B) defining the steps needed to realize immature key technologies;

(C) developing preliminary models;

(D) performing a predicted results error-analysis in order to confirm the characteristics described in subsection (a);

(E) projecting time to readiness;

(F) formulating an implementation phase to achieve full deflection readiness;

(G) establishing implementation timelines with measurable interim goals, and steps to transfer the procedure and system resources to the implementation phase; and

(H) identifying the crucial policy decisions needed for implemention; and

(4) indicating possible coordination with other Agencies to facilitate such activities.

SEC. 5. REPORTS.

The Administrator shall submit to the Congress the following reports:

(1) Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, an interim report that summarizes a preliminary result of the activities of the Office carried out under sections 4(b) and 4(c)(1)-(2).

(2) Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act, a concluding report that summarizes all activities of the Office carried out under section 4.

SEC. 6. NASA ADVISORY COUNSEL.

The Administrator shall convene the NASA Advisory Council--

(1) not later than 90 days after submitting the interim report required by section 5(1), to provide the Administrator with advice for the concluding report; and

(2) not later than 90 days after submitting concluding report required by section 5(2), to provide the Administrator with advice for subsequent activities under section 4.


Link: H.R. 4917 NEO Preparedness Act

Link: Gaia Shield Group Site

Link: Gaia Shield Letter to Congress