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Acta Astronautica DPATM ARTICLE IN PRESS Acta Astronautica ( ) – www.elsevier.com/locate/actaastro Decision program on asteroid threat mitigation Russell L. Schweickart∗ Chairman, Committee on Near-Earth Objects, Association of Space Explorers, Sonoma, California, USA Received 9 January 2009; received in revised form 23 March 2009; accepted 25 March 2009 Abstract The Association of Space Explorers Committee on Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) and its Panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation have prepared a decision program to aid the international community in organizing a coordinated response to asteroid impact threats. The program is described in the ASE’s report, Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response, which will be considered by the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in its 2009 sessions. The findings and recommendations of this report are presented here as well as some of the major implications of the complex decision-making involved in developing a coordinated international response to the challenge of protecting the Earth from NEO impacts. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Asteroid; NEO; Impact; Deflection; UN; United nations; Near-Earth object 1. Background and the Pakistani earthquake) and the recognition of the critical role of preparation and warning in saving lives. In its 2009 sessions the United Nations Committee Being also aware of the devastation caused by NEO on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN-COPUOS) impacts with Earth, the accelerating discovery rate will be presented with [1] a decision program on as- of NEOs and the emerging technical capability (with teroid threat mitigation developed over a two year pe- adequate early warning) to divert such NEOs from riod by the Association of Space Explorers [2] (ASE), impacting Earth, the Association realized the need the international organization of astronauts and cosmo- for systematic preparation for this eventuality by the nauts from 34 nations. The program was developed by international community. the ASE Committee on Near-Earth Objects (ASE-NEO) Recognizing the significance of this need the ASE and its Panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation [3] (Panel), issued an open letter [4] to world institutions and lead- a distinguished international group of experts in science, ers calling on them to “acknowledge this challenge and law, diplomacy, and disaster management. accept the responsibility for prevention of these most The ASE effort was initiated during its 2005 Congress devastating of all natural disasters”. To support such ef- when the members took note of the series of interna- forts ASE created an ASE-NEO committee and charged tional disasters which had occurred that year (especially it with supporting “national and international responses the Indian Ocean tsunami, hurricanes Katrina and Rita, by providing relevant information, organizing meetings or workshops, and providing expert witnesses”. In agreeing on a way to implement the recommenda- ∗ Tel.: +17073431627. tions of the Third United Nations Conference on the Ex- E-mail address: [email protected] ploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNIPACE 0094-5765/$ - see front matter © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2009.03.069 Please cite this article as: R.L. Schweickart, Decision program on asteroid threat mitigation, Acta Astronautica (2009), doi: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2009.03.069 ARTICLE IN PRESS 2 R.L. Schweickart / Acta Astronautica ( ) – III), COPUOS agreed to establish Action Teams, under New telescopic resources coming into service within the leadership of governments, to analyze all issues in- the next decade will dramatically increase the number volved in implementing specific recommendations and of NEOs discovered and tracked. The US Congress has to make proposals to the committee on the way forward. charged NASA with discovering and tracking 90% of Action Team 14 was established to deal with all NEO all NEOs larger than 140m in diameter by 2020. While issues. meeting this goal poses a considerable challenge, it is In 2006 the ASE-NEO Committee, utilizing the clear that with new telescopes coming online (e.g. Pan- ASE’s Observer status in UN/COPUOS, assumed mem- STARRS [5] and LSST [6]) this goal will be approached bershiponActionTeam-14(NEO)ofCOPUOSand in the 2020–2025 timeframe. In the process of achiev- initiated an effort to develop a decision program on as- ing the 140m goal many smaller but still dangerous teroid deflection for consideration by the international NEOs (∼45m and larger) will be discovered with the community. To support this effort ASE-NEO formed number of such objects likely to exceed 300,000. Based its international Panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation on current empirical experience the number of poten- and initiated a series of four workshops to develop this tially damaging NEOs with a non-zero probability of program. The result of this effort is the report, Asteroid impact within the next 100 years is likely to exceed Threats: A Call for Global Response. 