B612 Foundation
Marc Buie, SMS Tom Gavin, SSRT Dr. Scott Hubbard, SPA Dr. David Liddle, BoD Dr. Ed Lu, Director, Asteroid Institute, Diane Murphy, PR Dr. Harold Reitsema, SMD Danica Remy, CEO John Troeltzsch, SPM | |
Website | B612 Foundation |
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The B612 Foundation is a private nonprofit foundation headquartered in Mill Valley, California, United States, dedicated to planetary science and planetary defense against asteroids and other near-Earth object (NEO) impacts. It is led mainly by scientists, former astronauts and engineers from the Institute for Advanced Study, Southwest Research Institute, Stanford University, NASA and the space industry.
As a non-governmental organization it has conducted two lines of related research to help detect NEOs that could one day strike the Earth, and find the technological means to divert their path to avoid such collisions. It also assisted the Association of Space Explorers in helping the United Nations establish the International Asteroid Warning Network, as well as a Space Missions Planning Advisory Group to provide oversight on proposed asteroid deflection missions.
In 2012, the foundation announced it would design and build a privately financed asteroid-finding
The B612 Foundation is named for the asteroid home of the eponymous hero of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's 1943 book The Little Prince.
Background
When an
The larger in size asteroids or other near-Earth objects (NEOs) are, the less frequently they impact the planet's atmosphere—large meteors seen in the skies are extremely rare, while medium-sized ones are less so, and much smaller ones are more commonplace. Although stony asteroids often explode high in the atmosphere, some objects, especially iron-nickel meteors and other types descending at a steep angle,[4] can explode close to ground level or even directly impact onto land or sea. In the U.S. State of Arizona, the 1,200-metre-wide (3,900 ft) Meteor Crater (officially named Barringer Crater) formed in a fraction of a second as nearly 160 million tonnes of limestone and bedrock were uplifted, creating its crater rim on formerly flat terrain. The asteroid that produced the Barringer Crater was only about 46 metres (151 ft) in size; however it impacted the ground at a velocity of 12.8 km/s (29,000 mph) and struck with an impact energy of 10 megatonnes of TNT (42 PJ)—about 625 times greater than the bomb that destroyed the city of Hiroshima during World War II.[5][6] Tsunamis can also occur after a medium-sized or larger asteroid impacts an ocean surface or other large body of water.[7]
The probability of a mid-sized asteroid (similar to the one that destroyed the Tunguska River area of Russia in 1908) hitting Earth during the 21st century has been estimated at 30%.[8] Since the Earth is currently more populated than in previous eras, there is a greater risk of large casualties arising from a mid-sized asteroid impact.[9] However, as of the early 2010s, only about a half of one per cent of Tunguska-type NEOs had been located by astronomers using ground-based telescope surveys.[10]
The need for an asteroid detection program has been compared to the need for monsoon, typhoon, and hurricane preparedness.[3][11] As the B612 Foundation and other organizations have publicly noted, of the different types of natural catastrophes that can occur on our planet, asteroid strikes are the only one that the world now has the technical capability to prevent.
B612 is one of several organizations to propose detailed dynamic surveys of NEOs and preventative measures such as asteroid deflection.
