Hi Paul, list - As it is International Asteroid Day, let us examine how NASA management is trying yet once again to avoid launching the NEOcam:
1.1 Identify opportunities in existing and planned telescope programs to improve detection and tracking by enhancing the volume and quality of current data streams, including from optical, infrared, and radar facilities. Existing and planned space situational assets, INCLUDING COMMERCIAL SYSTEMS, might also contribute to NEO detection and tracking. Where possible, a cost/benefit analysis should characterize these opportunities in terms of how they would reduce overall uncertainty in NEO impact risks. [Short term; NASA, National Science Foundation (NSF), United States Air Force (USAF)] This started with Griffin sitting on JPL's request for the NEOcam back in 2006. Griffin and his colleagues have never been held responsible for their Act of Contempt of Congress. My current guess is that the US will end up buying our planetary defense system from China, just as we buy so much else from them. After all, it appears it would be cheaper to buy it from them than to buy it from NASA. How's that for a cost/benefit analysis? PS - As you are a geologist, someday you might want to take a look at the current impact mega-tsunami studies being carried out by the geologists working along the US Atlantic Coast. E.P.
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