Trump against killer asteroids

Space

A new exercise begins Monday, but lawmakers have not yet passed the specific bill that would strengthen NASA's defense plans against asteroids.

The Trump administration wants to bring Earth back to life by spending more than $ 100 million to protect the planet cataclysmic asteroids.

Unless the blocking of Capitol Hill is an obstacle.

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The administration is looking for money to develop defenses against thousands of potentially deadly space rocks, including a NASA-planned test that would use an unmanned spacecraft to shift a small asteroid. The administration also wants to more than double the budget of the formerly obscure NASA defense office, and asks the Federal Emergency Management Agency to develop crisis plans for asteroid strikes.

The movements occur as astronomers have found an ever increasing number of asteroids large enough to cause a catastrophe, such as the collision that wiped out dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

But while the global threat is real, the money to face it is caught up by the latest delays in Congress spending.

A new exercise begins Monday, but lawmakers have not yet passed the specific bill that would strengthen NASA's defense plans against asteroids. That means the money will have to wait until it takes a broad package of spending in December – or maybe longer if Congress can not agree.

According to astronomers, the 30 million miles that surround the Earth include at least 10,000 objects at least as long as a football field. About 950 of them are one kilometer or more, big enough to cause "a global disaster if they hit Earth," Lindley Johnson, NASA's global defense officer, said in an interview.

Even an object 140 meters long or longer could cause disaster, he said – and the NASA catalog had 8,303 last week.

"If it were to have an impact near an agglomeration, it would be a disaster on a scale greater than anything we tried to do in our history," Johnson said.

The effect on NASA's mission depends on how the annual spending cycle of the Congress lasts this time.

"If it only lasts two months, the effect will be minimal," Johnson said. "However, if it lasts nearly six months like last year, projects will begin to be affected."

Key members of Congress are also interested in the issue. Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who chairs the Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness, insisted The NASA to accelerate his efforts.

"What steps must we take so that we do not need to send Bruce Willis into space to save humanity?" Cruz asked NASA Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen at a hearing last month. He was referring to the 1998 film "Armageddon", which depicts a frantic race to save humanity from extinction.

"Small planetary bodies jumping into space have marked the Earth and the planets around us and pose a threat to humanity," Zurbuchen told Cruz's panel. "Protecting Earth from asteroid or comet impacts is a priority for us."

The main thrust of the asteroid of the administration is NASA's next "Double Asteroid Redirect Test". The demonstration will use a spaceship to sink and "change the orbit" of a small moon around the asteroid Didymos, as Zurbuchen said in the Senate.

The budget request of the administration for the the next fiscal year requires close to $ 100 million for the demonstration. This is the lion's share of the administration's proposal to increase Johnson's office budget from $ 60 million this year to $ 150 million.

The overall increase in funding, Johnson said, "allows us to embark on space capabilities and demonstration of deflection techniques and start working on space sensing and characterization capabilities".

The enhanced asteroid defense initiative also includes a recent directive asking FEMA to plan a strike on Earth and to force other federal agencies to better coordinate with foreign countries.

The asteroid's significant impact potential poses "a significant and complex risk to human life and critical infrastructure, and [has] the potential to cause considerable economic and environmental damage and perhaps even unprecedented, "according to the National Strategy and Plan of Action for the Preparation of Near-Earth Objects, which the White House issued this summer.

Americans also seem eager to see NASA play a bigger role in this regard. A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center this year showed that people believe that protecting the planet from space objects should be one of the two priorities of the space program, while tackling climate change.

By nature, fighting the danger of asteroids will require planning well in advance. It begins by following all the objects that could move towards a cosmic date with our planet and then studying ways to prevent it.

"Thirty years ago, there may have been only a handful of astronomers who thought there was a danger," Johnson said. "It's because no one has really looked at what's going on there, we have to find them first before we can do anything about them."

The private sector is also involved in the cause. A foundation, dedicated to a better understanding of the asteroids and the threat they represent, is working with Google to create a more complete database.

The B612 foundation, founded by former astronauts Ed Lu and Rusty Schweickart, leads the ADAM project, which stands for Asteroid Decision and Mapping. The large synoptic survey telescope, a joint effort of the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, will soon provide a major boost.

"Our main rallying cry for everyone is that we need a complete and predictive map of the locations and trajectories of these asteroids close to Earth," said foundation president Danica Remy. The foundation takes its name from "The Little Prince", the French novelist of 1943 whose main character was originally from a small asteroid designated on Earth under the name of B612.

There is the question of what humans can do if they receive enough notice that an asteroid seems to be heading towards Earth.

NASA has high hopes for the planned DART test, but has also looked at two other options deemed potentially viable.

"The most reliable methods are basically based on a simple principle," said Johnson, a former Air Force officer. "We just need to change the speed of the asteroid by a fraction of a percent.If we do it well enough in advance, an asteroid orbiting the sun will change its orbit." dangerous in a benign orbit.

In addition to pounding The object of the trajectory, NASA has studied the tactic of flying a spaceship next to an asteroid and using their mutual gravity to direct it on another path.

Then there is "the nuclear option" – or, as Johnson calls it, "the one everyone likes to talk about".

But that does not just mean going around an asteroid.

"Burn it in pieces and then you have a lot of bouquets on you," Johnson said. "You have not changed the direction. You have just separated it into pieces, some of which can be processed by Earth's atmosphere, but perhaps not all. "

Instead, "the most efficient technique, we think, would be to have an explosion of a nuclear device several hundred meters from the surface of the asteroid.Nuclear radiation causes an excessive heating of the opposite direction . "

But NASA is very eager to move forward with its projects Ram-the-asteroid test set for 2022, which runs the risk of being held hostage by Congress's failure to adopt a new budget to fund the space program.

"There will be winners and losers as the exercise progresses and the planned budget increase does not materialize," Johnson said. "As one of the biggest budget increases is expected for planetary defense, it will probably be one of the most affected with the passing of the year."