{"id":85387,"date":"2018-12-02T10:42:26","date_gmt":"2018-12-02T18:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/astronaut-says-a-neglected-telescope-is-nasas-best-chance-of-defending-earth-from-city-killer-asteroids-for-gods-sake-fund-it"},"modified":"2018-12-02T10:42:26","modified_gmt":"2018-12-02T18:42:26","slug":"astronaut-says-a-neglected-telescope-is-nasas-best-chance-of-defending-earth-from-city-killer-asteroids-for-gods-sake-fund-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/astronaut-says-a-neglected-telescope-is-nasas-best-chance-of-defending-earth-from-city-killer-asteroids-for-gods-sake-fund-it","title":{"rendered":"Astronaut says a neglected telescope is NASA\u2019s best chance of defending Earth from \u2018city killer\u2019 asteroids \u2014 \u2018for God\u2019s sake, fund it\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/astronaut-says-a-neglected-telescope-is-nasas-best-chance-of-defending-earth-from-city-killer-asteroids-for-gods-sake-fund-it.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Killer asteroids might be a bigger threat than you think.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<ul class=\"\">\n<li>Small asteroids can strike Earth with the force of many nuclear weapons and destroy entire cities.<\/li>\n<li>A small fraction of such asteroids is estimated to have been found, but NASA is supposed to find 90% of them by 2020.<\/li>\n<li>Retired astronaut Rusty Schweickart says a relatively inexpensive space telescope, called the Near-Earth Object Camera, could find these space rocks \u2014 and quickly.<\/li>\n<li>NASA has denied full funding to NEOCam multiple times because the agency\u2019s mission selection process is weighted against the telescope.<\/li>\n<li>NEOCam\u2019s supporters say the telescope needs just $40 million more in NASA\u2019s budget to launch into space.<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s up to President Trump and Congress to raise NASA\u2019s budget enough to support the mission.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A former NASA astronaut says the agency he used to work for has a duty to protect civilians from <a href=https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/asteroid-sizes-that-can-damage-cities-states-planet-2018-6 > killer asteroids<\/a>, but that it isn\u2019t meeting that obligation.<\/p>\n<p>The threat of asteroid strikes might seem as abstract as outer space itself. But the risk, while infrequent, is real \u2014 and potentially more deadly than the threat posed by some of the most powerful <a href=https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/nuclear-arms-deal-terminology-definitions-2018-7 > nuclear weapons<\/a><a href=https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/new-nuclear-blast-videos-2017-3 > ever detonated<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/asteroid-detection-mission-neocam-nasa-funding-astronaut-support-2018-11\">https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/asteroid-detection-mission-n...018&#45;11<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Killer asteroids might be a bigger threat than you think. Small asteroids can strike Earth with the force of many nuclear weapons and destroy entire cities. A small fraction of such asteroids is estimated to have been found, but NASA is supposed to find 90% of them by 2020. Retired astronaut Rusty Schweickart says a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":466,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,12,1490,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asteroid-comet-impacts","category-existential-risks","category-government","category-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/466"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}