Asteroid deflection workshop
The Foundation evolved from an informal one-day workshop on
Among the proposed experimental research missions discussed were the alteration of an asteroid's spin rate, as well as changing the orbit of one part of a binary asteroid pair.[1][17] Following the seminar's round-table discussions the workshop generally agreed that the vehicle of choice (needed to deflect an asteroid) would be powered by a low-thrust ion plasma engine. Landing a nuclear-powered plasma engined pusher vehicle on the asteroid's surface was seen as promising, an early proposal that would later encounter a number of technical obstacles.[18] Nuclear explosives were seen as "too risky and unpredictable" for several reasons,[18] warranting the view that gently altering an asteroid's trajectory was the safest approach—but also a method requiring years of advance warning to successfully accomplish.[16][17]
B612 Project and Foundation
The October 2001 asteroid deflection workshop participants created the "B612 Project" to further their research. Schweickart, along with Drs. Hut, Lu and Chapman, then formed the B612 Foundation on October 7, 2002,[1][17] with its first goal being to "significantly alter the orbit of an asteroid in a controlled manner".[19] Schweickart became an early public face of the foundation and served as chairman on its board of directors.[20] In 2010, as part of an ad hoc task force on planetary defense, he advocated increasing NASA's annual budget by $250M–$300 million over a 10-year period (with an operational maintenance budget of up to $75 million per year after that) in order to more fully catalog the near-Earth objects (NEOs) that can pose a threat to Earth, and to also fully develop impact avoidance capabilities. That recommended level of budgetary support would permit up to 10–20 years of advance warning in order to create a sufficient window for the required trajectory deflection.[21][22]
Their recommendations were made to a NASA Advisory Council, but were ultimately unsuccessful in obtaining Congressional funding due to NASA, lacking a legislated mandate for
In March and April 2013, several weeks after the Chelyabinsk meteor explosion injured some 1,500 people, the U.S. Congress held hearings for "...the Risks, Impacts and Solutions for Space Threats". They received testimony from B612 head Ed Lu (see video at right), as well as Dr. Donald K. Yeomans, head of NASA's NEO Program Office, Dr. Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland and co-chair of a 2009 U.S. National Research Council study on asteroid threats, plus others.[32] The difficulty of quickly intercepting an imminent asteroid threat to Earth was made apparent during the testimony:
REP. STEWART: ... are we technologically capable of launching something that could intercept [an asteroid with 2 years of advance warning]? ...
DR. A'HEARN: No. If we had spacecraft plans on the books already, that would take a year—I mean a typical small mission ... takes four years from approval to start to launch ...— Rep. Chris Stewart (R–UT) and Dr. Michael F. A'Hearn, April 10, 2013, United States Congress[33]
As a result of a set of hearings by the NASA Advisory Committee following the Chelyabinsk explosion in 2013, in conjunction with a White House request to double its budget, NASA's Near Earth Object Program funding was increased to $40.5 M/year in its FY2014 (Fiscal Year 2014) budget. It had previously been increased to $20.5 M/year in FY2012 (about 0.1% of NASA's annual budget at the time),[24] from an average of about $4 M/year between 2002 and 2010.[34]
Asteroid hazard reassessment
On Earth Day, April 22, 2014, the B612 Foundation formally presented a revised assessment on the frequency of "city-killer" type impact events, based on research led by Canadian planetary scientist Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario's (UWO) Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration.[35] Dr. Brown's analysis, "A 500-Kiloton Airburst Over Chelyabinsk and An Enhanced Hazard from Small Impactors", published in the journals Science and Nature,[10][36] was used to produce a short computer-animated video that was presented to the media at the Seattle Museum of Flight.[37][38]
The nearly one and a half minute video displayed a rotating globe with the impact points of about 25 asteroids measuring more than one, and up to 600 kilotons of blast force, that struck the Earth from 2000 to 2013 (for comparison, the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima was equivalent to about 16 kilotons of TNT blast force).[35][39] Of those impacts between 2000 and 2013, eight of them were as large, or larger, than the Hiroshima bomb.[11] Only one of the asteroids, 2008 TC3, was detected in advance, some 19 hours before exploding in the atmosphere. As was the case with the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor, no warnings were issued for any of the other impacts.[40][Note 1]
At the presentation, alongside former NASA astronauts Dr. Tom Jones and
99942 Apophis
During the first decade of the 2000s, there were serious concerns the 325 metres (1,066 ft) wide asteroid
By 2008, B612 had provided estimates on a 30 kilometers-wide corridor, called a "path of risk", that would extend across the Earth's surface if an impact were to occur, as part of its effort to develop viable
A series of later, more accurate observations of 99942 Apophis, combined with the recovery of previously unseen data, revised the odds of a collision in 2036 as being virtually nil, and effectively ruled it out.[52]
International involvement
B612 Foundation members assisted the Association of Space Explorers (ASE) in helping obtain United Nations (UN) oversight of NEO tracking and deflection missions through the UN's Committee On the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS) along with COPUOS's Action Team 14 (AT-14) expert group. Several members of B612, also members of the ASE, worked with COPUOS since 2001 to establish international involvement for both impact disaster responses, and on deflection missions to prevent impact events.[53] According to Foundation Chair Emeritus Rusty Schweickart in 2013, "No government in the world today has explicitly assigned the responsibility for planetary protection to any of its agencies".[29]
