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    Zelaya.K's Avatar
    Zelaya.K Posts: 1, Reputation: 1
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    #1

    Nov 28, 2010, 10:40 PM
    US funding for near Earth asteroid
    Should the US government fund a search to find 90% of all near Earth asteroid that are 50m and larger by 2020?
    ebaines's Avatar
    ebaines Posts: 12,131, Reputation: 1307
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    #2

    Nov 30, 2010, 01:55 PM

    There are several different programs being run by the US (through JPL), Japan and Italy that are all geared to finding Near Earth Objects (NEOs). The intent is to locate 90% of all NEOs greater than 1 Km in diameter by 2020 (objects > 1 Km are defined as large asteriods). It is estimated that there may be about 1000 such objects, but the teams are finding many objects as small as 30m - so far they have over 7000 NEOs identified. For further information see: Near-Earth Object Program

    Personally I do believe these are worthwhile projects. It is well known that sooner or later the Earth will be hit by an object of this size, and the result could be massive loss of life. Of course funding should come from all nations, not just the US, Japan and Italy.
    SigmaOnyx's Avatar
    SigmaOnyx Posts: 9, Reputation: 4
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    #3

    Dec 23, 2010, 11:38 PM
    Im thinking yes, right now we only look after about 1% of the sky and in that one percent we have found many near earth asteroids it might help to take a look around us to see if we are in any danger, however the flip side of this coin is that we would know far in advance if an NEOs were going to hit us simply because we would see them, so the question becomes do we spend our money on looking for NEOs or just prepare for one?
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