Looming disasteroids
US ‘unprepared’
Experts are sounding the alarm about the threat of asteroids to life on Earth — and warning that the United States does not have a clear plan to prevent catastrophe.
Although NASA says the odds are literally one in a millennium, no US agency is explicitly responsible if space rocks head our way.
“No one is tasked with mitigation,” former Air Force space strategist Peter Garretson, an expert in planetary defense, told Politico. “Congress did put in law that the White House identify who should be responsible, but fully four subsequent administrations so far have blown off their request.”
“There are 3 million asteroids, and we have not a freaking clue where they are and they are flying around us,” Danica Remy, president of the B612 Foundation, told the news outlet. Remy, whose foundation is working on a database to monitor near-Earth objects, said the current research has “barely made a dent” in mapping what’s out there.
The issue has resurfaced as NASA plans the firstever mission to test whether it can adjust the trajectory of a potentially devastating asteroid. The agency plans to hurl a rocket traveling at 16,000 miles per hour into the astroid Dimorphos.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test is scheduled for Wednesday. NASA has stressed that the asteroid poses no threat to Earth and is being used purely as a testing ground.
US disarray on the issue also has national security implications, with China ramping up investment into planetary defense.
In November, Chinese scientists published a paper calling for an “assembled kinetic impactor” to address the risk — potentially leapfrogging the US on the issue.
Some China-hawks, however, say planetary defense is moot compared to realworld concerns.
“I don’t see a threat from that is any bigger than the threats they already pose,” Jim Hanson, president of the Security Studies Group told The Post. “We’ve all got nukes. What else do you need?”