Before the asteroid catches us with our pants down

A five-day workshop in Darmstadt discussed the issue of asteroid impact assessments, with an emphasis on international cooperation.

In the last 24 hours, the earth was hit by about a million meteorites, most of which burned up in the atmosphere and looked like shooting stars. This happens every day. Once every ten thousand years, really large asteroids (a kilometer or more in diameter) reach the Earth and may cause extinction. Something that disturbs the rest of many, but between these two extremes - once every 200-300 years the trajectory of a small object intersects with that of the Earth when they both pass through the same point and an event occurs such as the one that happened in Tunguska in Siberia in 1908.

"We are dealing with these objects," said former Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickert, at a three-day workshop in Darmstadt, Germany, which focused on plans and recommendations for international coordination in response to the asteroid threat. "We need to act now to make the world aware that this is a global threat so that we can make a joint international decision to extend the survival of life on Earth."

"There are about a million near-Earth objects that could cause us harm if one of them hits the Earth. This is not new - the Earth has been in the same environment for a billion years. What is new is that now our eyes have been opened thanks to telescopes that see everything that flies over our heads" said Schweickert. However, instead of driving like ducks in the range, today we have the ability to bend their trajectory and make these objects miss us, because today we understand this threat, and we have the possibility to prevent harm, and therefore we have a moral obligation to do so."

Former astronaut Tom Jones, who was also present at the workshop, told Universe Today that because NASA hopes to locate all objects with a diameter of 500 meters and more within a few decades, "therefore the course of action will be to prevent damage from the larger objects and remove them from the risk situation. Smaller objects are also numerous in number (the million objects mentioned above) and can cause damage the size of a city. We must look for those that may harm us in the next decade and it will take a few more decades before we find all the hundreds of thousands of objects with a diameter of 30 meters, such as that of Tongska and less.

Schweickart argued in a previous article in Universe Today that the technology that exists today allows us to alter the scale of asteroids and that this technology should be tested. Since the impact of an event can be worldwide, so should the decision on the policy be determined by international agreements and the joint development of the necessary technologies. "Bureaucracy is the reason why we will be hit by an asteroid in the future, not the technology," Schweickart said. "It's a tough announcement, but if we want to overcome the disaster and do our job right, we will never have to be hit by an asteroid that could wipe out life on Earth, and that will be a huge challenge."

The Planning and Operations Working Group (MPOG) workshop included astronauts and space scientists and was the last in a series of workshops planned to be offered to the United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Among others, representatives of NASA, the European Space Agency, the Secure World Foundation and the Association of Space Explorers participated in the workshop. The members of these organizations are working on defining the group's future planning tasks which will eventually be combined with the findings of other experts to create a final report for the UN committee. In this report there will be recommendations regarding the ways to respond to the threat of harm.

But there are problems such as how a change in the trajectory of the asteroid could miss one area of ​​the Earth and hit another.

"The issue of near-Earth objects (NEO) was already considered by the UN ten years ago." says Sergio Camacho, representing the UN Commission. "The reason it should be the responsibility of the UN is that when we make a decision, any action taken could affect others and put them at risk, where there was no data at risk in the first place.

It is taken may influence others to put them at risk where they are not at risk in the beginning. This cannot be a unilateral decision, and we need to pool the resources of the space agencies in order to address the problem. It will be within the framework of the UN because we can control this cooperation. "This should not be a unilateral decision by any country and we are required to pool the resources of space agencies in order to answer the problem. It falls within the framework of the UN and this is how we can manage this cooperation."

Schweickart and the Space Explorers Association have been working on the issue for over nine years and are now starting to see a little progress in the bureaucratic process. All workshop participants agreed that the decisions and political awareness is something that should be taken seriously.

"Two weeks ago, a small object passed between the Earth and the Moon," said Schweikart, and on Halloween, an object with a diameter of about half a kilometer is supposed to pass five times the distance to the Moon, a distance that in astronomical terms is very close.

These things happen, but I hope that we will soon be able to drive responsibly without having to be reminded "- meaning the warning call of a large object hitting the Earth without us being ready for it."

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