NAC 2010 (“Report of the NASA Advisory Council Ad Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense,” Oct 6, http://www.nss.org/resources/library/planetarydefense/2010-NASAAdvisoryCouncilOnPlanetaryDefense.pdf)
NASA’s NEO research is a “three-dimensional” activity that advances our knowledge in solar system science, human exploration, and Planetary Defense. For a relatively small incremental investment in instrumentation or capability on science or exploration spacecraft, NEO missions designed for one goal can return substantial information useful to NASA’s Planetary Defense activities. For example, Planetary Defense mission goals (e.g. precision orbit determination; measurements of mass, density, porosity, and rotation state; investigation of the momentum multiplier; searching for NEO satellites, etc.) would also fulfill many fundamental scientific and human exploration objectives. In turn, robotic science spacecraft can demonstrate the precise proximity operations and guidance algorithms necessary for precision “slow push” deflection techniques. In preparation for visits by human explorers, investigation of a NEO’s interior structure, physical properties, and stability of surface materials will furnish data useful for other deflection techniques, such as kinetic impact and regolith ablation. Time is a fourth dimension for NEO research. Early integration of Planetary Defense objectives into NASA’s research and exploration missions provides a cost-effective means to increase the maturity of our technology to meet future impact threats and eliminate duplicate flight missions. Overall, the integration of Planetary Defense investigations into scientific and human exploration missions increases the return from any of NASA’s NEO missions, meeting the needs of managers, policy makers, the science community and the public. Only NASA can do the plan
FORTUNO 2007 (“H. R. 3737: To provide for National Science Foundation and National Aeronautics and Space Administration utilization of the Arecibo Observatory,” bill introduced Oct 3, http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=25609)
(1) Arecibo Observatory is the world's largest single-aperture telescope. It has been recognized as an Electrical Engineering Milestone by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and as a Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Its visitor center draws 120,000 visitors each year. (2) Arecibo radio astronomy led to the first discovery of planets outside our own solar system, the first discovery of a binary pulsar (resulting in a Nobel Prize), and the first detailed three-dimensional mapping of how galaxies are distributed in the universe. (3) Arecibo Observatory's planetary radar has unique abilities worldwide for research on our solar system, including near-Earth asteroids. Besides their scientific importance, near-Earth asteroids may be both a significant hazard to Earth and a potential source of future resources. (4) Arecibo Observatory is a leading United States laboratory for research on Earth's ionosphere. (5) Congress has mandated that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration detect, track, catalogue, and characterize near-Earth asteroids and comets in order to provide warning and mitigation of the potential hazard of such near-Earth objects to the Earth. By being on the forefront of basic research involving Near-Earth Objects, Space Weather, and Global Climate Change, the Arecibo Observatory is an outstanding resource to Congress and to the American People. (6) The efforts taken to date by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation for detecting and characterizing the hazards of Earth orbit-crossing asteroids and comets are not sufficient to the threat posed by such objects to cause widespread destruction and loss of life. (7) The general welfare and security of the United States require that the unique competence of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in science and engineering systems be directed to detecting, tracking, cataloging, and characterizing near-Earth asteroids and comets. The Arecibo Observatory is an invaluable and unique asset in warning and mitigating potential hazards posed by near-Earth objects. NASA is key
NAC 2010 (“Report of the NASA Advisory Council Ad Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense,” Oct 6, http://www.nss.org/resources/library/planetarydefense/2010-NASAAdvisoryCouncilOnPlanetaryDefense.pdf)
For more than a decade, NASA has been searching for near-Earth objects (NEOs) that may pose a potential impact threat to Earth. Both the legislative and executive branches are considering what role NASA may play in expanding its NEO search and developing the capability to prevent or mitigate a future impact. The space agency has broad expertise in scientific exploration and characterization of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) and comets (NECs), and NASA’s deep space operations experience could enable the development of deflection technologies to be used to divert a NEO threatening an impact.
