UN Plans Asteroid Response Framework 152
chrb writes "The Association of Space Explorers, a non-profit group of people who have completed at least one Earth orbit in space, has presented a report to the United Nations titled Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response. The UN will now meet in February to discuss the issue and try to define a global political framework for dealing with asteroid-based threats to the Earth."
hmmm (Score:5, Funny)
Will this be like the original, where if you lose a city then it's gone, or the newer version where you can rebuild a city if you blow up enough asteroids? Also, how are we going to get the east and west to cooperate? Will they only shoot down asteroids that come down on their side of the screen? What if they split up and some come onto our side? Oh, the political decisions...
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While at that, why not consider throwing in another coupla trillions and develop an extension to enable the defenders to also shoot down the aliens that undoubtedly hide among the asteroids.
!brucewillis (Score:2, Funny)
The real heroes are the guys (and gals) with the calculators.
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The real heroes are the guys (and gals) with the calculators.
Sure, but you'll only see them in the credits just before they run the copyright notices. Hollywood is like real life -- nobody cares what it took for the star character to finish the job, because it's all about looking cool, sipping martinis, and driving aston martins. Q just got a few witty one-liners, but otherwise it was a 12 hour work day and no vacation to keep the james bonds of the world well-stocked in disposable tech.
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Heh.. most of the time we can't even get a weather forecast right, except as very rough probabilities, and that's our own atmosphere. Even the objects we know about in LEO have huge margins of error at to where they'll land, with paths hundreds of miles wide, and THOUSANDS of miles long (given that small variances in pitch have large effects at speed). The only chance we really have is to intercept these objects long before they become a definite threat. And that's assuming we even see them. It's incred
better be careful (Score:4, Funny)
Asteroid 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope it has less holes in it than the .NET Framework
By the time the UN establishes it's framework, the Asteroid will have been upgraded to version 2.0 and then the UN will have to go back and do a whole re-write.
Comet protection? (Score:4, Funny)
I hope this will protect us against comets that have a chemical composition of less than 1.5% the normal level of cyanogen found in normal comets as well as asteroids.
If it's anything like... (Score:5, Funny)
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That's another thing they'd screw up... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's all well and good to have a bunch of people talking together, but at the end of the day, the UN is utterly useless, and ultimately, the world's going to come looking for the USA for a way out, and then the Americans will quietly ask the British what they think, the French will chime in with their opinion whether anyone likes it or not, and after that brief bit of backchannel talking, the USA will wind up doing something that Europe hailed in private and condemned in public, except for the British, and their people will bitch about the Americans do it, not because its wrong, but they will insist that the British would have done it better had they still had their empire.
Re:That's another thing they'd screw up... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Head in the sand much?
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Head in the sand much?
How is his head in the sand? His remark indicates that his head is clearly not in the sand and that he's been paying attention.
Your head on the other hand...
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The UN can build consensus. (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sure that if an asteroid wiped out the capital of some tinpot dictator that the UN would respond. They would have no trouble building enough consensus to write the Oort cloud a stern letter.
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if you look closely the US isn't doing too well recently!
without Russian supply ships the ISS is cut off. deficit spending not only the state but the whole country.
And -I tell you confidently - there are more ways to skin a cat than the US way.
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"And -I tell you confidently - there are more ways to skin a cat than the US way."
Yes, but our ways have the biggest boobs!
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You know....you can keep repeating that as long as you like, but, it still won't make it true.
How will this be funded? (Score:5, Insightful)
Should funding be broken down by %population of the world, or %landmass occupied? However, I see this as "make the US pay for it". If a non-planet killing asteroid is targeting a nation which has not contributed to the fund/program, should we defend it? The security system on my house doesn't protect my neighbor's, (although my tax dollars which pay for the police, do.).
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Re:How will this be funded? (Score:5, Funny)
We can always offer a refund if you're in the spot that got hit.
Better yet, we'll say that if we screw up and you get hit, then the next asteroid defense is free!
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If you think it should be based on percent of GDP, you'll be happy, because it is.
And yes, that means that the EU (taken as a group) gives more to the UN in dues than the US.
All of this ignores the question of whether or not the US pays what it owes (which it has been lately, I think)
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The US kind of donates the building and practically the entirety of the peacekeeping budget, not to mention troops.
