Rusty Schweickart, a former U.S. Astronaut, is leading a campaign that aims to convince the United Nations to pay serious attention and dedicate proper resources to the development of an accurate plan of detecting and dealing with potentially hazardous asteroids close to the Earth. In his opinion, the measures would allow for concrete actions for asteroid deflections and timely detection would buy enough time in order to evacuate residents of possibly affected sites.

Schweickart is a member of the Near-Earth Objects (NEO) committee at the Association of Space Explorers comprised of former astronauts and cosmonauts, and has already presented the situation and demands to the UN officials on behalf of the association. As he expects the results, he addressed the media during a conference in Vienna, stating that for the first time in history, we had the necessary technology that would allow us to avoid the presumed fate of dinosaurs.

 

"Over the next 10 or 15 years, because of Pan-STARRS [PANoramic Survey Telescope And Rapid Response System at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy] and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, we're going to end up with an avalanche of near-Earth objects," stated Schweickart, quoted by MSNBC.

 

Charles Simonyi, the software billionaire and supporter of the LSST backed him up, "In the first week, we will see more data from this telescope than all the telescopes in humanity up to that point. In 10 or 15 years, 6,000 [near-Earth objects] are going to become 300,000 or more. The 200 with some probability of impact are going to become 6,000 to 10,000. The two or three of elevated concern are going to go to 100 or more".

 

This requires an international effort, which is why the UN must get involved, since the deflected trajectory of an asteroid could deter it from threatening one place but could also send it on a collision course with another. "In the process of shifting the trajectory off the Earth, it will move across the Earth before it reaches the edge," shared Schweickart. "That is hopefully a temporary risk that is very, very low, if you do it correctly. But in that process, you've got the transitional issue."