Does LINEAR's success threaten the continued funding of other programs by NASA?
"We know that these groups move in and out," says NASA's Tom Morgan. "You really can't predict it. That's why we give them some time. In the fullness of time, they will be due a full proposal, and they will be evaluated by their peers."
Funded in three-year cycles, LONEOS and Spacewatch have some time to produce results before they reapply for NASA money. LONEOS operates entirely on the space agency's funds. Spacewatch, meanwhile, relies on NASA money for about a third of its budget.
James Scotti says Spacewatch is wasting no time. "I think it pushes everybody in the business to do what we had all planned to do anyway. For a while we were the big guys on the block, taking over from the Shoemakers at Palomar."
Scotti became an overnight celebrity when it was announced last year that he had found a mile-wide object that could wipe us out in 30 years.
Scotti's find, XF11, will actually miss Earth in 2028 with plenty of room to spare. But for a day, at least, Scotti seemed to have been the man who had pegged Judgment Day.
Now, after being leapfrogged by the Air Force, Scotti says Spacewatch is determined to catch up to LINEAR. New cameras mounted on Spacewatch's old telescope and the completion of a newer, larger telescope as well as new software should begin bridging the gap between the two systems.
But even if Spacewatch and LONEOS can upgrade their equipment and catch the Air Force techies, isn't there a built-in obsolesence to their searches? Won't they eventually know the location, speed and direction of every one-kilometer space boulder with a chance of hitting Earth?
"We'll certainly solve the problem at some point. But what about the half-kilometer objects? One of those could kill millions. It all depends on how far down you want to draw the line of what's dangerous," Scotti says. "You're trying to put a complete picture of what the solar system looks like. And it's difficult, particularly when you go into the outer solar system where these things are so faint. Even all of the surveys we have in mind are not going to find these very small objects."
There's a good possibility that after several more years of searching--and several million dollars spent--astronomers will find that Earth is not likely to be hit by a significant impact for centuries or even thousands of years. Along with a global sense of relief, will asteroid hunters experience a sense of frustration? Would mass death vindicate someone like Tom Gehrels, who has worked for so many years to make the planet take the asteroid threat seriously?
"There was a wish," Gehrels says, "during the Cold War." Asked to elaborate, Gehrels admits that he had yearned at one time that a menacing asteroid might be found, hoping that it would force nations to cooperate and avert disaster.
In the meantime, until LINEAR steals it away, press attention seems as everpresent in Gehrels' life. He admits that it's been "maybe a bit of each, a little annoying, a little satisfying."
If he found reporters to be more trouble than they were worth, however, Gehrels was only getting the attention that he richly deserved.
It seemed a shame he was finally getting that attention just as he was being made obsolete.
Contact Tony Ortega at his online address: tortega@newtimes.com