Other countries get paid per soldier per day contributed towards peacekeeping missions, which third world nations with bored armies love.
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But otherwise, I'm surprised (and therefore a little suspicious of the fact!) that the US hasn't donated troops under a UN command since then.
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Re:How will this be funded? (Score:4, Interesting)
However, I see this as "make the US pay for it". If a non-planet killing asteroid is targeting a nation which has not contributed to the fund/program, should we defend it? The security system on my house doesn't protect my neighbor's, (although my tax dollars which pay for the police, do.).
Heh, I always just assumed the US government will do it under the guise of protecting the world, when really, it's just a space superiority weapons system
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Re:How will this be funded? (Score:5, Insightful)
Either way, I have zero faith in the UN being able to put together anything bigger or more complex than a boy scout weekend camping trip without massive corruption, waste and/or bad blood being created between member nations.
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A theoretical asteroid can be of many different sizes. An Apophis sized impactor does have global implications (though its not extinction class); however, something like what exploded above Tunguska in the early 20th century could potentially be devastating within a single country but not have an effect outside of a limited region, like a bad earthquake.
And that is an interesting question, because unlike other natural disasters you know its coming and you can do something about it, but its expensive. So i
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A theoretical asteroid can be of many different sizes. An Apophis sized impactor does have global implications (though its not extinction class); however, something like what exploded above Tunguska in the early 20th century could potentially be devastating within a single country but not have an effect outside of a limited region, like a bad earthquake.
I guess you're assuming here it's a land impact. Most of the Earth is covered by water, making an oceanic impact event much more likely. If an Apophis size asteroid impacted in the Atlantic, which is a theoretical possibility with 99942 Apophis in April 13th 2036, then you're looking at a massive, mile high tidal wave taking out the entire Eastern seaboard of the US, Canada, the Caribbean, Western Europe, South America and West Africa. All gone, quite literally. Nothing but mud remaining. Or it could hit t
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Moreover, I'd say it's worth shooting an asteroid headed for even (say) Antartica, if only as an experiment. After all, we've never done this before, and if it doesn't work out as hoped, we'd like to know that for when one does come at us ourselves.
Actually, that's a very interesting idea. I doubt you're the first to come up with it, but I've certainly never heard it before, and I like the research opportunities this would bring!
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Either way, I have zero faith in the UN being able to put together anything bigger or more complex than a boy scout weekend camping trip without massive corruption, waste and/or bad blood being created between member nations.
The effectiveness of international bodies/treaties depends on your metric. In terms of climate change they haven't done a very good job reducing CO2 emissions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Increase_in_greenhouse_gas_emission_since_1990 [wikipedia.org]
As of year-end 2006, the United Kingdom and Sweden were the only EU countries on pace to meet their Kyoto emissions commitments by 2010. While UN statistics indicate that, as a group, the 36 Kyoto signatory countries can meet the 5% reduction target by 2012, most of the progress in greenhouse gas reduction has come from the stark decline in Eastern European countries' emissions after the fall of communism in the 1990s.
Most countries have done OK out of it though. The EU managed to get the cut in emissions to be based on 1990s emissions, even though when it was signed emissions here already dropping due to Communist era polluters closing down. Russia did even better, and may h
Aiming a little high, eh? (Score:2)
[...] Either way, I have zero faith in the UN being able to put together anything bigger or more complex than a boy scout weekend camping trip without massive corruption, waste and/or bad blood being created between member nations.
You, sir, are an optimist. I'd set the bar at a boy scout picnic, and would be pleasantly surprised if they managed to pull it off.
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Those police don't actually protect his house you know... they just take pictures and fill out paperwork you send to the insurance company after some hoodlum ransacked your house while you were at work.
God, I hope an anti asteroid system isn't like the police, I'd prefer if it was more like the secret service. You know, everyone is pretty focused on that one important dude, and if he gets offed, a whole bunch of people get fired.
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Fired and crushed under a billion tons of rock
Re:How will this be funded? (Score:5, Informative)
If a non-planet killing asteroid is targeting a nation which has not contributed to the fund/program, should we defend it?
That's much less likely than the asteroid hitting an ocean. After a glance at the globe, it looks to me like most of the world's ocean area has straight shot to at least some portion of the US coastline. So if the goal is to avoid those 1000-foot high tsunamis, the US probably has more interest in ensuring that the program gets implemented than to worry about who's not paying.
