Selections from the article...
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has estimated that a Tunguska-size asteroid will enter Earth’s atmosphere once every 300 years and says there may be 375,000 objects of such size out there.
NASA estimates that there are about 940 or so near-Earth space rocks a kilometer in diameter or larger. So far, according to Dr. Yeomans, NASA has identified 743. (Overall, NASA has pinpointed more than 5,500 near-Earth objects.)
Mr. Schweickart said progress so far had come through constant pushing against resistant bureaucracies and politicians focused on whatever is the issue of the moment. And he said there was still no significant effort to devise an international agreement, let alone a deflection technique, for dealing with the inevitable earthbound asteroid or comet, large or small, when it is identified.
“It may be subtle,” he said, “but failure of the international decision process is the most likely reason that we’ll take a hit in the future.”
"Maybe Chicken Little Wasn’t Paranoid After All"
Andrew C. Revkin
06 July 2008
Link: NYTimes Article
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