PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 13/2001 - 26 January 2001
------------------------------
What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing,
and what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers, and me.
--Kermit the Frog
(1) NIGHT SKY SHOW LIKELY A METEOR
Ron Baalke <baalke@jpl.nasa.gov>
(2) BRIEFINGS AND LIVE FEED SET FOR FIRST ASTEROID TOUCHDOWN
NASANews@hq.nasa.gov
(3) HOW TO BECOME A CRATER RATER
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(4) RESEARCHERS LINK GLOBAL WARMING AND CIVILISATION COLLAPSE
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(5) RUSSIA PONDERS NASA OFFER ON MIR DOWNING
SpaceDaily, 25 January 2001
(6) SCIENTISTS HOPE TO FORECAST EARTHQUAKES
Ananova, 24 January 2001
(7) ADDING THE 'OID'
Matthew Genge <M.Genge@nhm.ac.uk>
(8) WATER BEARING MINERALS ON VENUS AND CARBONATITES.
Matthew Genge <M.Genge@nhm.ac.uk>
(9) U.S. LOBBY GROUP PLAN PLANETARY PROTECTION ASSOCIATION
Andy Smith <astrosafe@yahoo.com>
==============
(1) NIGHT SKY SHOW LIKELY A METEOR
From Ron Baalke <baalke@jpl.nasa.gov>
From Anchorage Daily News, 24 January 2001
http://www.adn.com/search/story/0,2392,232667,00.html
Night sky show likely a meteor
SPECTACLE: The FAA and the troopers received calls about a
greenish-white
light.
By Liz Ruskin
Sandra Lemke and her daughter were driving home Monday evening,
near the
Huffman Road exit of the Seward Highway, when something bright
lighted up
the night sky.
"It streaked across the sky, with chunks kind of breaking
off and then
burning out," she said. "It was bigger than anything
I've ever seen before."
It was about 75 degrees above the horizon, she said, and traveled
east to
west. Her teenager was awestruck. "Oh Mom, what was
that?" she asked.
Lemke said she thought it might be space junk falling into the
Earth's
atmosphere. She'd read that the Russian space station Mir was
having
problems. Maybe a chunk of it fell off.
Scott Johnson, a spokesman for the Air Force Space Command in
Colorado
Springs, Colo., said it was probably a meteor. He said he hadn't
been
notified of any man-made space debris falling at that hour.
The Lemkes weren't the only ones floored by the spectacle. The
Federal
Aviation Administration got two calls Monday night from people in
the
Glennallen area who both reported a greenish-white flash. Both
callers said
it occurred at 8:20 p.m. Lemke said her dashboard clock read 8:27
p.m.
No aviation accidents or overdue flights had been reported to the
FAA that
evening, according to the agency's operations center. The Alaska
State
Troopers in Glennallen took a similar report.
Karen Engstrom and her 9-year-old daughter were walking their dog
near
Anchorage's University Lake when they saw it. "It lit up the
sky," she said.
"It was like fireworks."
It had a beautiful tail and seemed so close it looked like it was
landing in
the inlet, she said. Her daughter made a wish.
Engstrom figured it was a meteor. "Either that or a jet
engine landing in
someone's bedroom," she said.
A meteor is a streak of light across the sky, and especially
bright ones are
called fireballs. They are caused by naturally occurring space
debris,
usually ranging in size from a grain of sand to a pebble. The
particles
hurtle easily through the vacuum of space and then plow into the
Earth's
thick atmosphere. The friction of the air causes them to vaporize
in a
white-hot streak.
Because the debris hits the atmosphere traveling to 45 miles per
second, an
object the size of a grain of rice can produce a mile-long tail.
Fireballs, because of their brightness and sudden appearance,
give the
illusion of closeness. Airline pilots have swerved for meteors
that were
actually 100 miles away, according to Sky and Telescope magazine.
Sometimes fireball fragments fall to Earth and are recovered, as
happened
last year in British Columbia. That fireball, which exploded in
the night
sky on Jan. 18, was witness from Juneau to the Yukon.
Whatever she saw Monday night, Lemke said, it was amazing. She
wanted to
honk her horn and ask other drivers if they saw it, too.
"I've lived in
Alaska for 22 years and it was just the most interesting thing
I've ever
seen," she said.