In October 2013, COPUOS's Scientific and Technical Subcommittee approved several measures,[28][54] later approved by the UN General Assembly in December,[55] to deal with terrestrial asteroid impacts, including the creation of an International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) plus two advisory groups: the Space Missions Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG), and the Impact Disaster Planning Advisory Group (IDPAG).[56][57] The IAWN warning network will act as a clearinghouse for shared information on dangerous asteroids and for any future terrestrial impact events that are identified. The Space Missions Planning Advisory Group will coordinate joint studies of the technologies for deflection missions,[58] and as well provide oversight of actual missions. This is due to deflection missions typically involving a progressive movement of an asteroid's predicted impact point across the surface of the Earth (and also across the territories of uninvolved countries) until the NEO is deflected either ahead of, or behind the planet at the point their orbits intersect.[28][59] An initial framework of international cooperation at the UN is needed, said Schweickart, to guide the policymakers of its member nations on several important NEO-related aspects. However, as asserted by the Foundation, the new UN measures only constitute a starting point. To be effective they will need to be enhanced by further policies and resources implemented at both the national and supernational levels.[10][60]
At the time of the UN's policy adoption in New York City, Schweickart and four other ASE members, including B612 head Ed Lu and strategic advisers Dumitru Prunariu and Tom Jones participated in a public forum moderated by Neil deGrasse Tyson not far from the United Nations Headquarters. The panel urged the global community to adopt further important steps for planetary defense against NEO impacts. Their recommendations included:[53][60][61]
- UN delegates briefing their home countries' policymakers on the UN's newest roles;
- having each country's government create detailed asteroid disaster response plans, assigning fiscal resources to deal with asteroid impacts, and delegating a lead agency to handle its disaster response in order to create clear lines of communication from the IAWN to the affected countries;
- having their governments support the ASE's and B612's efforts to identify the estimated one million "city-killer" NEOs capable of impacting Earth,space-based asteroid telescope, and
- committing member states to launching an international test deflection mission within 10 years.
Sentinel Mission
The
In order to communicate with the spacecraft while it is orbiting the Sun (at about the same distance as Venus), which can be at times as far as 270 million kilometres (170 million miles) from Earth, the B612 Foundation entered into a
Design and operation
Sentinel was designed to perform continuous observation and analysis during its planned 6+1⁄2-year operational life,[65] although B612 anticipates it may continue to function for up to 10 years. Using its 51-centimetre (20 in) telescope mirror with sensors built by Ball Aerospace (makers of the Hubble Space Telescope's instruments),[66] its mission would be to catalog 90% of asteroids with diameters larger than 140 metres (460 ft). There were also plans to catalog smaller Solar System objects as well.[24][67]
The
B612 aimed to produce its space telescope at a significantly lower cost than traditional space science programs by making use of space hardware systems previously developed for earlier programs, rather than designing a brand new observatory. Schweickart stated that about "80% of what we're dealing with in Sentinel is
Data gathered by Sentinel would be provided through existing scientific data-sharing networks that include NASA and academic institutions such as the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Given the satellite's telescopic accuracy, Sentinel's data may have proven valuable for other possible future missions, such as asteroid mining.[66][67][69]
Mission funding
B612 was attempting to raise approximately $450M to fund the development, launch and operational costs of the telescope,[31] about the cost of a complex freeway interchange, or approximately $100M less than a single Air Force Next-Generation Bomber.[70] The $450 million cost estimate is composed of $250 million to create Sentinel, plus another $200 million for 10 years of operations.[10] In explaining the Foundation's bypassing of possible governmental grants for such a mission,[63] Dr. Lu stated their public fundraising appeal is being driven by "[t]he tragedy of the commons: When it's everybody's problem, it's nobody's problem", referring to a lack of ownership, priority and funding that governments have assigned to asteroid threats,[4] also stating on a different occasion "We're the only ones taking it seriously."[70] According to another B612 board member, Rusty Schweickart, "The good news is, you can prevent it—not just get ready for it! The bad news is, it's hard to get anybody to pay attention to it when there are potholes in the road."[71] After providing earlier Congressional testimony on the issue Schweickart was dismayed to hear from congressional staff members that, while U.S. lawmakers involved in the hearing understood the seriousness of the threat, they would likely not legislate funding for planetary defense as "making the deflection of asteroids a priority might backfire in [their] reelection campaigns".[72]
The Foundation intended to launch Sentinel in 2017–2018,[62][73][74] with initiation of data transfer for on-Earth processing anticipated no later than 6 months afterwards.
