 The notion that a giant asteroid might one day enter Earth's orbit and destroy us all has been fodder for countless science fiction movies. But now, as we enter a new era in space exploration, NASA is moving forward with an initiative designed to give humanity a better chance at surviving a major asteroid event. The Asteroid Grand Challenge, presented yesterday at NASA headquarters, calls on the public to present new ways to detect and address asteroid threats to Earth. In part, the effort wants the ideas and assistance of private U.S. companies, universities, and non-profit organizations. But the two-hour briefing, which can be viewed on NASA's YouTube channel, was also an opportunity for the organization to present the initiative as a complement to its existing proposal for ARM (Asteroid Redirect Mission). ARM is NASA's $100 million proposal to capture an asteroid and put it in a stable orbit near the Moon for study by astronauts by 2021, which it unveiled several months ago. "NASA already is working to find asteroids that might be a threat to our planet, and while we have found 95 percent of the large asteroids near the Earth's orbit, we need to find all those that might be a threat to Earth," NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said yesterday. As such, NASA issued a request for information (RFI) that "invites industry and potential partners to offer ideas on accomplishing NASA's goal to locate, redirect, and explore an asteroid, as well as find and plan for asteroid threats," NASA said. Stakeholders have 30 days to submit their ideas, which will be used as part of a September workshop on the topic. In some ways, these latest moves on the part of NASA may represent the most urgent and important scientific initiatives for mankind to date. According to geologists, it has been 66 million years since about 75 percent of the planet's species were wiped out due to an asteroid estimated to be about 6.2 miles in diameter, or roughly the size of Manhattan. And despite all the fanciful sci-fi films showing off technological feats of innovation to defeat such a disaster, the reality is that Earth has no proven and effective means of deterring such an asteroid if one were to unexpectedly threaten the planet today. These new efforts are designed to give our planet as much warning as possible in the event that a large asteroid threat to Earth somehow slips by the monitors currently in place by the world's space agencies. "I applaud NASA for issuing this Grand Challenge because finding asteroid threats, and having a plan for dealing with them, needs to be an all-hands-on-deck effort," said White House deputy director for technology and innovation, Tom Kalil.  via Science - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNGDGme9jTKxYH-xQ2c4cJYMvYmQwg&url=http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2420663,00.asp | |||
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