Copyright 2001, Anchorage Daily News
=============
(2) BRIEFINGS AND LIVE FEED SET FOR FIRST ASTEROID TOUCHDOWN
From NASANews@hq.nasa.gov
Donald Savage
Headquarters, Washington,
DC
January 25, 2001
(Phone: 202/358-1547)
Helen Worth
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD
(Phone: 240/228-5113)
NOTE TO EDITORS: N01-05
BRIEFINGS AND LIVE FEED SET FOR FIRST ASTEROID TOUCHDOWN
On Feb. 12, NASA makes history when mission controllers attempt
to bring a
spacecraft down to the surface of an asteroid for the first time.
Controllers will send commands to the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft
to initiate
a four-hour series of engine burns designed to set the spacecraft
down
gently on the asteroid Eros at about 3:01
p.m. EST.
The target site is on a saddle-shaped area known as Himeros on
the
Manhattan-sized asteroid. The goal is to obtain high-resolution
imagery as
NEAR Shoemaker, which has completed its one-year orbital mission
of Eros,
slowly drops to the surface.
A media briefing to discuss the mission's science results and the
details of
the descent to the surface of Eros is set for 1 p.m. EST,
Wednesday, Jan.
31, in the James E. Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E
St. SW,
Washington, DC. The briefing will be carried live on NASA
Television with
question-and-answer capability for reporters at participating
NASA Centers.
Speakers for the briefing will be:
- Dr. Edward Weiler, Associate Administrator for Space
Science,
NASA Headquarters
- Dr. Andrew Cheng, NEAR Project Scientist, The Johns
Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Laurel,
MD
- Dr. Mark Robinson, Imaging Team member, Northwestern
University, Evanston, IL
- Dr. Jessica Sunshine, Staff Scientist, Science
Applications
International Corp., Chantilly, VA
- Dr. Robert Farquhar, NEAR Mission Director, APL
On Monday, Feb. 12, 2001, "Descent to Eros" events will
be held at the
Applied Physics Laboratory's Kossiakoff Center, in Laurel, MD.
Media
interested in covering the descent activities at APL should
contact Helen
Worth, APL Public Affairs Office.
A brief summary of the Feb. 12 activities are:
- 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. EST -- Recap of the mission
- 1:45 to 3:30 p.m. EST -- Descent Activities from the NEAR
Mission Operations Center (broadcast live on satellite).
On Wednesday, Feb. 14, a press conference is scheduled at 1 p.m.
EST in
APL's Kossiakoff Center to discuss details of the landing.
Because NEAR was
not designed to land, there is very
little chance the spacecraft will continue to operate after it
reaches the
surface of Eros.
Due to the expected launch of the space shuttle mission in
February, live
coverage of the descent-day activities on Feb. 12 and the
post-mission
briefing on Feb. 14 will not be broadcast on NASA TV, but will be
available
on a separate satellite. Details regarding those two events,
including
updated satellite information, will be provided early next month.
NASA TV is broadcast on GE-2, transponder 9C, C-Band, located at
85 degrees
West longitude. The frequency is 3880.0 MHz. Polarization is
vertical and
audio is monaural at 6.8 MHz.
============
(3) HOW TO BECOME A CRATER RATER
From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
[Extracted from ScienceNOW, AAAS.]
Thursday, 25 January 2001, 7:00 PM
How to Become a Crater Rater
By MITCHELL LESLIE
Here's a way to mark the year 2001 -- and take part in your own
space
odyssey -- without leaving your desk. At a new Web site, you can
become a
"clickworker" who helps planetary scientists at NASA's
Ames Research Center
in California. After completing the site's short tutorial, you're
ready to
scrutinize decades-old photos snapped by the Viking orbiters and
classify
martian craters as fresh, degraded, or "ghost."
Crater data could help answer questions such as how fast the
surface of Mars
ages and what causes it to change. But scientists and grad
students now
spend many tedious months classifying the splotches. The
Clickworkers pilot
project should show the level of interest in this kind of work
and whether
people with minimal training can perform it accurately, says NASA
knowledge
engineer Bob Kanefsky.
So far, so good: Since its 17 November launch, Mars Clickworkers
has chalked
up more than 200,000 crater identifications. And collectively,
the amateurs
seem to be doing almost as well at crater identification as
expert planetary
geologists, Kanefsky says. If that continues, the project may
expand to
newer, higher resolution images from the Mars Global Surveyor.