In the aftermath of the February 2013
Staff
Leadership
In 2014 eight key staff positions were designated, covering the offices of the chief executive officer (CEO), chief operating officer (COO), Sentinel Program Architecture (SPA), Sentinel Mission Direction (SMD), Sentinel Program Management (SPM), Sentinel Mission Science (SMS) and the Sentinel Standing Review Team (SSRT), plus Public Relations.[78]
Ed Lu, Co-founder, B612 Foundation. Executive Director, Asteroid Institute
Edward Tsang "Ed" Lu (Chinese: 盧傑; pinyin: Lú Jié; born July 1, 1963) is a co-founder and the chief executive officer of the B612 Foundation, and as well, a U.S. physicist and a former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions and an extended stay aboard the International Space Station which included a six-hour spacewalk outside the station performing construction work. During his three missions he logged a total of 206 days in space.[79]
His education includes an electrical engineering degree from
Lu developed a number of new theoretical advances, which have provided for the first time a basic understanding of the underlying physics of
In 2007 Lu retired from NASA to become the Program Manager on
Lu holds a
Tom Gavin, Chairman, Sentinel Standing Review Team
Thomas R. Gavin is the chairman of the B612 Foundation's Sentinel Standing Review Team (SSRT), and a former executive-level manager at NASA. He served with NASA for 30 years, including his position as Associate Director for Flight Programs and Mission Assurance at their Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) organization, and "has been at the forefront in leading many of the most successful U.S. space missions, including Galileo's mission to Jupiter, Cassini–Huygens mission to Saturn, development of Genesis, Stardust, Mars 2001 Odyssey, Mars Exploration Rovers, SPITZER and Galaxy Evolution Explorer programs."[84]
In 2001 he was appointed associate director for flight projects and mission success for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in May 2001. This was a new position created to provide the JPL Director's Office with oversight of flight projects. He later served as interim director for Solar System exploration. Previously, he was director of JPL's Space Science Flight Projects Directorate, which oversaw the Genesis, Mars 2001 Odyssey, Mars rovers, Spitzer Space Telescope and GALEX projects. He also served as deputy director of JPL's Space and Earth Science Programs Directorate beginning in December 1997. In June 1990 he was appointed spacecraft system manager for the Cassini–Huygens mission to Saturn, and retained that position until the project's successful launch in 1997. From 1968 to 1990 he was a member of the Galileo and Voyager project offices responsible for mission assurance.[85] He received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Villanova University in Pennsylvania in 1961.[85]
Gavin has been honored on a number of occasions for exceptional work, receiving NASA's Distinguished and Exceptional Service Medals in 1981 for his work on the
Scott Hubbard, Sentinel Program Architect
Dr. G. Scott Hubbard is the B612 Foundation's Sentinel Program Architect, as well as a physicist, academic and a former executive-level manager at NASA, the U.S. space agency. He is a professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University and has been engaged in space-related research as well as program, project and executive management for more than 35 years including 20 years with NASA, culminating his career there as director of NASA's Ames Research Center. At Ames he was responsible for overseeing the work of some 2,600 scientists, engineers and other staff.[88] Currently on the SpaceX Safety Advisory Panel,[89] he previously served as NASA's sole representative on the Space Shuttle Columbia Accident Investigation Board, and also as their first Mars Exploration Program director in 2000, successfully restructuring the entire Mars program in the wake of earlier serious mission failures.[88][90]
Hubbard founded NASA's Astrobiology Institute in 1998; conceived the Mars Pathfinder mission with its airbag landing system and was the manager for their highly successful Lunar Prospector Mission. Prior to joining NASA, Hubbard led a small start-up high technology company in the San Francisco Bay Area and was a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Hubbard has received many honors including NASA's highest award, their Distinguished Service Medal, and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics's Von Karman Medal.[88][91]
Hubbard was elected to the
Marc Buie, Sentinel Mission Scientist
Dr. Marc W. Buie (b. 1958) is the foundation's Sentinel Mission Scientist, and as well a U.S.
