Friday, 7 May 1993 Washington, DC

1. WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT COLLISIONS WITH ASTEROIDS AND COMETS?
An international workshop organized by SDIO concluded that, while such collisions have played a major role in the evolution of life on Earth, the probability of a civilization-threatening impact in any given year is extremely small. Therefore, the emphasis should be on detection and physical characterization. On a less global scale, concern was expressed that collisions in the 1-megaton- TNT range could be mistaken for a nuclear explosion and trigger a response; impacts of that size occur about once per century. The participants were split on the need to construct or test systems to deflect or destroy asteroids until a specific threat is found. Edward Teller spoke forcefully on behalf of a program to nuke a few non-threatening asteroids in preparation for the real thing. Somebody once observed, "You got a problem? Eddie's got a bomb!"

2. "ARE WE GOING TO FREEZE OR BURN?" REP. RALPH HALL (D-TX) ASKS.
Five years ago experts predicted that the polar caps would melt. On Thursday, a NASA scientist told the House Space Subcommittee that he expects the caps to grow, at least for the next five years. The Subcommittee wants to know if NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) will settle this dispute. It can't if it doesn't get built. In typically NASA fashion, it began as a grandiose $17B project; then it was "restructured" to cost $11B; after which it was "redesigned" to get it down to $8B. Now it faces "descoping." "If we keep having to restructure it every two years," lamented EOS administrator Shelby Tilford, "it will end up like the space station." Why all the shrinkage in a program Congress sees a need for? The director of a new Office of Technology Assessment report on EOS identified two sources of trouble: the Space Station and the Shuttle, which compete with EOS in a shrinking NASA budget.

3. THE WASHINGTON SHUTTLE:
o Will Happer, director of energy research at DOE, has been fired in a dispute with an aide to Vice President Gore over the need for UV monitors, according to Inside Energy. Martha Krebs, LBL associate director, is reported to be in line for the job. o Sandra Faber, a UC Santa Cruz astronomer, is reported to be the choice to direct the NSF, but is said to have declined. o Sidney Drell, former President of the APS, has been appointed to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. o Rad Byerly, Staff Director of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, is returning to University of Colorado. He will be replaced by Robert Palmer, who has served as Senior Policy Coordinator for the Committee. o Marc Brodsky, a physicist at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, will replace the retiring Ken Ford as CEO of the AIP.



Bob Park can be reached via email at whatsnew@bobpark.org
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
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