Okay, so
you've started the New Year with big aspirations. Maybe you've got sky-high
ambitions to change the world...perhaps even save it.
How about
fending off mean, nasty, Earth-threatening objects lurking out there in the
dark of deep space? There's surely heaps of glory and macho mojo to win by taking on such scary
celestial beasts Bruce Willis-style as depicted in that striking movie Armageddon!
For those
of you sleepless in Seattle and elsewhere about Earth-pounding
projectiles from afar, the esteemed National Academies is on the lookout
for scientific and technically credible ideas.
The Space
Studies Board – in coordination with the Aeronautics and Space Engineering
Board of the National Research Council – has put in gear a two-part study on
Near-Earth Objects, or NEOs for short.
A
blue-ribbon group of experts has been selected to address issues concerning the
detection, tracking, and characterization
of NEOs – and approaches to mitigating identified hazards.
Request
for information
This
committee has issued a Request for Information (RFI) to solicit ideas
to survey, detect and characterize NEOs, as well as potential
mission concepts for deflection/mitigation of Earth-smacking objects.
Those
wishing to submit their schemes may draw upon the use of different facilities – ground-
or space-based – and/or involve international cooperation in their proposed
solutions.
Over the
years, there's been a roster of NEO-thwarting proposals, among them: Blasting
them with reflected solar energy, nuking them outright, gravity tractors,
strapping little rocket motors onto the object, even pushing a NEO out of the
way by collective mental channeling.
To get more
on this RFI request, I launched my own information probe to the committee.
No
magic, please!
"Congress
asked the National Academies to look at current efforts for detecting and
mitigating the threat posed by objects whose orbits may take them close to Earth. Specifically,
Congress wants suggestions as to what steps to take next," responded Irwin
Shapiro of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and chairman of the
Committee to Review Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies.
Shapiro
said that the study will be comprehensive, but added: "In addition to looking
at all current efforts and ideas, we want to learn about new approaches that
might be valuable. Hence, we've issued a request to the scientific and
technical communities for such suggestions."
In seeking proposals, suggestions sent in must be anchored in reality. That is,
they need to be capable of being evaluated both from a technical and from a
cost perspective, since one of the committee's tasks is to produce cost
estimates of the options.
"So no
magic, please, just well-thought out concepts and plans commensurate with the
time available for response to this request," Shapiro said.
Underscoring that
view is Dwayne Day, the study director for the NEO assessment: "No movie
scripts, please. We
don't need Bruce Willis."
So the
invite is out to write a program or mission concept for detecting,
characterizing, or mitigating the hazards of NEOs.
The deadline
for ideas is March 20, 2009.
However,
for logistical reasons, the Committee asks that you first submit a Letter of
Intent by Jan. 30, 2009.
For more
information, go to:
NEO Surveys Mitigation Request for Information
By the
way...no pressure, but the Earth is counting on you!
Leonard
David has been reporting on the space industry for more than four decades. He
is past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space
World magazines and has written for SPACE.com since 1999.
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