http://www.space.com/news/aiaa_report_010731.htm

Now for my statement...

These folks aren't lightweights, and they are as critical of NASA's current NEO efforts as I have been for some time...

The US will unable to lead the international effort until the split of the NASA NEO effort between Ames and JPL is put to an end.

NEO operations need to be consolidated at JPL, and this item needs to be considered and included in the review of NASA operations which is going on now - now is the time to do it.

My opinion is that JPL's Yeomans has a better grasp on current work in the field than Ame's Morrison.

Morrison must be honored for his early work in the field - but those days have passed. The panel of experts concluded that space based assets will be required to deal with the NEO hazard - something which Morrison has consistently denied in recent years, along with extreme severity of the hazard posed by smaller impactors -

I don't believe Morrison was included in this panel of experts; if so, he's either reversed earlier positions, or he was simply out-voted...

Morrison's mistakes are no surprise, as astrobiology by itself is a big enough field to entirely consume the intellectual resources of any one individual, leaving simply not enough time and energy remaining for other matters -

Caltech has experience with observatories (Palomar) which Ames lacks . Further, JPL has experience engineering spacecraft, experience which will be needed to deal with the hazard, and Ames does not...

If this split is not resolved now, leadership in the NEO field will pass to Europe...

The other management issue is that the Brown Amendment needs to be passed, so as to clarify NASA's responsibility and role in dealing with the very real hazard presented by asteroid and comet impact...

On the engineering side, the question now becomes, "Is a telescope at L-2 preferable to several telescopes located on the Moon, along with radar?"

The arguments between the two options will hinge on coverage, ease of service, information bandwidth, computing power, and power supplies...

That's the news...

EP
http://www.geocities.com/epgrondine

PS - By the way, new information, which was not available to the panel, on additional impacts which occured within the last 5,000 years, will be available shortly...

hour 14
Goodnight