NASA's plan to protect Earth from the planetoids is running late. Urge manage the program according to the requirements. The agency proposed corrective action.
The NASA program to detect and protect the Earth from asteroids that can reach it is poorly managed and backward with respect to their objectives, according to a government audit published in the United States.
Only a million dollars of the total budget of the agency, which is 40 million spent on strategies to deflect asteroids when will impact the Earth or evacuate endangered areas, says the report by the inspector general of NASA, Paul Martin.
Congress ordered in 2005 the American space agency to establish a program to track the so-called "Near Earth Objects" (NEO, by its initials in English) greater than 140 meters in diameter, deciding what threat and catalog represent 90% of the same for 2020.
"While the program has discovered, categorized and plotted the orbits of NEOs over 11,000 since 1998, NASA has identified estimated that only 10% of all asteroids 140 meters or more and will not reach the 2020 deadline" says the audit.
Most near-Earth objects are harmless and disintegrate before reaching the planet's surface. However, some survive, highlights the report, citing the meteorite 18 meters in diameter that fell on the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013 "with the force of 30 atomic bombs and blew windows, destroyed buildings and injured more than 1,000 people. "
Among the management issues NASA mission includes a redirection of asteroids that was not handled by the NEO program and "inadequate controls to ensure proper accounting of grants funded by the agency and work orders."
The audit states that NASA spends only 7% of its budget from $ 40 million to study "mitigation strategies to defend the Earth from impacts of NEO", including strategies of civil defense, emergency evacuations or "attempts to destroy or divert the path" of objects.
The inspector urged NASA to manage this program according to the standard requirements of the research programs of the agency and outline a strategic plan. "NASA concurred with the recommendations and proposed corrective actions," he added
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