The U.S. Study of the NEO Hazard: Detection, Characterization, and Mitigation.
A’Hearn, M.F.
University of Maryland

As part of the 2008 appropriate for NASA, the U. S. Congress directed NASA to fund a study by the National Academy of Science's National Research Council (NAS-NRC)that would address the detection of potentially hazardous NEOs down to 140m diamter, the characterization of these NEOs, and the mitigation of the threat therefrom. The NRC has formed a Steering Committee and a Detection Panel and is now forming a Mitigation Panel. The Steering Committee has heard from various representatives of past studies, including internal NASA-funded studies, and from representatives of numerous detection surveys. The Detection Panel will follow up with more detailed input on surveys and with a variety of characterization techniques. The Mitigation Panel will consider a wide variety of possible mitigation techniques. Congressional staff members have told the steering committee that the Congress is very interested in understanding how international collaboration should work in this area and this will be a key point of the presentation.