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(meteorobs) Off Topic, but interesting


               Movie Producers Challenged to Match NEO Grant
 

        Two private space organizations announced a $50,000 grant
Wednesday, July 1, to support work to locate and track near-Earth
objects (NEOs), and challenged the producers of two current Hollywood
blockbusters to match the grant.
        The Space Frontier Founation (SFF) and the Foundation for the
International Non-Governmental Development of Space (FINDS) announced
the grant as a kickoff for a fundraising campaign to support NEO
research and bring together top experts on the issue.
        The organizations also challenged the producers of the movies
"Deep Impact" and "Armageddon" -- two summer blockbusters that depict
comets and asteroids on collision courses with the Earth -- to match
the grant.
        "The film industry has done an excellent job educating people
about the very real threat NEOs pose to our civilization, and is
making millions of dollars at the same time," said SFF president Rick
Tumlinson.  ""Meanwhile, there is very little money going to support
the handful of heroic people doing the actual work of finding and
tracking these potential Earth killers."
        "There are astronomers who cannot afford to turn on their
telescopes," Tumlinson noted.  "Hollywood is making a lot of money
playing off of the fear -- now it's time for them to ante up."
        The grant will go towards a program called "The Watch" whose
goal is to raise $1 million a year to support NEO research worldwide.
The funds will be disbursed by an advisory council headed by John
Lewis of the University of Arizona.  The council will meet for the
first time at an SFF conference in California in October.
        FINDS, a $13 million endowment that funds "breakthrough
projects" in space-related topics, currently supports NEO tracking
projects at Canada's University of Victoria and asteroid iron
extraction work at the University of Arizona.
        Deep Impact, a movie released in May by Dreamworks and
Paramount, cost $75 million.  The movie has grossed over $133 million
in the United States alone by late June.  Armageddon, about a giant
asteroid headed towards Earth, opened in North America July 1.  Its
budget was estimated at well over $100 million.

For more information: http://www.space-frontier.org