* Mars Clickworkers
http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/top
Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement
of Science.
===========
(4) RESEARCHERS LINK GLOBAL WARMING AND CIVILISATION COLLAPSE
From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Contact: Elizabeth Luciano, luciano@journ.umass.edu
Immediate Release: Jan. 25, 2001
Climate Change Played A Role In Collapse Of Ancient Societies,
Suggests
UMass Researcher
UMass geoscientist and Yale archeologist combine forces; project
published
in Science
AMHERST, Mass. -- Sudden climate changes may have been a major
factor in the
collapse of several societies during the past 10,000 years,
according to a
study by a team of researchers with ties to the University of
Massachusetts.
The study offers an intriguing window on the future, the
scientists suggest.
Raymond Bradley and Harvey Weiss offer details in the Jan. 26
issue of the
journal Science. Bradley is head of the geosciences department at
UMass.
Weiss, a Yale University archeologist, holds an adjunct post at
UMass.
Funding for the project came from a variety of sources, including
the
National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the
Humanities, and
the U.S. Department of Energy.
"In general, climate is a major factor when societies
unravel, but at times
in the past, it's been the decisive factor," said Bradley,
whose studies on
global warming and greenhouse gases have received extensive
notice in recent
years. The theory differs from widely held views that societies
were
resilient and adaptable in the face of changes in the external
environment,
but failed due to combinations of social, political, and economic
forces.
The two scientists combined their expertise, comparing when
various
societies fell apart with occurrences of major climate changes.
Scientists
are able to determine the climate of past centuries with high
accuracy, by
studying sediments that are layered along lake bottoms, and the
chemistry of
ice cores, as well as of stalagmites and stalactites in caves.
"We felt
there were sufficient examples to point out the links,"
Bradley said.
The societies they considered existed during prehistoric and
early historic
times, and were located all around the world, including Africa,
the
Mediterranean, and North and South America. The team defined
collapse as an
abandonment of an established community, due to a lack of
available food. In
many cases, farming and harvesting efforts faltered during
prolonged
droughts. Lacking adequate food, the societies became nomadic and
followed
the rains.
"Societies that have been close to subsistence levels had
certain
expectations about weather conditions, such as amounts of
rainfall, and
their patterns of existence -- their infrastructures -- were
built on those
expectations," Bradley said. "Such expectations would
have been handed down
for generations. Thus, a sudden climate shift, such as a drought,
would have
presented completely unfamiliar conditions. If a major climate
shift
persisted, it would have caused unprecedented disruption in their
ability to
secure food."
When societies did collapse, the team found, several elements
related to
climate change were generally present: the change was abrupt; was
persistent
over decades or even centuries; and was unprecedented in the
experiences of
the people living during those times. "The change had to be
of a sufficient
magnitude to threaten the food supply," said Bradley.
Turning to the future, Bradley said: "It's fairly inarguable
that the
population is going to grow from 6 billion today to nearly 9-12
billion by
the year 2050, according to the United Nations. A lot of the
developing
world lives at subsistence levels, and is already vulnerable to
year-to-year
variations in climate." The combination of accelerated
population growth and
projected changes in the climate "make for a potent mix for
real problems on
a global scale," he suggested. Furthermore, although
scientists can
reasonably project population and temperature, it's harder to
determine how
and where rainfall patterns will change during the next
half-century. "Due
to the modern political systems, people may not be able to follow
the rains
as they once did."
The concern extends to the developed world, as well, he said:
"Much of our
infrastructure -- our hydroelectric dams, our levees, and coastal
construction -- were built based on weather patterns that we
expect to
continue. But if you have a hydroelectric dam, and you can't meet
the
society's demand for electricity, that's a problem," said
Bradley, pointing
to the energy crisis in California. "We're somewhat
insulated by technology,
and we're not going to starve, but even in the developed world
there may be
disruptions."
Raymond Bradley may be reached at rbradley@geo.umass.edu
or 413-253-7058.
