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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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Postpone the inevitable
Astronaut John Young, famed for his Gemini, Apollo, and shuttle exploits, said that the greatest achievement of the human race for the 21st century is ahead -- learning to live and work in other places in the solar system. The long-term benefit of that quest is the preservation of our species, he said.
"From what I know about impacts, sooner or later we're going to get taken out," Young said. "The problem right now is that we don't know when that 'sooner or later' is. It could be tomorrow…it could be 10,000, or a hundred thousand years from now," he said.
Young said that Earth is likely to take a hit from a nearly 0.6 mile (1.6-kilometer) wide or larger diameter asteroid in the next 50 years. A giant wallop would set civilization back 10,000 years, he said.
"The human exploration of space is what it's all about, as far as I'm concerned. I say let's get on with it because we may not have a lot of time," Young said.
Big shot for small stuff
The real threat from the sky is from small-scale objects, said Air Force Brig. Gen. Simon Worden, deputy director for operations at the U.S. Space Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.
A small asteroid just 80 feet (24 meters) across created Meteor Crater in Arizona 20,000 to 50,000 years ago.
Noting that his views are his own and do not necessarily reflect Air Force or government positions, Worden said that planetary defense against asteroids is a step-by-step process. "First, find them. Second, go study them up-close-and-personal. And then, and only then, try and move something," he said.
Worden said that objects measuring from 33 feet (10 meters) to 1,640 feet (500 meters) in diameter can deliver a surprising and powerful punch. For example, about two years ago a meteor blew itself apart over Greenland, unleashing enough energy to produce "significant effects" on the ground, he said.
Similarly, in January of last year and high over the Yukon, a meteor roughly 16 feet (5 meters) across plowed through the atmosphere and released as much energy as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The super-bright fireball lasted about 10 seconds, fostered loud booms and was detected by U.S. Air Force spacecraft.
"My personal message is that there are a lot of meteor strikes every year. Virtually all of them burn up in the upper atmosphere. But about once a decade there is something that is big enough, and gets deep enough, so that it does cause noticeable effects on the ground," Worden said.
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