Act of god... (Score:2, Interesting)
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Volunteer fire departments have that same problem -- what to do about people who refuse to contribute? Most have hit on a simple solution: if you don't pay your fair share to support the VFD, they *will* just stand by and let your house burn. Usually it only takes one such example.
Second, considering that asteroid hits are neither an everyday occurrance, nor something we can realistically defend against anyway, one has to wonder just exactly who benefits from the money this will suck out of the U.S.
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Hamilton, Montana, grange (rural) volunteer fire department, 1970s. Others that I heard of in the same area when I lived in MT, but don't recall exactly where ... the cite I recall because I knew someone who lived there.
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Yes we should defend it for a variety of reasons.
Firstly, if an asteroid does hit a nation that didn't contribute, inevitably people in America and around the world will cry out about the "Humanity Crisis in $COUNTRY as a result of the asteroid strike" and it will end up costing us many times more money than if we had stopped the damn thing in the first place. The EU and other countries do indeed contribute to the humanitarian crises of the world, but that doesn't mean it won't cost us money.
Secondly, it wo
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Okay, United Nations, why don't you sanction us? Sanction is with your army. Oh, that's right! You don't have an army! Well, I guess you'd better shut the fuck up!
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As to money, well the U.S. won't even be able to pay its share--look at the UN fees it never paid when it had plenty of money.
Um, the U.S. more than makes up for it's lack of U.N. dues with it's contribution of forces when U.N. sanctions are enforced. The dollar value of their contribution dwarfs that of all other U.N. members combined.
The UN shouldn't be screwing around with Astroids (Score:5, Funny)
.... everybody knows that killer robots are the real menace.
Artist's Rendition of the Framework (Score:5, Funny)
http://homepage.mac.com/lyford/4umsf/asteroids.jpg [mac.com]
Dibs (Score:1)
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A framework? (Score:2)
Alternative energy source (Score:1)
That's a relief! (Score:2)
Our most capable politicians in charge of determining how to deflect and asteroid. How reassuring!
Brett
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Don't worry - the skills of a politician are only two: getting elected, and knowing who to delegate work to.
This will promptly be handed off to their brightest scientists. Or maybe they'll just throw grant money at the guys who proposed the problem.
Good DAY, Sir! (Score:2, Funny)
A nice lawn chair. (Score:2)
World-burning asteroids of the type we're starting to see are part of a rather large cluster which has been studiously not-discussed since it began its inbound solar trajectory a few years back from where it was unceremoniously nine-pinned from the Kuiper Belt by a brown dwarf. [telegraph.co.uk] I suspect that even if we had put some kind of defense into place years ago, it might find itself sorely taxed.
Instead, I believe the response to an impending asteroid pummeling anticipated by our mighty world leaders involves a gre
Offsite backups (Score:4, Insightful)
For true disaster preparedness the only solution is a backup hot site. Mars would be nice.
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For true disaster preparedness the only solution is a backup hot site. Mars would be nice.
You may speak in jest, sir, but your statement holds a lot of truth. Establishing self-sustaining colonies throughout the solar system (and eventually the stars) should be the primary goal of any space program, not watching earthworms in zero-g. Get yourself established on other planets and moons, and that technology will feed directly back into asteroid defense and "green" efforts.
Plus, it provides jobs and incentive for people to stay in school. It's a win all around. And as John Young said, the dinos
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This sentiment translates directly into massive funding for esoteric physics research, not the silly firecracker stunts of today's manned NASA.
Chemical rockets simply won't cut it.
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Wouldn't Venus make for a better hot site?
I wish it said which part of the UN. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think this is going to be the UN General Assembly.
I doubt it'll even be the UN Security Council.
I'd half expect it to be the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs, which handles the treaty on the peaceable use of outer space, and does things that are actually useful, like maintaining the registry of what's been launched and is whizzing around up there... but this sort of thing is a bit different than what UNOOSA has been doing.
My Christmas-vacation homework will thus be:
1. Ask friend at UNOOSA whether they're involved, and
2. Ask Dave Tholen (Apophis discoverer) whether he knows anything.
Optionally:
3. Report back.
Re:I wish it said which part of the UN. (Score:5, Informative)
Okay, I poked around a bit... looks like the Working Group on Near-Earth Objects (mentioned in the BBC piece) isn't (as I had initially thought) the IAU WGNEO, but an occasionally-convened body under the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.