------------
MODERATOR'S NOTE: I'm afraid what we have here is another flawed
attempt to
associate the current global warming scare with *real* natural
disasters
that occurred in ancient times and which may have contributed to
the
collapse of a number of highly developed civilisations. The facts
are clear
and simple: In *all* cases of archaeologically evidenced
civilisation
collapse (e.g. those ancient societies that terminated around
2300 BC, 1200
BC or 540 AD), the global or hemispheric temperatures at the time
of
collapse suddenly *deteriorated*. This catastrophic drop in
temperature is
unambiguously documented in narrow tree-rings and acidity peaks
found in
ice-cores. In short, these are the destinct and most reliable
markers that
correspond to the start of civilisation collapse (see: Benny J
Peiser,
Trevor Palmer and Mark Bailey [1998], Natural Catastrophes during
Bronze Age
Civilisations, Oxford). The abruptness is due to the fact that we
are
dealing, almost certainly, with short-term natural catastrophes
rather than
continuous climate change for which there is no
dendrochronological
evidence. These sudden climatic downturns have been clearly
detected in the
tree-ring and ice-core records (see M.G.L. Baillie [1995]: A
Slice through
Time: Dendrochronology and precision Dating, London). I should
also stress
that *all warming periods* during the Holocene are well
documented to be
associated with population expansion, economic growth and
civilisation
building. It is only when temperatures deteriorate that
populations,
economies and societies contract - or, as has happened in the
past, even
collapse. Last but not least, many of the 20th century's worst
droughts and
food crises were the direct result of political mismanagement or
genocidal
strategies (e.g. those in China, Russia and many in Africa).
Nowadays, these
problems could be tackled and largely overcome by technological
advances and
international co-operation - if there is political progress and
economic
growth in those countries most prone to year-by-year climate
variation.
Benny J Peiser
============
(5) RUSSIA PONDERS NASA OFFER ON MIR DOWNING
From SpaceDaily, 25 January 2001
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/010125132445.kfzxa3sw.html
MOSCOW (AFP) Jan 25, 2001
Russian space technicians are considering an offer by the US
space agency
NASA to join in the operation to bring down the ageing Mir space
station,
due for a Pacific Ocean splashdown in early March, officials said
Thursday.
NASA has offered technical assistance in ensuring a safe re-entry
for the
space station which has been troubled by numerous glitches over
the past two
years, ITAR-TASS quoted Yury Grigoriyev, deputy director of the
Energiya
construction company, as saying.
The American offer has been made solely in the case of an
emergency, he
added.
The Russian Space Agency has indicated previously that it could
call on US,
French or Australian aid to ensure the security of the operation.
International experts have warned that technical failures could
cause the
operation to go badly wrong, endangering regions far from the
planned
splashdown site.
"The United States possesses powerful radar equipment that
can help us
observe the trajectory of the station's movements," Russian
Space Agency
spokesman Sergei Gorbunov said.
The space station is being brought down after 15 years in orbit
after
becoming increasingly erratic.
© 2000 Agence France-Presse.
============
(6) SCIENTISTS HOPE TO FORECAST EARTHQUAKES
From Ananova, 24 January 2001
http://www.ananova.co.uk/news/story/sm_184566.html?menu=news.scienceanddiscovery
Scientists believe it will be possible to forecast earthquakes by
measuring
the polarisation of light reflected by the Earth's surface.
The discovery is based on the study of the Earth's geoelectrical
field,
observing alterations in areas traditionally prone to earthquakes
and then
predicting short-term future activity.
It is thought the alterations will forecast impending
earthquakes, making it
possible to warn people to evacuate the area.
The prediction would be confirmed by a measurement of underground
pressure
near the surface of the Earth where it corresponds to the altered
geoelectrical field.
Pravda reports a University of Moscow team hopes its discovery
will mean
observation posts can be set up to monitor magnetic fields.
Copyright 2001, Ananova
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(7) ADDING THE 'OID'
From Matthew Genge <M.Genge@nhm.ac.uk>
Scientists love terminology, its one of these subjects that can
give us
hours of harmless fun arguing with each other without anyone
feeling
particularly put out afterwards. The whole of this taxonomy and
classification business is all about putting circular pegs in
square pigeon
holes to try and work out how the pegs relate to each other.
In CCNET (25th Jan, 2001) Duncan Steel quite rightly corrects the
use of
Meteor in connection with a meteorite and points out that
meteoroid is the
best term to use, 'oid' of course meaning 'a thingy-like thing'.
The problem
is always where do you draw the arbitary line between the thingy
and its
thing. Probably the best place for a lower limit to meteoroid is
1 mm rather
than 100 microns suggested by Duncan since micrometeorites up to
a mm can be
recovered from Antarctic ice. Objects between 1 mm and a few
centimetres
usually being completely destroyed during atmospheric entry and
larger
objects, if tough enough, reaching the surface to produce
meteorites.
