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Asteroid Busting: We Have the Technology
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 11:46 am ET
31 May 2001
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defending_earth_010601 ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO -- When Earth is on the receiving end of a comet or an asteroid, things get messy. Fire, explosions, tidal waves, suffocation, climate change, crop failures and starvation can occur from regional to global scale. While dinosaur-killing impacts and mass extinction are now acknowledged to be doomsday events over long stretches of time, little is being done about preparing today for smaller, yet troublesome impactors. A growing choir of experts are calling for an increased ability to detect, inspect and deflect "rock bombs" from space that prove threatening to Earth. ACE in the hole The good news is that most impacts can be prevented, and putting that capability in place need not be expensive. Most hardware to thwart incoming objects is already available, said Andy Smith of the Safety Research Institute in Albuquerque. 
The Tunguska event, which took place in June 1908, was an massive aerial explosion, which flattened thousands of acres of forest near the Tunguska River, Siberia, Russia. The explosion created energy equal to 14 megatons of dynamite. According to research, the cause of the explosion was likely a section of a comet, which crashed into Earth. "The biggest need we have is for information to be put in the hands of the technical community and the policy makers," Smith told SPACE.com. "We have the technology to prevent almost all impacts," he said. Smith has formed the International Planetary Protection Alliance (IPPA) to take on the most important technical challenge in history: Asteroid/Comet Emergency (ACE) Prevention/Preparedness Plan. The IPPA is pulling together a diversity of disciplines, such as paleontologists, astronomers, archeologists, physicists and chemists, to tackle the job, Smith said. "Each of these groups is a culture, so we have the problem associated with culture clash. If we can overcome that, then these people can work together to solve the problem," he said. Smith was one of several experts, including former astronauts, raising the issue of close encounters of the impact kind at the National Space Society's 20th annual International Space Development Conference, held here May 24-28.
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