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

Venus Plunger or NEO/Lunar Polar Fetcher?

NASA has whittled down its next mission to another Solar System body to three potential candidates:

1) The Surface and Atmosphere Geochemical Explorer or SAGE

2) The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer spacecraft or Osiris-Rex

3) Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return Mission, or Moonrise

Each proposed mission development team will recieve $3.3M to flesh out their proposals and one will be selected in 2011 for the budgeted $650M space mission scheduled to launch no later than 2018.

Personally I would like to see a new mission to Venus, since Moon and NEO are likely to receive scientific funding via the human spaceflight program if Augustine's Flexible Path set of missions is implemented by the Obama administration as an alternative to the current severely under funded Moon then Mars Constellation program.

Read more: http://bit.ly/4ySwTu

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

Report Calls Arecibo 'Uniquely Powerful' for Detecting NEOs

The Arecibo Observatory provides "unmatched precision and accuracy" in detecting asteroids or comets that could hit the Earth, says a report by the National Academy of Sciences. That statement could help secure the observatory's future. http://bit.ly/AS9zw