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NASA Audit Concludes They’re Not Prepared to Protect Us From Asteroids or Even Detect Them

How long does it take to assemble a ragtag team of retired astronauts, anyway?

asteroids

You know what we haven’t done in a while? Found an asteroid that’s about to fly uncomfortably close to Earth. And that’s not necessarily a good thing. Just because we don’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not out there, as a few close passes showed earlier this year, and a government audit has concluded that NASA’s program to detect asteroids and protect the world from devastation is way behind schedule.

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NASA spends around $1 million of its total $40 million yearly budget on detection of asteroids of 140 meters in diameter or greater, but they’re behind schedule as far as cataloguing them. The plan is to have 90% of these flying death balls catalogued by 2020, but the audit reads, “While the program has discovered, categorized, and plotted the orbits of more than 11,000 NEOs [near-Earth objects] since 1998, NASA estimates that it has identified only 10 percent of all asteroids 140 meters and larger and will not meet the 2020 deadline.”

Only 10%? That could be why previously unseen asteroids keep sneaking up and giving us jump scares like they’re freaking walkers. The audit goes on to cover the reasons the program is lagging behind, saying that it’s all handled under “a single program executive who manages a loosely structured, non-integrated conglomerate of research activities with little coordination, insufficient program oversight, and no established milestones to track progress.”

Luckily, NASA at least spends a larger 7% of its budget on methods of destroying or deflecting an incoming space rock, because Bruce Willis and Aerosmith don’t come cheap. They also concur with the audit and have proposed corrective actions to help get things back on track, which is comforting—unless you’re an asteroid, because then our best aging action stars are coming for you.

(via Phys.org, image via Asteroids)

Previously in plots for Elijah Wood movies

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Dan Van Winkle
Dan Van Winkle (he) is an editor and manager who has been working in digital media since 2013, first at now-defunct <em>Geekosystem</em> (RIP), and then at <em>The Mary Sue</em> starting in 2014, specializing in gaming, science, and technology. Outside of his professional experience, he has been active in video game modding and development as a hobby for many years. He lives in North Carolina with Lisa Brown (his wife) and Liz Lemon (their dog), both of whom are the best, and you will regret challenging him at <em>Smash Bros.</em>

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