About this episode
The episode discusses the measures taken by NASA to track asteroids that could impact Earth and the implications of such impacts.
Humans can mitigate the damage done by the impact of an asteroid given a sufficient lead time. In 1998, the US Congress mandated NASA to detect and track 90% of the 1 km sized asteroids capable of effecting local mass destruction as well as global disruption of agriculture and other human activities. This goal has been accomplished. In 2005 Congress extended the mandate to require NASA to detect and track 90% of the 140-m asteroids capable of destroying a large metropolitan area.
People in this episode
Host: Albert D. Grauer
Topics covered
- asteroids
- NASA
- impact mitigation
- space policy
- astronomy
- disaster preparedness
Keywords
- asteroids
- NASA
- impact
- disaster
- space
- astronomy
- mitigation
- policy
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: NASA
Places: United States, large metropolitan area
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