Russia wants to build Asteroid Deflector Craft to protect Planet Earth

Apophis is a Near Earth Object (NEO) or in other words a potential planet wrecker worse than many Hiroshimas or Chenobyls, which apparently no space agency is currently tasked with preventing from hitting our planet.

NASA hasn't even been allocated a ring fenced budget for discovering and monitoring NEOs and instead the administration is left to figure out on its own how to fund the search and still maintain all of the other scientific and exploration programs it is mandated to carry out.

So the Russian Space Agency appears to be making the first bold move to propose a NEO mission to learn how to deflect the orbit of these menancing objects and stave off mass destruction, which may or may not come from Apophis.

Read more: http://bit.ly/6FqBuE

What is inside Asteroid Mathilde?

The internal structure of Mathilde has a density slightly greater than that of water, so what is making this asteroid so lightweight, is it large empty voids, porous rock or something else that is creating such a low overall density. http://bit.ly/7aIwB2

WISE wll look for Dark Asteroids and Brown Dwarf Stars - NASA mission briefing

The purpose of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer is to find hidden cosmic objects that are not detectable by natural light telescopes within our own Solar System and beyond.

WISE will look for Dark Asteroids within our own Solar System, Brown Dwarf Stars in our solar neighbourhood and Ultra-Luminous Galaxies in Deep Space.

The map generated by WISE will be used as a guide for other Space Telescopes such as Hubble, Spitzer, and upcoming Sofia and James Webb which will look more closely at these objects.

Norm Augustine introductory remarks on the Human Spaceflight Review final report

10 minute overview of the Augustine Commission final report which commenced the press conference today in Washington DC. The main thrust of the report is to introduce missions which will visit/land on objects such as Asteroids, NEOs, Moons of other planets, visit Lagrange points and/or circumnavigate a planet such as Mars.

These new missions will be lower cost and achievable within a shorter timeframe than the current objective to land on the Moon and Mars, which requires the development of complex landers and larger heavy launch vehicles. The committee has not excluded the landing of humans on Mars ultimately, but believes that smaller steps are required in order to ensure continued public interest and funding of human spaceflight in the future.

30 foot wide Asteroid only just discovered this week will skim past Earth tonight at a distance closer than the Moon http://bit.ly/1VhDjE

NASA scientists are watching our backs, probably no Apocalypse from Apophis

Chance of Asteroid Apophis the size of 2 1/2 football fields smashing into Earth in 2036 has been revised from 1 in 45,000 to 1 in 250,000, let's hope they're correct despite no dedicated government budget for NEO monitoring http://bit.ly/CXrni