10,000 by this time. Of these NEOs with at least a small probability of impact over the next 100 years many are likely to appear threatening enough to necessitate a de- 2. Summary findings cision of whether action should be taken to prevent an impact. Our highly interconnected society is vulnerable to The need for international coordination in making the destructive power of impact events ranging from such a decision is determined by the natural uncertainty the 1908 Tunguska event in which the impact of an regarding which specific populations are at risk in pre- estimated 45m diameter object destroyed 2000km2 of dicting an impact and the inherent shifting of risk in Siberian forest to the 12km diameter object responsible the process of deflection. All measurements have an for the Chicxulub impact 65 million years ago which is associated uncertainty and in the instance of NEO ob- thought to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs servations these measurement uncertainties, projected and 70% of all species alive at the time. Such cosmic forward in time, manifest as a risk corridor across the collisions occur infrequently juxtaposed with a human face of the Earth within which, if it impacts, the NEO lifetime, and yet when they do happen they dwarf other will hit. While in the end an impact would occur at a natural disasters more common in human experience. specific point, at the time a decision must be made to Yet surprisingly in the instance of this most devastat- deflect a threatening object the impact zone will ex- ing of natural disasters we are far from helpless. With tend for some distance along the risk corridor and, in our telescopic and spaceflight capabilities we can detect fact, in many instances may well extend beyond the and predict potential impacts, and with adequate early Earth’s limbs for many Earth diameters in both direc- warning we can deploy space systems capable of al- tions. Hence, at the time a deflection decision must be tering the orbit of threatening NEOs sufficient to cause made (to provide adequate time to conduct the opera- them to pass harmlessly by the Earth thereby avoiding tion and for the deflection to take effect) it is likely that an impact. In the event of a discovery where insuffi- the people of many nations will be at risk. Furthermore cient time is available to successfully divert a threat- in the process of deflection per se, there will be a tem- ening NEO we will nevertheless, if prepared, be able porary shifting of risk between populations as the NEO to mitigate the effects of an impact by evacuation and impact point is itself shifted from a point on the Earth’s other disaster preparedness measures. surface to a safe distance along the risk corridor either What is needed to match the technical capability for ahead of or behind the Earth. responding to the NEO impact challenge is an in-place Because NEO impacts can occur anywhere on our international system of preparation, planning and timely planet and affect the entire international community, a decision-making. The need for attention to this issue collaborative, global response is required. Furthermore now by the international community is driven by the it is highly desirable that a decision process, with agreed rapid expansion of the number of NEOs which will be criteria, policies and procedures be established prior to discovered and tracked in the next 10–15 years, and the the development of a specific threat in order to assure inherent geographic variability associated with impact that minimization of risk to life and property prevail prediction and deflection operations. over competing national self interests. Please cite this article as: R.L. Schweickart, Decision program on asteroid threat mitigation, Acta Astronautica (2009), doi: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2009.03.069 ARTICLE IN PRESS R.L. Schweickart / Acta Astronautica ( ) – 3 3. Primary recommendations The simple answer to this fundamental question is that our telescopic observations of the NEO population are A global, coordinated response by the United Nations rapidly converting what has been a statistical threat into to the NEO impact hazard should ensure that three log- direct knowledge of specific impact threats which ne- ical, necessary functions are performed. cessitate response. What is the nature of these threats? And what re- 3.1. Information gathering, analysis, and warning sponses are possible? How often might actual threats materialize? These and a host of additional questions An information, analysis, and warning network arise when it is realized that effective action can be should be established. This network would operate a taken in response to an impact threat thereby either ma- global system of ground- and/or space-based telescopes terially reducing the loss to life or preventing an impact to detect and track potentially hazardous NEOs. The occurrence entirely. network, using existing or new research institutions, should analyze NEO orbits to identify potential im- 4.1.
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