Detecting and defending Earth from asteroids, other threats

29 September 2008

The Association of Space Explorers (ASE) is calling on the United Nations (UN) to co-ordinate efforts to defend Earth from “potentially catastrophic asteroid threats“.

The report asks the UN to assume responsibility for responding to potentially catastrophic asteroid threats. “For 4.5 billion years, we’ve been bashed continuously by asteroids. It’s time for that to stop,” former Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart told the assembly. The ASE’s vision is first for a global information network, coordinated by the UN, that uses data from ground- and space-based telescopes to find, track and rate the risk of near-Earth objects (NEOs).

Originally published Monday 29 September 2008, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.