Evidently UN HQ in NY has hosted a couple lil' conferences on the subject of NEOs in the past decade or so. Dunno whether this next gig in February will be there, or in Vienna, but I'm gonna start asking around. Might be an interesting thing to check out.
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Well, I asked around and the Scientific and Technical Committee is meeting Februray 9-20 at the UN's Vienna International Center in Austria. I don't know which of those days the NEO working group will meet, but I'm trying to see if I can somehow be in the area (or at least in Europe) around that time (which isn't exactly a trivial thing, since I live on the other side of the planet).
Actually getting in might also be non-trivial, now that I think of it... but if I make it all the way to Vienna, I'm pretty s
Oh, great (Score:1, Flamebait)
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No, there are many things the UN does well [democracyarsenal.org]. Also, the Oil For Food Program did accomplish its humanitarian goal [oilforfoodfacts.org], despite the corruption. The UN had no authority or the resources to stop smuggling, although it did warn about it. The nations responsible for it, among them the US and UK, didn't do much about it at the time, however.
I'm not sure that I'd like men in blue helmets watching the skies, but their incompetence and corrupion is exaggerated.
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The Oil for Food program was possibly the single most corrupt administrative activity that the U.N. ever enagged in. Aside from NOT accomplishing AT ALL what
if the asteroid is too big (Score:2)
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Hit the reset button (Score:1)
A Little Confused (Score:2)
Does "asteroid-based threats" mean threats issued while the party making the threat is on an asteroid, or threats that indicate the use of an asteroid?
Re: UN Plans Asteroid Response Framework (Score:1)
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On the upside though the debris from the impact will cure global warming.
Not if... (Score:2)
Re:I truly do not (Score:5, Insightful)
It is also a natural occurrence that we are here, able to perceive a threat to our species, and eliminate that threat.
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What exactly does 'perceive a threat to our species' and 'eliminate that threat' mean? In your context, it means asteroids. However, the greatest threat to our species isn't from space, it's the way we treat each other. So why the hell are we more worried about random rocks from space, when it's exactly that mentality that leads to all the wars and conflict on earth? Perhaps instead of trying to dominate, crush and otherwise cause further separation, we need to be figuring out how to live co-operatively
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First off, I feel your post veers somewhat from the original intent of the parent. The parent states that we should naturally let things happen, which includes letting an asteroid destroy earth, so that other, smarter species can arise. I simply added to that same part of the Venn diagram the notion that we have also arisen naturally and from that have a natural instinct for survival through perception of dangers (in this case an asteroid that could obliterate earth) and we have naturally evolved the abilit
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Although I do wonder: Would this more capable species do anything to stop future asteroid impacts? I say we do our best and if we are incompetent and end up getting wiped out, then it's our own fault. To not try at all makes no sense.
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Do I detect uncertainty in Uranus?
Libra: You will find yourself undecided as to whether to die in the initial fireball or in the tsunami deluge that follows.
Taurus: That unhappy time at home will come to an abrupt end towards the end of the month.
Capricorn: That tall dark handsome stranger will turn out to just be a handsome stranger in a very large shadow. Briefly.
Virgo: You can look forward to not having to look
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believe we should be messing with the natural occurances of the solar system. Asteroid collisions are how we got here, how we will end, and how a new smarter, more capable species will come again. Let it happen naturally. End of story.
Tell you what, next time you get critically ill or injured, we should just let you die a natural death so that a new smarter and more capable person can take your place. I say let it happen naturally, End of story.
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What if we are the new smarter, more capable species?
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believe we should be messing with the natural occurances of the solar system. Asteroid collisions are how we got here, how we will end, and how a new smarter, more capable species will come again.
Let it happen naturally. End of story.
You're trolling, I know but look at it this way. If humanity survives long enough we have essentially Godlike levels of technology. No species before humans was as good at maths or science as we are, and there's no reason to assume that post asteroid impact one would ever evolve. Intelligence at a human level is probably some sort of evolutionary fluke as most organisms could get by perfectly adequately without a sense of self, and without the mental hardware to be able to handle maths or complex languages.
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I prefer Python on a Shuttle myself.