Since 1983, Pluto and its moons have been a central theme of the research done by Buie, who has published over 85 scientific papers and journal articles.[92] He is also one of the co-discoverers of Pluto's new moons, Nix and Hydra (Pluto II and Pluto III) discovered in 2005.
Buie has worked with the
Asteroid 7553 Buie is named in honor of the astronomer, who has also been profiled as part of an article on Pluto in Air & Space Smithsonian magazine.[93]
Harold Reitsema, Sentinel Mission Director
Dr. Harold James Reitsema (b. January 19, 1948, Kalamazoo, Michigan) is the foundation's Sentinel Mission Director and a U.S.
Reitsema was a member of the Halley Multicolour Camera team on the
Reitsema participated in the ground-based observations of Deep Impact mission in 2005, observing the impact of the spacecraft on the Tempel 1 comet using the telescopes of the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir Observatory in Mexico, along with colleagues from the University of Maryland and the Mexican National Astronomical Observatory.[97]
Reitsema retired from Ball Aerospace in 2008 and remains a consultant to NASA and the aerospace industry in mission design and
John Troeltzsch, Sentinel Program Manager
John Troeltzsch is the B612 Foundation's Sentinel Program Manager, a senior U.S.
Troeltzsch's program management abilities include experience with spacecraft systems engineering and software integration through all phases of space telescope projects, from contract definition through assembly, launch and on-station operational start up. His past project experience includes the Kepler Mission, Hubble's Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS) and its COSTAR Space Telescope corrective optics, as well as the cryogenically-cooled instruments on the Spitzer Space Telescope.[99]
Troeltzsch was awarded the
David Liddle, Chair, Board of Directors
Dr. David Liddle is the foundation's Board Chair and a former technology industry executive and professor of computer science. He also holds the Chair of many boards of directors, including research institutes, in the United States.
Liddle is a partner at the venture capital firm
Liddle also held the chair of the board of trustees for the
His education includes a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Toledo.[100]
Board of directors
As of 2014 the B612 Foundation's board includes Geoffrey Baehr (formerly with Sun Microsystems and U.S. Venture Partners), plus Doctors Chapman, Piet Hut, Ed Lu (also CEO, see Leadership, above), David Liddle (Chair, see Leadership, above), and Dan Durda, a planetary scientist.[104][105]
Rusty Schweickart, co-founder and Chair Emeritus
Russell Louis "Rusty" Schweickart (b. October 25, 1935) is a co-founder of the B612 Foundation and chair emeritus of its board of directors. He is also a former
After serving as the backup commander of NASA's first crewed Skylab mission (the United States' first space station), he later became Director of User Affairs in their Office of Applications. Schweickart left NASA in 1977 to serve for two years as California governor Jerry Brown's assistant for science and technology, and was then appointed by Brown to California's Energy Commission for five and a half years.[106][107]
Schweickart co-founded the Association of Space Explorers (ASE) with other astronauts in 1984–85 and chaired the ASE's NEO Committee, producing a benchmark report, Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response, and submitting it to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS). He then co-chaired, along with astronaut Dr. Tom Jones, NASA's Advisory Council's Task Force on Planetary Defense. In 2002 he co-founded B612, also serving as its Chair.[108][109]
Schweickart is a Fellow of the
Clark Chapman, co-founder and board member
Clark Chapman is a B612 Board Member and "a planetary scientist whose research has specialized in studies of asteroids and cratering of planetary surfaces, using telescopes, spacecraft, and computers. He is a past Chair of the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the
Chapman has a degree from Harvard University and has earned two degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including his Ph.D., in the fields of astronomy, meteorology and the planetary sciences, and also served at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. He is currently on faculty at the Southwest Research Institute of Boulder, Colorado.[111]
Dan Durda, board member
