- NASA has run a new tabletop simulation of the discovery of a large asteroid heading toward Earth.
- Experts feared that Congress would not fund a mission to an asteroid with a 72 percent chance of impacting Earth.
- This hypothetical scenario highlights a challenge in addressing any threat of future impact: politics.
NASA recently brought together a hundred experts to claim that an asteroid was heading towards Earth.
The tabletop simulation presented a hypothetical scenario in which cities such as Dallas, Washington, DC, and Madrid were at risk of a large-scale asteroid impact.
“A major asteroid impact is potentially the only natural disaster that humanity has the technology to predict years in advance and take steps to prevent,” Lindley Johnson, NASA planetary defense officer emeritus, said in a press release.
But it was not certain that they could prevent such a catastrophe, even with 14 years to do so.
The simulation revealed that the problem that could ultimately doom a city, region, or entire country was not technology, but politics.
“I know what I would prefer (to do), but Congress will tell us to wait,” one participant said of his asteroid response plan, in a selection of anonymized comments in the exercise summary of the exercise. NASA, published June 20.
“The most important point of the morning was the discussion on the political nature of decision-making,” said another participant.
Congress may not be moving fast enough
NASA has conducted nearly a dozen tabletop simulations since 2013. This one took place in May and brought together participants from the U.S. State Department, FEMA and space agencies from Europe, the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada.
Past exercises have shown that to save the world, NASA would need at least five years’ warning before an asteroid was headed our way, perhaps even ten years.
This time, the simulators learned that even if they had plenty of time, they might not be able to launch their favorite anti-asteroid offensive.
That’s because they didn’t think Congress would approve funding for a crucial space mission to study the asteroid “unless impact becomes certain,” NASA’s summary says.
A big part of the simulation was figuring out how to convey to Congress and other leaders the “gravity” of the situation, Johnson said.
Additionally, the 14-year timeline spanned multiple budget cycles and presidential elections. At any of those times, the president, Congress, or NASA’s own leadership could shift priorities and disrupt the asteroid plan.
The most likely incoming asteroid scenario
Here are the hypothetical conditions posed to participants in this year’s exercise: Scientists determined there was a 72 percent chance that this asteroid would crash into Earth in 14 years. It could hit anywhere in North America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
The size of the asteroid was not known with certainty. It could be between 60 and 800 meters wide, which would probably be big enough to devastate an entire country.
All this uncertainty makes it “a very realistic scenario,” Richard Binzel, an MIT planetary scientist who specializes in potentially hazardous asteroids but was not involved in the simulation, told Business Insider.
“In fact, this is the most likely type of scenario we will face, one where an asteroid is discovered and we have limited information,” Binzel said.
Options for preventing an asteroid impact include shooting the asteroid with lasers, launching a nuclear bomb at it, or simply sending a space probe to move it away from Earth.
NASA tested one of these options on a mission that hit an asteroid and dramatically changed its trajectory in 2022, just to prove the technique could work.
In the simulation, experts wanted more information to understand their anti-asteroid options.
Unfortunately, the fictional space rock was about to pass behind the sun and disappear from view for seven months. To avoid wasting valuable time, scientists should send a spacecraft to the asteroid to learn more.
That’s where they worried politics would creep in. Participants weren’t sure Congress would fund the mission unless the asteroid posed a definite threat — not a 72 percent threat.
So far, NASA has not discovered any large asteroids that are about to impact Earth.
But scientists have identified fewer than 11,000 near-Earth asteroids that are at least 140 meters (460 feet) wide, big enough to crush a city. They think there are 15,000 in our neighborhood, meaning more than a quarter of urban killers remain undiscovered.
NASA may plan a mission just in case
Binzel says NASA could remove political and bureaucratic barriers now, before asteroid threats are identified, by developing a standby reconnaissance mission.
“It’s an adult thing to do that can keep us from being surprised,” he said.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine made a similar recommendation in its latest decadal survey of planetary science priorities.
In that 2022 report, the Academies said NASA should “develop an approach for a rapid-response, flyby spacecraft” to closely study newly discovered threats. This way, it could launch a reconnaissance mission in less than three years if it became necessary. The Academies also recommended a demonstration to practice reconnaissance on a real asteroid.
So why isn’t NASA working on this right now?
“It’s not in the budget,” Binzel said.
NASA must first submit a proposal for such a mission, with approval from the White House, and then Congress must authorize and fund it.
“If there’s an asteroid with our name on it, it’s already there,” Binzel said. “Fortunately, the chances within a century or two are incredibly low. But they’re not zero.”