Friday, 6 March 1992 Washington, DC

1. CAN BRILLIANT PEBBLES DEFEND THE WORLD AGAINST DUMB ASTEROIDS?
Now that the threat of self-annihilation seems to be diminishing, whoever it is that decides what we should worry about has settled on asteroids. After all, an asteroid impact 65 million years ago spelled curtains for the dinosaurs--and we could be next! Would you be surprised to learn that Lowell Wood and Edward Teller have a solution? Perhaps not against the sort of 10Km whopper that bagged tyrannosaurus, but those only hit about every 100 million years anyway. What's needed, according to Wood and teller, is a defense against 10m objects. One of these little suckers slams into Earth every year or so with an energy of 10 kilotons of TNT. Why don't you hear about them? Because they don't make it through the atmosphere. So why spend huge sums to defend against them? What else can you do with brilliant pebbles? Next we will need a program to protect the Earth from falling brilliant pebbles.

2. A NASA WORKSHOP ON ASTEROIDS RECOMMENDS A "SPACEGUARD SURVEY"
to identify asteroids in orbits that threaten the Earth. Several new Earth-crossing asteroids are discovered each month by optical telescopes, but at this rate it would take centuries to complete a survey of the larger objects. Considering the impact frequency, that may be about the right level of urgency, but Congress called on NASA to hold a workshop on detection. At the January meeting, the astronomers thought a few dedicated telescopes would suffice. NASA scientists favored a more high-tech approach using large planetary radars to refine the orbits. The workshop did not deal with the question of what to do if one is spotted coming in.

3. HOUSE BUDGET RESOLUTION WOULD TAKE $15B FROM DEFENSE PROGRAMS.
The final vote will come next week on a budget resolution--but it is still not clear whether money stripped from defense will go to deficit reduction or domestic programs. A month ago it seemed a foregone conclusion that the "fire wall" prohibiting transfers of funds between defense and domestic programs would have to come down, but in the current political climate, no one wants their fingerprints on the wrecking ball. The House doesn't really want to take a full $15B from the DOD; it is an attempt to anticipate the Senate, which is always more generous to defense. So now the Senate budget resolution will seek to offset the big House cut.

4."PORKBUSTER II" BILL WOULD RESCIND FY 92 FUNDS FOR 652 PROJECTS
totaling more than $1.5B. The projects, which were not awarded on a competitive basis, include such classic academic boondoggles as the program to tap energy from the aurora borealis. The sponsors introduced similar legislation last year, but it never even camp up for a vote and Porkbusters II almost certainly will meet the same fate. And of course, an attempt by Senate Republicans to pass a line-item veto amendment failed again. The line-item veto is often touted as strong medicine against pork, but if there was any real chance it would pass, it would never be introduced!



Bob Park can be reached via email at whatsnew@bobpark.org
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the University, but they should be.