Dr. Daniel David "Dan" Durda (b. October 26, 1965, Detroit, Michigan),[112] is a B612 Board Member and "a principal scientist in the Department of Space Studies of the Southwest Research Institute's (SwRI) Boulder Colorado. He has more than 20 years experience researching the collisional and dynamical evolution of main-belt and near-Earth asteroids, Vulcanoids, Kuiper belt comets, and interplanetary dust."[113] He is the author of 68 journal and scientific articles and has presented his reports and findings at 22 professional symposiums. He has also taught as adjunct professor in the Department of Sciences at Front Range Community College.[112]
Durda is an active instrument-rated pilot who has flown numerous aircraft, including high performance
His education includes a B.Sc. in astronomy from
Strategic advisers
As of July 2014, the Foundation has taken on over twenty key advisers drawn from the sciences, the space industry and other professional fields. Their goals are to provide both advice and critiques, and assist in several other facets of the Sentinel Mission. Included among them are:
Tom Jones, strategic adviser
Dr. Thomas David "Tom" Jones (b. January 22, 1955) is a strategic adviser to B612, member of the NASA Advisory Council and a former U.S. astronaut and planetary scientist who has studied asteroids for NASA, engineered intelligence-gathering systems for the CIA, and helped develop advanced mission concepts to explore the Solar System. In his 11 years with NASA he flew on four Space Shuttle missions, logging a total of 53 days in space. His flight time included three spacewalks to install the centerpiece science module of the International Space Station (ISS). His publications include Planetology: Unlocking the Secrets of the Solar System.[116][117]
After graduating from the
After a year of training following his selection by NASA he became an astronaut in July 1991. In 1994 he flew as
Among his honors are NASA's medals and awards for Space Flight, Exceptional Service and Outstanding Leadership, plus the
Piet Hut, co-founder and strategic adviser
Dr. Piet Hut (b. September 26, 1952, Utrecht, The Netherlands) is a co-founder of the B612 Foundation, one of its strategic advisers, and a Dutch astrophysicist, who divides his time between research in computer simulations of dense stellar systems and broadly interdisciplinary collaborations, ranging from fields in natural science to computer science, cognitive psychology and philosophy. He is currently Program Head in Interdisciplinary Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey,[119][120] former home to Albert Einstein.
Hut's specialization is in "stellar and planetary dynamics; many of his more than two hundred articles are written in collaboration with colleagues from different fields, ranging from particle physics, geophysics and paleontology to computer science, cognitive psychology and philosophy."[121][122] Dr. Hut was an early adviser to Lu and served as a founding member of the B612 Foundation's board of directors.[17]
Hut has held positions in a number of faculties, including the Institute for Theoretical Physics, Utrecht University (1977–1978); the Astronomical Institute at the University of Amsterdam (1978–1981); Astronomy Department of the University of California, Berkeley (1984–1985) and in the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, N.J. (1981–present). He has held honors, functions, fellowships and memberships in almost 150 different professional organizations, universities and conferences, and published over 225 papers and articles in scientific journals and symposiums, including his first in 1976 on "The Two-Body problem with a Decreasing Gravitational Constant".[123] In 2014 he became a strategic adviser to the B612 Foundation.
His education includes an M.Sc. from the University of Utrecht and a double Ph.D. in
Dumitru Prunariu, strategic adviser
Dr. Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu (Romanian pronunciation:
Prunariu is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, the Romanian National COSPAR Committee, and the Association of Space Explorers (ASE). In 1993, until 2004, he was the permanent representative of the ASE at the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS) and has represented Romania at COPUOS sessions since 1992. He also became the vice-president of the International Institute for Risk, Security and Communication Management (EURISC), and from 1998 to 2004 the president of the Romanian Space Agency. In 2000 he was appointed Associate Professor on Geopolitics within the Faculty of International Business and Economics, Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest and in 2004 he was elected COPUOS's Chairman of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee. He was then elected as COPUOS's top level chairman, serving from 2010 to 2012, and also elected as the president of the ASE with a three-year mandate.
