NASA Collides With Asteroid Experts Author Leonard David Stay tuned for a close encounter of un-like minds regarding how best to deal with the asteroid meets Earth threat.
A meeting at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. is slated for June 18 between top agency folks and former Apollo astronaut, Russell Rusty Schweickart, the lunar module pilot for the Apollo 9 mission. He and fellow planetary scientist, Clark Chapman, are not too pleased with some of the recommendations in a Congressionally mandated report that NASA coughed up for lawmakers on handling the very real prospect of future space rocks smacking into Earth. The intent of Chapman and Schweickart is to have that NASA study modified to make it technically correct in several crucial ways. One major point of contention is use of nuclear blasts to deal with threatening objects that have Earth in their cross-hairs. Meanwhile, NASA has already recanted a bit, releasing the previously censored report and agreeing to acknowledge certain errors - which appear as errata in the now-posted report that can be found at: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/FOIA/NEO_Analysis_Doc.pdf Schweickart made it clear hes not happy with all thats in the NASA report, speaking his mind at the recent National Space Societys annual bash in Dallas. In case you missed that story, check out: http://www.space.com/adastra/070527_isdc_asteroids.html Asteroid guru, Chapman told me: Were hopeful that we can reach an understanding on some fundamental technical issues about how to characterize and deflect a threatening near-Earth asteroid. Then NASA can lay before Congress a wholly sound plan and associated budgetary estimate so that Congress can appropriate the rather modest new funds that would be necessary to address the asteroid hazard. ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
