SAN FRANCISCO -- A panel of astronauts and scientists gathered in San Francisco Thursday said the world needs to come together and find a solution to the threat of catastrophic asteroid impacts that could threaten the future of civilization.
Scientists say after four and a half billion years, it's time to put a stop to asteroid impacts that can potentially cause disaster on a global scale. Experts say it will happen again -- possibly in our lifetime -- unless we do something.
“In a sense, we're driving around the universe, around the sun, uninsured,” said Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schwieckart, a member of the Association of Space Explorers.
An international panel of astronauts and scientists meeting in San Francisco offered the first step toward that insurance Thursday: an outline for global consensus on saving the planet and call-to-action report delivered to the United Nations.
The Association of Space Explorers Committee on Near Earth Objects spent two years on the report, "Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response," which strives to develop a decision system so the international community will be ready to respond if an asteroid approaches Earth.
"There needs to be some organizational structure," Schweickart said at Thursday's news conference.
The international committee, which consists of astronauts, diplomats and legal experts, created the report to set a framework so the international community can prevent a disaster rather than just respond to one.
Schweickart said the capability and decision-making needed to prevent such a disaster exist, but the international community lacks the organization.
He said technological advances will also reveal more asteroids that could pose a threat to Earth over coming years.
The report suggests a global information, analysis and warning network be established, a group be set up to use expertise of space-faring nations to explore options for deflection missions and to use mission plans to prepare a deflection campaign, and the United Nations establish an intergovernmental near-Earth object oversight group.
“We need to do that work now before the threat actually appears,” said United Nations representative Richard Tremayne-Smith.
5,000 years ago, a bus-sized rock smashed into the Arizona desert, creating the best-preserved meteor crater on the planet. Smaller ones hit Canada and Peru in the last few years. And almost exactly a century ago, a potential city-killer leveled a forest in Siberia. The impact, commonly referred to as the Tunguska Event, released a blast of energy roughly 1000 times as powerful as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
“So that's a very important event, the Tunguska event. In a way, it's a kind of warning of what can happen if you don't do something,” said Sir Crispin Tickell of Oxford University.
At Thursday's event, the committee handed a finalized report to Richard Crowther, chairman of the United Nations' Action Team 14, a group of representatives from member states that deals with near-Earth objects.
Crowther said the report will be the basis for developing a strategy to respond to near-Earth objects. Thursday marks the start of the report going through the United Nations process.
The report is expected to be translated into official United Nations languages by February 2009.
"We don't expect to see our recommendations rubber stamped and adopted," Schweickart said, acknowledging he anticipates much international debate on the issue.
A rock the size of the UC Berkeley's Memorial Stadium is currently headed our way. It is number one on the risk list of 209 objects in space now being tracked. But new telescopes may discover another million near-earth objects...
“We are going to be presented with instances where decisions are going to have to be made over the next decade or so,” said former NASA astronaut Edward Lu
A big rock 65 million years ago helped wipe out the dinosaurs and 70 percent of species on Earth. Unlike the dinosaurs, humans know asteroids are coming and have the ability to deflect them.
Scientists say that the best plan to render such asteroids harmless would be to launch robot spacecraft towards them to tug the asteroids off course and safely away from the planet, possibly just by the ships' gravitational pull. But if spotted too late, there would have to be mass evacuations of an unprecedented scale.
Among the group of astronauts, diplomats and others at Thursday's event, was University of California at Berkeley professor Karlene Roberts, who was approached by Schweickart in 2005 to provide information on risk management and organizational behavior for the report.
The Association of Space Explorers is an international nonprofit organization that supports space science. It consists of more than 320 people who from 34 nations who have flown in space, according to the Association of Space Explorers Web site.
http://www.ktvu.com/news/17561555/detail.html
Scientists say after four and a half billion years, it's time to put a stop to asteroid impacts that can potentially cause disaster on a global scale. Experts say it will happen again -- possibly in our lifetime -- unless we do something.
“In a sense, we're driving around the universe, around the sun, uninsured,” said Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schwieckart, a member of the Association of Space Explorers.
An international panel of astronauts and scientists meeting in San Francisco offered the first step toward that insurance Thursday: an outline for global consensus on saving the planet and call-to-action report delivered to the United Nations.
The Association of Space Explorers Committee on Near Earth Objects spent two years on the report, "Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response," which strives to develop a decision system so the international community will be ready to respond if an asteroid approaches Earth.
"There needs to be some organizational structure," Schweickart said at Thursday's news conference.
The international committee, which consists of astronauts, diplomats and legal experts, created the report to set a framework so the international community can prevent a disaster rather than just respond to one.
Schweickart said the capability and decision-making needed to prevent such a disaster exist, but the international community lacks the organization.
He said technological advances will also reveal more asteroids that could pose a threat to Earth over coming years.
The report suggests a global information, analysis and warning network be established, a group be set up to use expertise of space-faring nations to explore options for deflection missions and to use mission plans to prepare a deflection campaign, and the United Nations establish an intergovernmental near-Earth object oversight group.
“We need to do that work now before the threat actually appears,” said United Nations representative Richard Tremayne-Smith.
5,000 years ago, a bus-sized rock smashed into the Arizona desert, creating the best-preserved meteor crater on the planet. Smaller ones hit Canada and Peru in the last few years. And almost exactly a century ago, a potential city-killer leveled a forest in Siberia. The impact, commonly referred to as the Tunguska Event, released a blast of energy roughly 1000 times as powerful as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
“So that's a very important event, the Tunguska event. In a way, it's a kind of warning of what can happen if you don't do something,” said Sir Crispin Tickell of Oxford University.
At Thursday's event, the committee handed a finalized report to Richard Crowther, chairman of the United Nations' Action Team 14, a group of representatives from member states that deals with near-Earth objects.
Crowther said the report will be the basis for developing a strategy to respond to near-Earth objects. Thursday marks the start of the report going through the United Nations process.
The report is expected to be translated into official United Nations languages by February 2009.
"We don't expect to see our recommendations rubber stamped and adopted," Schweickart said, acknowledging he anticipates much international debate on the issue.
A rock the size of the UC Berkeley's Memorial Stadium is currently headed our way. It is number one on the risk list of 209 objects in space now being tracked. But new telescopes may discover another million near-earth objects...
“We are going to be presented with instances where decisions are going to have to be made over the next decade or so,” said former NASA astronaut Edward Lu
A big rock 65 million years ago helped wipe out the dinosaurs and 70 percent of species on Earth. Unlike the dinosaurs, humans know asteroids are coming and have the ability to deflect them.
Scientists say that the best plan to render such asteroids harmless would be to launch robot spacecraft towards them to tug the asteroids off course and safely away from the planet, possibly just by the ships' gravitational pull. But if spotted too late, there would have to be mass evacuations of an unprecedented scale.
Among the group of astronauts, diplomats and others at Thursday's event, was University of California at Berkeley professor Karlene Roberts, who was approached by Schweickart in 2005 to provide information on risk management and organizational behavior for the report.
The Association of Space Explorers is an international nonprofit organization that supports space science. It consists of more than 320 people who from 34 nations who have flown in space, according to the Association of Space Explorers Web site.
http://www.ktvu.com/news/17561555/detail.html