Prunariu has co-authored several books on space flight and both presented and published numerous scientific papers. His education includes a degree in
Deflection methods
A number of methods have been devised to 'deflect' an asteroid or other NEO away from an Earth-impacting trajectory, so that it can entirely avoid entering the Earth's atmosphere. Given sufficient advance lead time, a change to the body's velocity of as little as one centimetre per second will allow it to avoid hitting the Earth..
Initiating a nuclear explosive device above, on, or slightly beneath, the surface of a threatening NEO is a potential deflection option, with the optimal detonation height dependent upon the NEO's composition and size. In the case of a threatening "rubble pile", the stand off, or detonation height above the surface configuration has been put forth as a means to prevent the potential fracturing of the rubble pile.[125][126] However, given sufficient advance warning of an asteroid's impact, most scientists avoid endorsing explosive deflection due to the number of potential issues involved.[18] Other methods that can accomplish NEO deflections include:
Gravity tractor
An alternative to an explosive deflection is to move a dangerous asteroid slowly and consistently over time. The effect of a tiny constant thrust can accumulate to deviate an object sufficiently from its predicted course. In 2005 Drs.
While slow, this method has the advantage of working irrespective of an asteroid's composition. It would even be effective on a comet, loose rubble pile, or an object spinning at a high rate. However, a gravity tractor would likely have to spend several years stationed beside and tugging on the body to be effective. The Sentinel Space Telescope's mission is designed to provide the required advance lead time.
According to Rusty Schweickart, the
An early NASA analysis of deflection alternatives in 2007, stated: "'Slow push' mitigation techniques are the most expensive, have the lowest level of technical readiness, and their ability to both travel to and divert a threatening NEO would be limited unless mission durations of many years to decades are possible."[129] But a year later in 2008 the B612 Foundation released a technical evaluation of the gravity tractor concept, produced on contract to NASA. Their report confirmed that a transponder-equipped tractor "with a simple and robust spacecraft design" can provide the needed towing service for a 140-meters-diameter equivalent, Hayabusa-shaped asteroid or other NEO.[130]
Kinetic impact
When the asteroid is still far from Earth, a means of deflecting the asteroid is to directly alter its
In 2005, in the wake of the successful U.S. mission that crashed its
ESA had originally identified two NEOs as possible targets for its Quijote mission:
A NASA analysis of deflection alternatives, conducted in 2007, stated: "Non-nuclear kinetic impactors are the most mature approach and could be used in some deflection/mitigation scenarios, especially for NEOs that consist of a single small, solid body."[129]
Funding status
The B612 Foundation is a California
Fund raising has not gone well for B612 as of June 2015. With an overall goal to raise US$450 million for the project, the foundation raised only approximately US$1.2 million in 2012 and US$1.6 million in 2013.[137][needs update]
Foundation name
The B612 Foundation is named in tribute to the home asteroid of the eponymous hero of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's best-selling philosophical fable of Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince).[18][19][24][107] In aviation's early pioneer years of the 1920s, Saint-Exupéry made an emergency landing on top of an African mesa covered with crushed white limestone seashells. Walking around in the moonlight he kicked a black rock and soon deduced it was a meteorite that had fallen from space.[138][139]
That experience later contributed, in 1943, to his literary creation of Asteroid B-612 in his philosophical fable of a little prince fallen to Earth,[139] with the home planetoid's name having been adapted from one of the mail planes Saint-Exupéry once flew, bearing the registration marking A-612.