A useful upper limit for meteoroid is probably given by the
largest known
meteorites, i.e. the Cape York shower at about 70 tonnes of iron
in total.
Which taking ~90% mass loss during atmospheric entry suggests
preatmospheric
sizes of around a hundred cubic metres. Close to the size
suggested by
Duncan which is roughly equivalent to the minimum size of
crater-forming
projectile.
Personally I'm more concerned that 'asteroid' is rather an
inappropriate
name for several billion tonnes of rock and metal that's
definitely not a
'star-like thingy', but then I'm a meteoritist.
(8) WATER BEARING MINERALS ON VENUS AND CARBONATITES.
From Matthew Genge <M.Genge@nhm.ac.uk>
Johnson and Fegley's discovery (Icarus, 146, 2001) that tremolite
Ca2(Mg,Fe)5[Si8O22)(OH,F)2 can remain metastable for geologically
significant periods under the atmospheric conditions of the
venusian surface
is intriging, however, is tremolite likely to be a significant
constituent
of venusian surface rocks?
On Earth tremolite is associated with contact metamorphism of
impure
dolomites and forms by the reaction of dolomite and quartz.
Terrestrial
dolomites are formed either by diagenesis of biotic carbonates or
by direct
precipitation from saline solutions. Neither seems particularly
likely to
have occurred on the venusian surface. Carbonates might be
expected to be an
important constituent of the venusian surface due to reactions
with the
atmosphere considering its high partial pressure of CO2 and
elevated
temperatures. However, such 'weathering' reactions are a feature
of the
present environmental conditions of Venus and would post-date any
early
water-rich epoch.
One source of carbonate rocks that might be appropriate for Venus
are the
magmatic carbonates as represented by carbonatites. These are a
relatively
rare on Earth, having around 300 occurrences worldwide, but there
is
circumstantial evidence that such lavas occur on Venus. The
sinuous Canali
observed in Magellan images, which can be several thousand km in
length, are
thought to have been formed by very low viscosity magmas.
Carbonatites
lavas, such as those at Oldoinyo Lengai in Tanzania, have
viscosities of
~0.005 Pa s less than water and solidus temperatures a few
hundred degrees
higher than ambient surface temperatures on Venus. Carbonatite
lavas would,
therefore, certainly be fluid enough to have formed the Canali.
Significantly melting experiments on carbonated mantle
peridotites suggest
that parental mantle-derived carbonate melts are dolomitic and
thus if
present on venus could enable the formation of tremolite through
interaction
with later water-bearing basaltic magmas. Observations of
carbonate viens
within oceanic mantle-derived xenoliths also suggests that
carbonate melts
are not restricted to the continental lithosphere on Earth and
could be
generated in the same source regions as basaltic magmas albeit
under lower
degrees of partial melting.
Unless the venusian mantle is significantly richer in carbonate
than the
Earth's, carbonatites are, however, unlikely to be abundant
constituents of
the venusian crust and any tremolites that formed within them are
likely to
be rare and sparsely distributed. More likely survivors from a
'wet'
venusian past are perhaps likely to be amphiboles such as
hornblende and
kaersutite both which are found in terrestrial basic and
ultrabasic rocks,
and micas such as biotite and phlogopite which are relatively
refractory.
Such minerals could be present within early venusian basic and
ultrabasic
rocks, however, their detection on the surface would only be
possible in
exposed ancient terraines or in the chance occurrence of crustal
xenoliths
within more recent flows. Considering the extensive resurfacing
of Venus
areas of old terrain would have to be specifically targetted by a
lander in
order to search for the presence of water-bearing minerals. Such
a mission,
unless a rover, would have to have the main objective of
investigating the
geological history of Venus rather than its current activity.
Instrumentation needed to search for hydrous minerals, however,
need not be
specialised since a Raman or infra red spectrometer can be used
to
characterise a wide range of minerals including those with
structural water
(OH stretches around 2900 to 3100 cm-1).
____________________
Dr Matthew J. Genge
Researcher (Meteoritics)
Department of Mineralogy, The Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK.
