We have good news to report. The field of Planetary Defense has taken a step forward with the announcement of the formation of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) within NASA. This new office was created in response to the highly critical report by the...
B612 Foundation applauds NASA’s recent announcement of the formation of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office. NASA's new planetary defense coordination office has a critical role not only in coordination but importantly in funding projects for asteroid detection and deflection. There are an estimated one million...
Despite its capacity for serious harm, asteroid impact is not the largest existential threat we face right now. Climate change, resource limits, pandemics, nuclear war, societal breakdown, earthquakes and tsunamis are even more alarming. What distinguishes the asteroid threat is that mitigation is seemingly straightforward,...
To Infinity, And Beyond! “As a NASA astronaut, Dr. Ed Lu has spent six months of his life on the International Space Station. And since then, he’s dedicated his career to opening up the possibility of space travel to the rest of us. So how much...
Josh Goldstein investigates why people will pay more money to see a movie about Asteroids than for a protection system to prevent dangerous asteroid impacts. In an interview with Ed Lu for Planet Money, on NPR's All Things Considered, Lu talks about a two-step process: first...
Preventing Armageddon: The Economic Hurdles Of Asteroid Defense. “Some scientists say we should be doing more to protect the Earth from asteroids. The technical issues are relatively easy, but the economics of asteroid defense are much harder.” Listen to the Podcast: Play in new window | Read...
Asteroid Day Expert Panelist, B612 Chair Emeritus and Apollo 9 Astronaut Rusty Schweickart at the California Academy of Sciences on June 30, 2015. Photo by Donald Kinney. Rusty Schweickart, in conversation with B612 Foundation COO Danica Remy, talks about the recent Asteroid Day events around the...
The aim of Asteroid Day is to inform the public and raise awareness about the possibility that asteroids can collide with the Earth in the future. Today was chosen to highlight the risk because on the same day in 1908, a 30m object entered the...
June 30 is the 107th anniversary of the biggest asteroid strike on the Earth in recorded history. In 1908, an asteroid measuring perhaps 90-190 meters across struck Siberia, damaging over 2,000 square kilometers of Russian forest – an area that measures larger than New York’s five...
(CNN) - Imagine this: It's early morning in 1908. A man sits at a trading post in Vanavara, Siberia, when he is suddenly launched into the air by a powerful force that creates an effect that makes him think his shirt has caught fire. That was...