(meteorobs) NASA Final NEO Survey & Deflection Study.

[Robert Warren]

Hello everyone,

Recently, <stange34 at sbcglobal.net> listed a reference to the NASA Final NEO 
Survey and Deflection Study report being available at the B612 Foundation 
website.

When you go to the B612 Foundation website you download and read both the  
"2006 Near - Earth Object Survey and Deflection Study" as well as the  "Near 
- Earth Object Surfvey and Deflection Analysis of Alternatives Report to 
Congress", as well as the independent Analyses of those two works.  Reading 
through the offical NASA reports, is somewhat disheartening.  Here the 
United States has an agency of its government which has as part of its 
charter and as part of its very name, the function of National Aeronautics 
and Space Administration, which implies up front that they are responsible 
for anything to do with Space exploration.  Yet reading through the above 
reports, I get the impression that they are trying to shrug off their 
responsibility.  They have made every effort they can in those reports to 
ignore the various alternative techniques at detection, they have ignored 
some of the current facilities being used in the search for and the 
characterization of Potentially Hazardous Objects (PHO's).  The "2006 
Near-Earth Object Survey and Deflection Study" clearly seems more interested 
in using Nuclear weapons as the sole line of defense against any PHO's that 
might be detected, and then they want to characterize the PHO.  It is 
obvious, that before any mitigation concept is decided upon, that first must 
come the detection and then the characterization of said PHO's.  If the PHO 
is nothing more than a rubble pile, using a nuclear weapon to deflect it or 
to destroy it, may backfire.  All studies conducted in the past six years 
have clearly shown that a nuclear weapon might do nothing more than shatter 
the rubble pile into a multitude of fragments many of which would still be 
on a collision course with the Earth.  On the other hand something as simply 
as the Gravity Tractor concept would probably be superior since it would not 
disrupt the rubble pile, but rather would slowly change the orbit by the 
slow tugging of the tractor itself, into what might possibly be a safer 
orbit.  But even this might not be the best in the long run, which is why 
attention must be given to the characterization of the PHO before any action 
is taken.

Of course this applies if we have the time for both the characterization as 
well as the mitigation and deflection.  It is entirely possible that we 
might not have the time and therefore nuclear weapons would perhaps be the 
best alternative concept to use.

But regardless as to which deflection technique or concept is used, will 
depend upon the expenditure of funds to search for the PHO's (which is 
currently partially being done), the followup characterization, and the 
decision as to which is the best or the preferred concept of Deflection.  
The above reports fail in this regard, because they both state that NASA 
does not have the funds to enlarge and expand the capability of its current 
NEO survey programs.

I highly recommend that everyone should read both reports as well as the 
alternative Analyses.

Respectfully,
Robert Warren

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