Tel: Int + 020 7 942 5581
Fax: Int.+ 020 7 942 5537
email: M.Genge@nhm.ac.uk
Staff internet page http://www.nhm.ac.uk/mineralogy/genge/genge.htm
==================
(9) U.S. LOBBY GROUP PLAN PLANETARY PROTECTION ASSOCIATION
From Andy Smith <astrosafe@yahoo.com>
Hello Benny and CCNetters,
The CCNet report, on the interview with Dr. Atkinson, was very
encouraging.
He is also clearly supporting the need for an orbiting
asteroid/comet
hunting and early-warning system (to help us find the mass of
very dangerous
sub-kilometer NEO). This system, which might also be a valuable
component of
the interception and deflection system (ADS), would go well with
our
excellent and increasing terrestrial asteroid telescope (TAT)
facilities and
teams and we hope his optimism and hard work are rewarded. Our
Russian and
Japanese colleagues have also stressed this need.
Asteroid/Comet Emergency Magnitude Comparison (ACE)Scale
In addition to its great value as an information and
communication tool,
CCNet is very helpful in
promoting collaboration on critical issues. The impact comparison
work done
by Michael Paine fits well with our ten-step exponential ACE
scale. Step 1,
as you will recall, is a Tunguska or Barringer size object(50
meter or 20
megaton range) and each increasing step doubles the NEO diameter
(Step 10 is
about the size of Hale-Bopp....in the 25 kilometer range).
In our Table, the first column is for the step number, the second
is for the
NEO average width (in km). The third is for the destructive
kinetic energy
(in megatons of TNT equivalence).The step number compares roughly
to the log
of the destructive kinetic energy.
The forth column is for the risk interval or average time, in
years, between
like events. The log of this value is roughly equal to the step
number plus
1. These values are roughly within an order-of-magnitude of other
estimates
and we use the Scale to give public groups some feeling for the
danger
magnitudes associated with NEO of different sizes. Most
terrestial dangers
(earthquakes, vocanic eruptions, etc.) are at or below Step 2.
We are on the way to defining a simple comparison scale, similar
to the
Richter Scale. As mentioned, earlier, the Torrino scale does not
serve this
purpose, because it also includes the impact risk and that makes
it
difficult to explain to the public and to use, to show how the
impact
effects compare and scale.
U.S. Congressional Natural Hazards Caucus
The Space Sub-Committee of the House Science Committee has been
interested
in our issue for several years and they have done a lot to help.
However,
there has been no focal-point in the Senate.
This Caucus is the start of that interest and we were delighted
to hear
about the recent meeting. We have contacted them and asked them
to add the
asteroid/comet threat to their list (the list is now limited to
terrestrial
natural dangers). We have also offered to help them get expertise
(to brief
them on the dangers and on the ongoing global prevention and
preparedness
activities).
We are making a list of experts, in the Washington area, who
could help them
and we would appreciate a contact from anyone who wants to be on
that list.
The Caucus co-chairmen are both from areas with significant
coastal exposure
(Sen. Stevens is from Alaska and Sen. Edwards is from North
Carolina). The
organizers of the Caucus want to involve both parties and both
houses of the
Congress and it is in our interest to help them, as much as we
can.
It would also be helpful for other groups, including NASA, the
Planetary
Society, the AIAA, the IAU, the Tsunami Society, etc. to contact
them and
stress the need to include asteroid/comet impact. Our numbers are
growing
and the giggling is decreasing. Dr. Atkinson remarked,
appropriately, about
this.
Planetary Protection Association (PPA)
There is a clear need for an open international association to
strongly
advocate increased activity, in the U.S. and globally, aimed at
developing a
quick-reaction interception/deflection capability and developing
good plans
for civil emergency preparedness, especially for the coastal
cities.
We are starting to form such a group. Several organizations are
actively
supporting the need to increase the early-warning activities and
this
should, of course,get a top priority. However, the other vital
areas are not
being well represented by public groups. In addition to our
representations
to the policy makers and to emergency preparedness planners, we
will work
closely with and promote all of the other groups....including the
CCNet,
SSF, SGF, IAU, Tsunami Society, AIAA, etc.
We need a good, small Board of Directors, a web page, a few
additional
contributors, etc. All are invited to join and to help. We feel
it is appropriate for us, the
people of this planet, to provide much of the leadership needed
for this
important work and we greatly appreciate what has been done,
to-date, by so
many of you. Your examples are a source of inspiration.
Cheers
Andy Smith
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