Steve's Reflections

In 1999 and 2000, Steve Kirsch outlined his thoughts on a variety of philanthropic and political reform topics. Please select from the list to find those of interest to you.

Use the pulldown menu to select a reflection #19 Nuclear Power and its Tremendous Risks #18 Kirsch's Unique Vision of the New Philanthropy #17 Lessons learned through a decade of giving #16 Innovative Ideas for Corporate Philanthropy #15 Earth Threatening Comets and Asteroids... #14 How to spend $1 billion over five years wisely... #13 Cleaning Up the Air in California #12 Anonymous Giving #11 Secrets to Successful Giving #10 Heart Disease #9 Benefits of sleep #8 Why most drugs fail to get to market #7 Medical research is inefficient #6 How to get the highest quality medical care #5 Near Earth Objects (NEOs) #4 Why there are few high-tech philanthropists... #3 Excuses for not donating #2 Ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) #1 Why not give all your money to charity

Steve's Reflection #15

Earth Threatening Comets and Asteroids - What needs to be done?

Read current information about the Foundation's work on NEOs.

I wanted to provide a member of the U.S. Congress with some factual information about the potential devastating consequences of under-funding research to identify asteroids that could hit the Earth. Two professionals in the field, Donald K. Yeomans, the Manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Office, and Robert McMillan, Associate Research Scientist and Principal Investigator, Spacewatch, University of Arizona, wrote the following memo and gave me permission to publicize it. After you read their memo, you will see additional comments from me.

From Donald K. Yeomans and Robert McMillan:

The scientific community has come to realize that the hazard to Earth from asteroid and comet collisions is comparable to other natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes and floods, differing not in terms of "average fatalities per year" but mainly in terms of frequency of occurrence. Although no significant number of deaths by asteroid or comet collisions have occurred in all of recorded history, major impact events are expected on time scales of about 500,000 years. Impacts of these so-called Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) have catastrophically disrupted the Earth's ecosystem in the past. Unless checked, these disasters will occur again; the question is when - not if. While events of this type could cause billions of fatalities from a single strike, impacts of these so-called Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are avoidable. NEO impacts are the only type of serious natural disaster for which accurate predictions can be made and for which the technology exists for successful mitigation efforts.

Currently NASA contributes some support for five small telescopic search groups in their efforts to discover the large NEOs that form the majority of the impact threat to Earth. NASA's goal is to discover, within 10 years, 90% of the population of NEOs with diameters larger than one kilometer. For this population, predictions of their future motions can be made, future close Earth approaches can be identified, and Earth impact probabilities computed. While the total population of large NEOs is not accurately known, recent modeling estimates put this total between 700 and 1000 objects. By mid-May 2000, a total of 390 of these large NEOs had been discovered and all are now being tracked. None of these known objects pose a near-term threat to Earth. However, most of the population remains undiscovered and the current discovery rate is at least a factor of four too slow to achieve the NASA discovery goal.

The annual support of Near-Earth Object research within NASA is currently 3.5 million dollars. Additional funding is required to boost the discovery rate to reach the NASA goal and to characterize a sizable percentage of these objects in terms of their likely sizes, structures and compositions. Comets and asteroids in the near-Earth population are known to run the gamut from small, fragile fluffballs to several kilometer-sized slabs of solid iron. Successful mitigation techniques for Earth threatening objects will require that we know not only when an Earth impact is likely but also what is the size, structure and likely composition of the potential impactor. The current NASA budget of $3.5 million dollars per year for NEO research must be raised to at least twice that amount to effectively deal with the menace of the near-Earth objects.

It should be understood clearly that this recommendation for a funding increase is not an effort on our part to augment funding for a particular group. The funds should continue to be awarded by NASA through its peer review process. However, Congress should also understand that there is value in stabilizing the funding for the existing NEO research teams with their established talents and physical assets.