First Orion, Now This...

NASA says it simply cannot afford to locate asteroids capable of devastating hits to the Earth.

The agency is perfectly capable of locating least 90 percent of the 20,000 dangerous asteroids and comets by 2020, according to the Associated Press... but the approximately $1 billion price tag for such a search is cost-prohibitive. So says a report due to be release next week that was previewed Monday at a Planetary Defense Conference in Washington.

In 2005, Congress asked NASA to devise a plan to track the most killer of asteroids and develop a plan to deflect said asteroids.

"We know what to do, we just don't have the money," said Simon "Pete" Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center.

As ANN previously reported, a group of scientists, astronauts, and engineers have called upon the United Nations to rally an "Armageddon"-style space mission to deal with the problem. The group is concerned with the number of threatening space rocks many expected to be revealed when NASA upgraded its tracking of near-Earth asteroids... upgrades the space agency now says it can't afford.

NASA already tracks some of these large objects, some at least 3,300 feet (1,005 meters) in diameter. These have the potential wipe out most life on Earth, much like what is theorized to have happened to dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

That search -- which has located some 769 asteroids and comets to date -- is behind schedule. It's supposed to be completed by the end of next year. None of the located objects is on course to hit Earth.

John Logsdon, space policy director at George Washington University, said priority should be placed on the search for such asteroids.

"You can't deflect them if you can't find them," Logsdon said.

NASA's financial woes aren't limited to asteroid hunting. As ANN reported last week, agency Administrator Michael Griffin recently told lawmakers the planned space shuttle replacement won't fly as soon as originally hoped, due to a $545 million shortfall in the agency's latest funding bill. The Orion space capsule will now remain earthbound until early 2015, at least.

FMI: www.nasa.gov