Congress can't find their asteroids, no money for NASA

By William Atkins
Thursday, 13 August 2009 18:23

Science - Space

According to a report from the National Research Council, the U.S. Congress never gave NASA the money necessary to hunt down and identify potentially threatening near-Earth objects (NEOs), such as asteroids and comets. Consequently, the U.S. space agency has only been able to chart a fraction it was supposed to find.


The Associated Press article “NASA can't keep up with killer asteroids” states that “NASA is charged with spotting most of the asteroids that pose a threat to Earth but doesn't have the money to complete the job, a federal report says.”

The United States is part of a Spaceguard system, which is a group of countries and organizations that have set up efforts to discover and study near-Earth objects (NEOs). The United States has the most active and productive asteroid and comet hunting program of these countries.

Specifically, the Web site (“NASA’s Asteroid Detection Programs Not Yet Meeting U.S. Goals”) of The National Academies states “According to a new interim report from the National Research Council, NASA’s current near-Earth object surveys will not meet the congressionally mandated goal of discovering 90 percent of all objects over 140 meters in diameter by 2020."

"Funding for near-Earth object activities at NASA has been constrained, with most costs being met by funds from other programs. A final report will include findings and recommendations on detecting, characterizing, and mitigating the hazard of near-Earth objects.”

Thus, it is not NASA's fault that it is falling behind in its NEO hunt. Instead, the U.S. Congress failed to come through with the money it promised the space agency.

The 2004 plan for NASA to identify these NEOs is stated within the U.S. Congress’ “Spaceguard Survey Report" The program is addressed in the pdf report “Spaceguard Survey” by the NASA Ames Space Sciences Division.

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