NASA employs them down at Langlay. Dr Mazanek, the team's leader, tried to warn on Columbia.

Their analysis indicated that a Moon based system is the optimal way of handling these things.
Think of these things as space terrorists, if you like.

The Air Force Earth based system is good - to be completed, in addition to the $20,000,000 spent so far, it will need another $40,000,000 in funding over the next couple of years. There is a war going on in Iraq, cost so far at least $250,000,000,000; the Air Force is part of DoD, and its NEO hazard moneys come from the DoD budget.

Just to handle the increased Air Force NEO data, NASA will have to move its NEO detection budget way up from its current $3,500,000. Given how low NASA support is in the Northeast, where something like only $60,000 per year is spent in Massachusetts, it makes sense for them to subcontract this job to the Minor Planet Center. Another consideration is that the MPC is well respected by NASA's international partners.

Another item which NASA needs to focus on like a laser is hazard definition, particularly in regards to cometary impact - the numbers for this are all over the place, and what is needed is hard data. NASA will have to either increase funding down to SWRI, where they don't have the necessary image recognition talent yet, or fund additional efforts at Carnegie Mellon and/or MIT and Cornell. More computing power is going to be needed as well.

Then there's the problem of really dark objects - and this includes not just hypothetical "dark comets", but the already well known Carbonaceous Chondrites - the CCDs and control programs for the space based infra-red telescopes are going to have to be re-examined to make sure that they can handle initial survey tasks.

In the meantime, NASA has to finance shuttle return to flight, and they still haven't addressed the need for system indepent bailout indicators near to or on the shuttle hatches.

A final point is this: given the lack of a desire by the people of this country to fund a manned Mars mission AT THIS TIME, manned Mars "enthusiasts" should welcome the development of Moon based NEO detection systems as a way improving and lowering the cost of deep space manned systems.

Fix the leak in the hull first, then worry about the lifeboats.

ep