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Space/Science » in reply to re: Guess you haven't hear the news yet: the cometary impact hazard is far greater than was believed earlier

re: Guess you haven't hear the news yet: the cometary impact hazard is far greater than was believed earlier
E.P. Grondine — (archived)

Yes, a citation for Shoemaker's last paper is given at the end of the post "The News", here -

As for the historical record over the last 5,000 years, the danger appears to be staggeringly high. My notes on such evidence as we currently have for these impacts is available in Cambridge Conference archives, along with notes and links to the works by others on these impacts. They seem to fit with Shoemaker's final estimate...

In sum, it looks like Tunguska class impacts are now occuring about once every hundred years, with impact mega-tsunami, which is to say about 20,000 times worse than what recently hit SE Asia, about every 1,000 years. More detail from the historical records will be along shortly.

If this turns out to be our current impact rate, cost benefit analysis justifies spedning the funds necessary to construct an early warning system based on the Moon. With certainty, with what is now known with absolute certainty, cost benefit analysis justifies spending to complete the current systems, (at least another $40-60 million for the US part of these), along with significant increases in funding to the Minor Planet Center in Boston and the Southwest Research Institute (offices throughout the southwest) for crater studies and other things, more money to JPL, including radar imaging, more money for the European data handling system, and for the Italian astrodynamicists. I can't comment on the Japanese and Chinese funding levels, other than to say that they have been improving recently to minimally adequate levels - I don't know how much more money they need. These efforts have got to be moved to a very top priority in space funding - say to the level two, three, or four at the outside.

ep

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