- NASA has conducted a new desktop simulation of the discovery of a large asteroid headed for Earth.
- Experts worried that Congress would not fund a mission to an asteroid with a 72% chance of hitting Earth.
- This hypothetical scenario highlights a challenge in dealing with any future impact threat: politics.
NASA recently brought together about 100 experts to pretend an asteroid is headed for Earth.
The desktop simulation presented a hypothetical scenario in which cities such as Dallas, Washington, DC and Madrid were at risk of a large asteroid impact.
“A large asteroid impact is potentially the only natural disaster that humanity has the technology to predict years in advance and take measures to prevent,” Lindley Johnson, NASA’s planetary defense officer emeritus, said in a news release.
However, it was not clear that they would be able to prevent such a disaster – even if it took them 14 years to figure it out.
The simulation revealed that technology was not a problem that could eventually destroy a city, a region, or an entire country. It was politics.
“I know what I would prefer [to do]but Congress will tell us to wait,” one participant said of their asteroid response plan in a selection of anonymized comments in a summary of the NASA exercise published on June 20.
“The most important point of the morning was the discussion about the political nature of decision-making,” said another participant.
Congress may not be moving fast enough
NASA has conducted nearly a dozen desktop simulations since 2013. This one happened in May and involved participants from the US State Department, FEMA and space agencies from Europe, the UK, Japan and Canada.
Past exercises have shown that to save the world, NASA would need at least five years notice that an asteroid is headed our way, maybe even 10 years.
This time, the simulators learned that even with plenty of time, they might not be able to launch their preferred anti-asteroid offensive.
That’s because they didn’t think Congress would approve funding for a critical space mission to study an asteroid “unless the impact was certain,” according to NASA’s summary.
A major part of the simulation was figuring out how to impress the “seriousness” of the situation on Congress and other leadership, Johnson said.
What’s more, the 14-year timeline spanned multiple budget cycles and presidential elections. At any of these moments, the president, Congress, or NASA’s own leadership could change priorities and derail the asteroid plan.
The most likely scenario of the arrival of an asteroid
Here are the hypothetical conditions participants were given in this year’s exercise: Scientists have determined a 72% chance that this asteroid will hit Earth in 14 years. It could hit anywhere in North America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
The size of the asteroid was not clear. It could be anywhere from 60 to 800 meters (half a mile) wide—perhaps large enough to devastate an entire country.
All of that uncertainty made this a “very realistic scenario,” Richard Binzel, a planetary scientist at MIT who specializes in potentially dangerous asteroids but was not involved in the simulation, told Business Insider.
“It’s actually the most likely type of scenario we’re going to face when an asteroid is discovered and we have limited information,” Binzel said.
Options for preventing an asteroid impact include shooting the asteroid with lasers, dropping a nuclear bomb on it, or simply ramming a space probe to bounce it off Earth.
NASA tested one of these options in a mission that smashed through an asteroid and dramatically changed its path in 2022, just to prove that the technique could work.
In the simulation, experts wanted more information to understand their anti-asteroid capabilities.
Unfortunately, the fictitious space rock was about to pass behind the sun and disappear from view for seven months. In order not to waste precious time, scientists would have to send a spacecraft to the asteroid to learn more about it.
It was there that they were afraid that politics would get in the way. Participants were unsure that Congress would fund the mission unless the asteroid posed a certain threat – not a 72% chance of a threat.
NASA has yet to discover any large asteroids on their way to impact Earth.
But scientists have identified fewer than 11,000 near-Earth asteroids that are at least 140 meters (460 feet) across — big enough to crush a city. They believe there are 15,000 in our area, meaning more than a quarter of the city’s killers remain undetected.
NASA could plan a mission just in case
Binzel says NASA could get the political and bureaucratic hurdles out of the way now, before any asteroid threats are identified, by creating a standby reconnaissance mission.
“It’s a grown-up thing that can keep us from being surprised,” he said.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine made similar recommendations in their most recent 10-year survey of planetary science priorities.
In that 2022 report, the academies said NASA should “develop a rapid response, flyby spacecraft approach” to thoroughly investigate newly discovered threats. That way, it could launch a reconnaissance mission in less than three years if necessary. The academies also recommended a demo to practice exploration on a real asteroid.
So why isn’t NASA working on it right now?
“It’s not in the budget,” Binzel said.
First, NASA must submit a proposal for such a mission, with a thumbs-up from the White House, and then Congress would have to approve and fund it.
“If there’s an asteroid out there with our name on it, it’s already there,” Binzel said. “Fortunately, the chance in the next century or so is incredibly small. But it’s not zero.”