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CCNet 24/2002 - 15 February 2002
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"All this shows well that humankind still is not yet ready to face the threat of dangerous asteroids and comets. Only when humans will stop planning and conducting big wars among themselves, will the governments have more time to think about the new danger coming from space. And ecologists will get mature to the point of not hampering their governmental agencies to put up missiles and weapons in space if these are to prevent dangerous asteroids and comets from killing the whole of humankind, including the ecologists themselves!"
-- Claudio Maccone, Center for Astrodynamics, Turin

"The Spaceguard approach is intended to provide decades of advanced warning of any impact, permitting defensive measures to be carried out far from the Earth and long in advance of a predicted impact."
-- David Morrison

"The planetary defense issues raised by Claudio Maccone's paper and in subsequent media reports are not as simple or confused as David Morrison seems to suggest. When David says that "The Spaceguard approach is intended to provide decades of advanced warning of any impact", he does not really means *any* impact. What he is trying to say is: we are currently only concerned with the impact threat posed by *large* asteroids with *long* warning times. While I agree that it is more likely to discover a big, km-sized impactor many decades before a collision with Earth, it seems unwise to ignore the possibility of finding smaller NEAs (or, for that matter, long-period comets) with much shorter warning times."
-- Benny J Peiser

- ><><><>< - ><><>< - ><>< - ><><>< - ><><><>< -

1. SPACE-BASED MISSILE DEFENSE NEEDED TO THWART ASTEROID ATTACKS . . .
Space.com, 14 February 2002

• POLITICAL PROBLEMS FOR PLANETARY DEFENSE . . .
Astronautica, Volume 50, Issue 3, February 2002, Pages 185-199

• CONFUSION ON NEA DEFENSE . . . ?
David Morrison

• NEO IMPACT WARNING TIMES: NOT AS SIMPLE AS MANY BELIEVE . . .
Benny J Peiser

• STUDY ON SOLAR CONCENTATORS FOR NEO DEFLECTION . . .
Christian Gritzner

• ASTEROID DEFENSE: NUDGE NUDGE, WINK WINK . . .
Michael Paine

• TO NUKE OR TO NUDGE . . .
Space.com, 11 February 2002

• DEEP IMPACT PROJECT TAKES BIG STEP TOWARD 2005 COMET COLLISION . . .
Andrew Yee

• STREAK FROM SKY MYSTIFIES MANY . . .
Morning Journal, 14 February 2002

• FROM THE TORINO TO THE PALERMO SCALE: QUANTIFYING THE IMPACT RISK . . .
Tumbling Stone, 11/2002

• BOOK REVIEW: TARGET EARTH . . .
Space Policy, Volume 18, Issue 1, February 2002

...And Finally:

• UPROAR OVER A SLICED, AND REVERED, METEORITE . . .
The New York Times, 14 Februar 2002

All currently available at CCNet.

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Dan

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