Asteroids scare – Russia may take action

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Russia may become the first country with means to defend itself from asteroids.

Officials from Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear agency, and from Russia’s space agency, told a special conference at the Russian Federation Council, the Russian upper house, that Russia was embarking on an ambitious program – estimated to cost about $2 billion – to shield Russia from the threat of asteroids and meteors. The first steps will be taken by the end of the year, but the comprehensive set of measures will not be available until 2018-20. The officials discussed various possible measures, ranging from planting beacon transmitters on asteroids to megaton-sized nuclear strikes to destroy asteroid or divert them from a course which would lead to a collision with the Earth.

Vladimir Popovkin, the director of Russia’s space agency, told a special conference at the Russian Federation Council, the Russian upper house, that Russia was closely monitoring the asteroid Apophis which is due to fly close to the Earth in 2036.

“We want to put a beacon on the asteroid Apophis to ascertain its exact orbit and work out what further actions to take with respect to the asteroids approach to the Earth in 2036,” he said.

In February, a meteor strike over the Russian city of Chelyabinskinjured more than 1,500 people.

The Sidney Morning Herald reports that Popovkin said that an initial steps to combat threats from space could already be taken by the end of 2013, but that more comprehensive measures would not be available earlier than 2018-20.

In Tuesday’s presentation, Russian officials discussed various possible measures ranging from planting beacon transmitters on asteroids to megaton-sized nuclear strikes to destroy asteroid or divert them from a course which would lead to a collision with the Earth.

Russian officials did not provide cost estimates for the program, but Russian news agencies quoted earlier estimates, which were around $1.9 billion.

A senior official from Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear agency, told the Tuesday conference that taking out an asteroid with a nuclear weapon would require a bomb with a force of at least one megaton.

“Intercepting an asteroid of a span of more than one kilometer would need the use of nuclear material of the power of over a megaton,” said Oleg Shubin, the deputy director of the department of nuclear munitions experiments at Rosatom. “This is a separate scientific task that needs to be solved,” he added

Shubin also said that it could not be predicted well in advance when about 50 percent of asteroids and meteors in the tails of comets would be on a collision course with the earth.

He said that the probability of an asteroid collision was low, but that  it could still happen at any time. “In the foreseeable future I cannot see any other danger that would lead — at the very least — to the disintegration of human civilization,” Shubin said.