Also inspired by the story is an asteroid discovered in 1993, though not identified as posing any threat to Earth, named 46610 Bésixdouze (the numerical part of its designation represented in hexadecimal as 'B612', while the textual part is French for "B six twelve"). As well, a small asteroid moon, Petit-Prince, discovered in 1998 is named in part after The Little Prince.[140][141]
See also
- Qingyang event
- 99942 Apophis
- Asteroid impact prediction
- Asteroid impact avoidance
- Asteroid Day
- Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS)
- Deep Space Industries
- Gravity tractor
- List of impact craters on Earth
- List of meteor air bursts
- NEOShield
- Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOS Sat)
- Planetary Resources
- Potentially hazardous object
- Spaceguard
- Spaceguard Foundation
- Tunguska event
- United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS)
References
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the
Notes
- ^
Richard Kowalski of the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona, in the United States.[44][45] Although officials in the U.S. Government were advised of the impending impact, no warning was provided to the Sudanese Government. According to Donald Yeomans, head of NASA's Near Earth Objects Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, "NASA alerted the White House, the National Security Council, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security... But no one from the United States alerted Sudan because the two countries did not have diplomatic relations".[46]
Citations
- ^ a b c d "Foundation History". B612 Foundation. Archived from the original on February 29, 2012. Retrieved April 15, 2012.
- ^ "B612 studying smallsat missions to search for near Earth objects". June 20, 2017.
- ^ a b Griggs, Mary Beth. Avoiding Armegeddon: The Hunt is on For Dangerous Asteroids Archived 2020-07-26 at the Wayback Machine, USA Today, October 6, 2013. Retrieved June 30, 2014.
- ^ a b c d e Easterbrook, Gregg. The Sky Is Falling Archived 2020-11-11 at the Wayback Machine, The Atlantic, June 1, 2008. Retrieved September 14, 2014.
- ^
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Yet progress has been slow. The B612 Foundation raised donations of roughly $1.2 million in 2012 and $1.6 million in 2013 — far short of its annual goal of $30 million to $40 million. NASA says that Sentinel has also missed every development milestone laid out in the 2012 agreement.
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Further reading
- Lewis, John S. Comet And Asteroid Impact Hazards On A Populated Earth: Computer Modeling, Volume 1, ISBN 978-0124467606
- Powell, Corey S. "How to Deflect a Killer Asteroid: Researchers Come Up With Contingency Plans That Could Help Our Planet Dodge A Cosmic Bullet", Discover, September 18, 2013, pp. 58–60 (subscription).
- Schweickart, Lu, Hut and Chapman. "The Asteroid Tugboat: To Prevent An Asteroid From Hitting Earth, A Space Tug Equipped With Plasma Engines Could Give It A Push", October 13, 2003, Scientific American
- Steel, Duncan. Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets: The Search for the Million Megaton Menace That Threatens Life on Earth, Wiley & Sons, 1995, [1997], ISBN 978-0-4711-9338-8.
External links
- Official website
- B612 Foundation: early website homepage (archived)
- B612 Foundation: Sentinel Mission Factsheet (Feb. 2013, PDF)
- Dr. Ed Lu at TEDxMarin: Changing the Course of the Solar System (video, 14:04)
- NBC Nightly News: Early-Warning Telescope Could Detect Dangerous Asteroids, broadcast April 22, 2014 (video, 2:27)
- Defending Earth from Asteroids with Neil deGrasse Tyson, public presentation and moderated panel discussion with members of the Association of Space Explorers and the B612 Foundation, at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, October 25, 2013 (video, 58:03)
- NEO Threat Detection and Warning: Plans for an International Asteroid Warning Network, Presentation to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS) by Dr. Timothy Spahr, Director, Minor Planet Center, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, February 18, 2013 (PDF)
- Dr. Ed Lu Congressional Testimony, Washington, D.C., March 20, 2013, United States Senate Sub-Committee on Science and Space: "Assessing the Risks, Impacts and Solutions for Space Threats" (video, 23:49)
- "Asteroid: Doomsday or Payday?". Nova. PBS. November 20, 2013.
Includes interviews with B612 Foundation staff
(DVD, video, 53:24). Also viewable (within some countries) as Asteroid: Doomsday or Payday? onYouTube - Rusty's Talk: Dinosaur Syndrome Avoidance Project - How Gozit?, a July 17, 2014 presentation before an audience at NASA's Ames Research Center's Director's Colloquium, addressing the status of the three essential elements to avoiding catastrophic asteroid impacts (video, 55:34)