Former astronaut Rusty Schweickart has already earned his place in the history books by going to the moon with the Apollo 9 mission. However, should an asteroid crash into the Earth anytime soon, killing millions and causing catastrophic damage, he'll also be remembered as the guy whose warnings we ignored.
In 2001 Schweickart, now 71, helped found the B612 Foundation (named for the asteroid home in The Little Prince) to raise the alarm about the potential of death from above. The foundation has been loudly asking the world's space agencies to locate all the near-Earth asteroids, determine if any are likely to crash into us, and make plans to deflect them if necessary. But NASA and the other agencies have taken little action. Wired News spoke to Schweickart about the importance and frustrations of his latest mission.
Wired News: You've devoted the last six years to warning people about the catastrophic possibility of a near-Earth asteroid crashing into the Earth. Does this stuff keep you awake at night?
Rusty Schweickart: (laughs) Does it keep me up at night? Yes, but not in the way you're probably asking. I don't stay up at night worrying about an impact. I do stay up and work over in my mind various technical issues, and think about the work that needs to be done.
WN: When did you first start thinking about the threat posed by near-Earth asteroids?
Schweickart: My interest came from my prior interest in astrobiology, which is the research field looking at the origins and extent of life in the universe. When you look at the origins and evolution of life on Earth, it's been severely affected by asteroid impacts through history. I came to the clear understanding that this is not a historical process, or something that is no longer in effect. It's a continuing process, and we're continually vulnerable to, essentially, a control-alt-delete.
Life has sustained a number of those hard boots, to continue the metaphor, the demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago being only the most recent example that people are aware of. But there have been very damaging impacts far smaller than the one that occurred 65 million years ago, and they are far more frequent. Those are of more concern to humanity, but they're also predictable. If we know that something is going to happen and there's something we can do about it, we ought to start getting prepared.
WN: You were in the news a few years back talking about the asteroid 9942 Apophis, when it appeared there was a chance that it could hit the Earth in 2029 or 2036. That got some media attention, until further studies reduced the likelihood of impact to nearly zero. Were you relieved, or maybe a little disappointed that there was no urgent cause for action?
Schweickart: When the probability of impact in 2029 dropped to zero, I think everyone was very relieved. There is still to this day a possibility of impact in 2036. It is quite low, and it will most likely drop to zero. But Apophis has been a tremendous learning opportunity for the (near-Earth asteroid) community. It exemplifies the kind of challenge we will encounter in the future. There will be tens of thousands of near-Earth asteroids discovered in the next 10 to 20 years.
WN: The Planetary Society is still offering a $50,000 prize for the best plan to put a tracking device on Apophis when it swings by in 2029. Although it appears that will be unnecessary, do you think the design contest still serves a purpose?
Schweickart: In responding to that challenge, there are probably teams of people learning a great deal. The possibility of Apophis continuing to be a real threat is one in 45,000. But in terms of understanding the challenge that we're going to be facing with other near-Earth asteroids that we find -- and we will definitely find some that will be more threatening -- it's very useful.
The more people we have thinking seriously about this, the better. And I'm not talking about the general public wringing their hands, I mean technically qualified people seriously looking at the challenge of taking action. It's important to have people studying the orbital mechanics, the techniques we could use for deflection, and looking at the decision-making process that would be involved in deciding which asteroids to deflect. The legal and political implications will probably be the most difficult challenges.
WN: Why is that?
Schweickart: Who is it that makes the decision: Do we or do we not deflect this particular asteroid? Is it small enough that someone will say, "We'll just take this hit, we won't deflect this one"? If it's just going to impact a few counties, are they the only ones who pay for it? There are a million questions of that kind that will have to be answered, and not after we discover one that has our name on it, but before, so we don't end up in a decade-long debate when we're threatened.
WN: Some of the language from the B612 Foundation's website sounds pretty frustrated. Do you feel that NASA is not doing all it could to answer these questions?
Schweickart: NASA has a responsibility which they are not really stepping up to the plate on. Congress mandated that we find 90 percent of objects 140 meters or larger by 2020. The law, that was signed by Congress in 2005 and signed by the president, is not being followed. NASA is not doing all it's required to do by law, let alone all it could.
WN: The stated goal of the B612 Foundation is to significantly alter the orbit of an asteroid, in a controlled manner, by 2015. If NASA isn't active on this front, do you think it's likely you'll meet that deadline?
Schweickart: It's not only NASA who could do it. We're working with the European Space Agency as well. They have a program called Don Quixote. There are two spacecrafts involved: Sancho goes up and rendezvous with an asteroid, characterizes it, photographs it and stands off to the side to watch while Hidalgo impacts it.
That's a program the European Space Agency has taken through the first phase of development. It's now sitting on a shelf, but frankly that program could be activated and funded and brought to completion by 2015. The sad state of affairs is, in terms of stepping up to the plate, it's the B612 Foundation that's leading the way. That's atrocious, that's horrible ... but it's true.
WN: I'll ask you the question you're probably very tired of answering. With our planet facing more pressing problems like global warming, how can you call for spending vast amounts of money on this?
Schweickart: So you're saying, if you can get run over by a bus on the way to school and also get hit by a bolt of lightning, do you only worry about the bus? When you know about something that's a serious threat, you take appropriate action. You and I pay auto insurance at a rate of about $4 a day, based on the one-in-10,000 chance that we'll have an auto accident on that particular day. I'm not saying that you spend all the money available on this and nothing on global warming. It takes very, very little money to be prepared for this.
That's one of the frustrating elements. We're not talking about spending billions of dollars on this. If we were to have a magic wand and have NASA do everything we think they should be doing, it would take something like a half of 1 percent of their budget to do it. Of course when you have to deflect an asteroid, then you have expenses that you weigh against the cost of not doing anything.
WN: Do you have trouble convincing people that it's time to take action now, although we currently don't know of any asteroids that pose a serious threat?
Schweickart: I think it's a very clear situation, not unlike Hurricane Katrina, where it's only a matter of time before this happens. It differs from Katrina because we can't accurately predict the future of a hurricane. But in this case, you can predict very precisely, and you can know decades ahead of time if there's likely going to be an impact. And you can't deflect a hurricane, all you can do is button down or evacuate.
In this case, we could literally prevent a disaster on the scale of 10,000 Katrinas. For humanity to have this capacity and not be prepared to use it is an anti-survival thing. You're rolling the dice -- you're saying, we could do something about it, but we'll take the risk of going the way of the dinosaurs. It seems to me that this is a very irresponsible act.
WN: It strikes me that you've got a very optimistic view of humanity's prospects. You're assuming humans will be around for a while, and will continue to have the technology necessary to deflect asteroids if necessary.
Schweickart: This is a big picture thing -- we literally are the top of the pyramid of life in the universe, as far as we know. At least in this corner of the universe, we're it. And it seems to me that we have collectively a certain responsibility to see this incredible experiment in life continue. It seems to me there is a kind of obligation, since we're self-reflective beings, to take some responsibility for the future. It's not something to lose sleep over, but safeguarding the future of life, that's something worth working on.
