“A major asteroid impact is potentially the only natural disaster that humanity has the technology to predict years in advance and take action to prevent,” said Lindley Johnson, NASA’s planetary protection officer emeritus, in a statement to Press.
But it was not clear that they could prevent such a catastrophe – even with 14 years to figure it out.
The simulation revealed that technology was not the problem that could ultimately doom an entire city, region or country. It was politics.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at the Capitol on December 12, 2023. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
“I know what I would prefer [to do]but Congress will tell us to wait,” said one participant about their asteroid response plan, in a selection of anonymous comments in NASA’s summary of the exercise, published June 20.
“The highlight of the morning was the discussion involving the political nature of decision-making,” said another attendee.
Congress may not be moving fast enough
NASA has conducted nearly a dozen desktop simulations since 2013. This took place in May and involved participants from the US State Department, FEMA and the space agencies of Europe, the UK, Japan and Canada.
Representatives from NASA, FEMA, and the planetary defense community participate in the 2024 Planetary Defense Interagency Roundtable Exercise. NASA/JHU-APL/Ed Whitman
Past exercises showed that, to save the world, NASA would need at least five years of notice that an asteroid was headed our way, possibly as much as 10 years.
This time the simulators learned that, even with plenty of time, they might not be able to launch their favorite asteroid offensive.
That’s because they didn’t think Congress would approve funding for a critical space mission to study the asteroid “unless impact became certain,” NASA’s brief said.
A big part of the simulation was figuring out how to impress the “seriousness” of the situation on Congress and other leadership, Johnson said.
Additionally, the 14-year timeline spanned multiple budget cycles and presidential elections. At any of these moments, the president, Congress, or NASA leadership itself could change priorities and derail the asteroid plan.
Most likely incoming asteroid scenario
Here are the hypothetical conditions given to participants in this year’s exercise: Scientists have determined a 72% chance that this asteroid will hit Earth in 14 years. It can strike anywhere in parts of North America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
The size of the asteroid was unclear. It can be anywhere from 60 to 800 meters (half a mile) across—perhaps large enough to destroy an entire country.
All of this uncertainty made this “a very realistic scenario,” Richard Binzel, a planetary scientist at MIT who specializes in potentially dangerous asteroids but was not involved in the simulation, told Business Insider.
“In fact, it’s the most likely type of scenario we’re going to face, where an asteroid is discovered and we have limited information,” Binzel said.
Options for preventing an asteroid impact include targeting the asteroid with lasers, dropping a nuclear bomb on it, or simply slamming a space probe into it to push it away from Earth.
NASA tested one of those options on a mission that hit an asteroid and dramatically changed its path in 2022, just to prove the technique could work.
Footage from NASA’s DART spacecraft camera shows footage of the mission as it approached, then slammed into, an asteroid. NASA Live
In the simulation, experts wanted more information to understand their options against asteroids.
Unfortunately, the fictional space rock was about to pass behind the sun and disappear from view for seven months. To avoid wasting precious time, scientists will have to send a spacecraft to the asteroid to learn more about it.
There they were afraid that politics would hinder them. Participants weren’t sure Congress would fund the mission unless the asteroid was a definite threat — not a 72% chance of a threat.
So far, NASA has not detected any large asteroids on track to hit Earth.
But scientists have identified fewer than 11,000 near-Earth asteroids that are at least 140 meters (460 feet) across — big enough to crush a city. They believe there are 15,000 of them in the vicinity, meaning more than a quarter of the city’s killers remain undetected.
NASA can plan a mission just in case
Binzel says NASA can clear the political and bureaucratic hurdles now, before any threat to the asteroid is identified, by developing a reconnaissance mission it should have on standby.
“It’s a mature thing to do that can protect us from surprise,” he said.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine made a similar recommendation in the last decadal survey of planetary science priorities.
In that 2022 report, the Academies said NASA should “develop a rapid-response, flyable spacecraft approach” to closely study newly discovered threats. That way, it could launch a reconnaissance mission in less than three years if needed. The academies also recommended a demonstration to practice detection on a real asteroid.
So why isn’t NASA working on this now?
“It’s not in the budget,” said Binzel.
First NASA has to make a proposal for such a mission, with a thumbs up from the White House, and then Congress has to authorize and fund it.
“If there’s an asteroid out there with our name on it, it’s already there,” Binzel said. “Fortunately, the chance in the next century is incredibly small. But it’s not zero.”