Threats from Space: A Review of U.S. Government Efforts to Track and Mitigate Asteroids and Meteors (Part I & Part II)

Today's hearing is on a subject important to our Nation and to our world. This is the first hearing of two on space threats to Earth, reviewing U.S. Government efforts to track incoming asteroids and meteors. NASA believes it has discovered 93 percent of the largest asteroids in near-Earth orbit, those 1 kilometer or larger, but what about the other seven percent remaining, about 70, or even those smaller than 1 kilometer, estimated to be in the thousands? An asteroid as small as 100 meters could destroy an entire city upon a direct hit. Are we tracking those? The meteor that struck Russia was estimated to be 17 meters, and wasn't tracked at all. The two events of Friday, February 15, the harmless flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14 and the not-so-harmless impact of a meteor in Russia, are a stark reminder of the need to invest in space science. For all of the attention and publicity the two events of February 15 received, it was still too late for us to have acted to change the course of the incoming objects. We are in the same position today and for the foreseeable future unless we take actions now that improve our means of detection.