Asteroid ace keeps NASA grounded

Alan Boyle Science editor • Profile • E-mail

Planetary scientist Don Yeomans laughs at the title of “asteroid czar,” but as the manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program, he’s arguably the go-to guy for asteroids and other celestial objects that could blast us back into the Stone Age.

Over the past decade, Yeomans and his colleagues at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., have had to cope with a series of asteroid alerts — arising in part because astronomers are getting so much better at spotting space rocks that have a chance of crossing Earth's orbit sometime in the next century or two.

The biggest concern right now has to do with an asteroid called Apophis, which will have a close encounter with Earth in 2029 and might even hit us in 2036, depending on how its orbit changes between now and then. NASA says Apophis will almost certainly miss Earth — but just in case, Yeomans and other at the space agency have sketched out plans for space missions to divert the asteroid if necessary.

NASA issued its plan as a response to concerns expressed by former astronaut Rusty Schweickart, who is calling attention to potential threats from near-Earth objects as the chairman of a California-based group called the B612 Foundation.

Yeoman discussed Schweickart's concerns, NASA's response and the bigger picture behind near-Earth objects on Tuesday in an interview with MSNBC.com.

During the discussion, he made clear that he doesn't let his status as NASA's chief asteroid-watcher go to his head. For someone who watches out for cosmic doomsdays, Yeomans seems remarkably grounded.

Mike Nelson / AFP/Getty Images Donald Yeomans is the manager for NASA's Near-Earth Object Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“Several months ago, the Pasadena newspaper did an article on strange jobs, and I was there with a belly dancer, a tattoo artist and a dog groomer," he said with a laugh. "So that’s the kind of company I keep here."

He also keeps company with a growing array of skywatchers, including researchers at JPL's own Near Earth Asteroid Tracking project in Hawaii, professionals at other facilities such as the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research project in New Mexico — and hundreds of amateur astronomers around the world.

"Back in the early ’90s and before that, this near-Earth object issue was looked upon, even among our scientific colleagues, as sort of a crazy topic," he recalled.

Some even thought NASA was using near-Earth objects as a ploy to get more money, he said. But since then, asteroid-watching has gotten a lot more respectable.

"We shouldn’t be going hard over and devoting a lot more resources than what we have now, perhaps," he said. "But the modest level of spending that NASA is doing now — about $4 million a year — is probably appropriate, at least for the time being, for the insurance that we get as a result of tracking these objects into the future. We don’t get the giggle factor nearly as much as we once did."

Although the study of near-Earth asteroids has come a long way in the past decade, one big question still hangs in the air: Who takes over if Yeomans and his colleagues actually spot an asteroid or comet heading our way?

At least officially, it's not NASA. True, NASA identifies and tracks potentially threatening near-Earth objects, and NASA does have plans to respond to Apophis if necessary. However, dealing with an actual threat is not part of the space agency's job description, Yeomans said.

"NASA does not have the charter to look at that, nor does anyone else," he said. "That’s the point — no one does at the moment."

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