At the request of the U. S. Congress, the National Research Council conducted a study to make recommendations on how the U.S. should proceed in dealing with the potential threat from NEOs. The panel made specific recommendations regarding everything from discovery of NEOs, through the most relevant research activities, to the most appropriate missions for advancing our ability to deal with a threatening NEO. This talk will summarize the recommendations.

As part of the recommendations of UNISPACE III, in 2001 the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS) established Action Team 14 within the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee (STSC) to handle the issue of how to protect Earth from NEO impacts. This presentation summarizes the most recent activities within AT-14 and the STSC on the NEO issue. It includes the work of the Association of Space Explorers (ASE) on the creation of international entities to provide various functions, such as warning of potentially threatening NEOs and coordination between space agencies for a deflection issue.

The NEO problem or, more specifically speaking the Asteroid-Comet Impact Hazard (ACH) problem, is a global one by nature. The efficient approach to the problem implies the need of efficient international collaboration, i. e. cooperation of countries. The establishing of national NEO programs seems to be a practical way to the real international cooperation. Good examples of (inter)national programs were provided by NASA NEO program and European SSA program. They encourage the NEO community in Russia to elaborate a concept of the Russian national program. This suggestion was strongly supported by Roscosmos and Russian Academy of Sciences at the special joint meeting held in June 2010. According to the recommendation by Roscosmos the program will include two kinds of the space threats: ACH and space debris, since many observational aspects are similar. The concept of the national program is to be submitted to the Russia high level authorities in 2011. A brief general overview of the current state of activities on the NEO problem in Russia is presented. Special attention is paid to major issues of the concept of the national program: national and international cooperation, discovery and tracking, characterization and risk assessment, space missions as well as prevention and mitigation measures. Various aspects of the concept will be illustrated in more details at the conference in the talks and posters of participants from Russia.

In October, 2010, the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) delivered a letter to the U.S. Congress that summarized U.S. activities, procedures, roles, and responsibilities with regard to potential NEO impacts. This presentation provides an overview of the letter, and includes current and prospective NEO detection activities, notification procedures for a potential NEO threat, emergency response procedures for a potential NEO threat, and the roles and responsibilities of the various U.S. Government entities for potential future NEO mitigation and deflection activities.