ASTEROIDS 1AC
Advance warning is key to prevent nuclear deflection which would destroy the Outer Space Treaty—it also prevents extremism and panic
BRANDENBURG 2011 (John E. Brandenburg is a plasma physicist at Orbital Technologies in Madison Wisconsin, working on space plasma technologies and space propulsion, “Preparing for a Future Asteroid Crisis,” Astronomical Review, May 16, http://astroreview.com/issue/2011/article/preparing-for-a-future-asteroid-crisis)
The detection of a large asteroid on a collision course with earth is inevitable and could create an unprecedented crisis in human affairs. We live in a dangerous cosmos that doles out death as well as life. Asteroid impacts are the one danger that humanity faces which has the potential to wipe it out. The demise of the dinosaurs by the Chixulube impact stands as example of what happens to species faced with the asteroid threat, who have neither the perception, the capability, or the organization to rise to such a challenge. Such an asteroid crisis will test humanity’s abilities across the full spectrum : its telescope and space technology, its ability to determine the characteristics , orbit, and impact area of the asteroid, and thus its time- to-impact, its ability to prepare whatever countermeasures are required, from simple direct impactor or nuclear rockets or weapons, and finally to government and societal reaction. I explored this type of crisis mentally by writing a technically accurate novel about it. In the novel I explored the dramatic case of a Chicxlube class impactor discovered with only a year’s warning. It is one thing to solve such a problem in the abstract; it is another to sit mentally in impact zone. Telescopes and space technologies give us an advantage over the dinosaurs in survival. We have the ability to map surrounding asteroids and plot their size, characteristics and orbits. The orbit of an identified impactor gives us the all important time-to-impact and its impact zone on Earth. The size and characteristics of the asteroid will yield information on the damage of the projected impact and the range of required countermeasures. It is as possible the asteroid that triggers this future crisis will be discovered by an amateur in his backyard as by a government controlled space telescope, so controlling public knowledge may be difficult. Of the important parameters such a newly discovered impactor probably none is more important than the time-to-impact. The time-to-impact for an impactor is so important because all countermeasures require time and careful study. The time-to-impact for positively indentified impactor will probably be of the order of years, longer than this and the orbit itself cannot be predicted accurately and shorter than this is very unlikely given our present knowledge of the near-Earth-asteroid population. Fortunately, larger, and therefore more massive asteroids, are easier to detect, so the worst case scenario of a large asteroid found only shortly before impact is the least likely. However, it can be said that the shorter the time to impact and the more massive the asteroid, the more severe will be the crisis that ensues and the more extreme the countermeasures required against it. Countermeasures against positively identified impactor of significant size are ultimately complicated by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. For small asteroids, with long warning times, the impact of a space probe may be sufficient to nudge it out of a dangerous orbit. However, for large asteroids, particularly those with short warning times, nuclear weapons will immediately appear on the table of options. This creates problems with the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. The Treaty, signed and ratified by the US and every other space capable nation has two important clauses 1. It forbids claims of national sovereignty over any heavenly body or region of space. 2. It forbids the presence and use of nuclear weapons in space. Technically then, no nation may have the right to change the orbit of an asteroid, since this would assert sovereignty. It is also certainly forbidden to use nuclear weapons to try to deflect or destroy such an impactor. It would be best if exceptions to the Treaty were negotiated beforehand to cover asteroid contingencies, however, such negotiations have not even begun and would take years. If an asteroid crisis begins tomorrow, the treaty may simply be ignored or declared void. Governments may simply decide to pick up the pieces of the 1967 Treaty afterwards. Government action and societal reaction are two areas needing study in preparation for an asteroid crisis. It does little good if warning was given and countermeasures are available, if the nation or nations affected are too dysfunctional to make use of them. Panic, paranoia, paralysis, despair, doomsday cults, terrorism, and incompetence become deadly hazards in an asteroid crisis. Surviving a severe asteroid crisis will require not just technical skill but true statecraft. However, all these problems can be solved. The key to dealing with a future asteroid crisis is to foresee and prepare for one.