Even with a 14-year warning, Earth is alarmingly not ready to send spacecraft into orbit immediately in case of a major asteroid impact.
This important gap was found during an exercise led by NASA in April 2024 that included several US government departments.
Sobering Results from NASA's Tabletop Exercise: How Hard It Is to Coordinate on a Global Scale
NASA's "tabletop" game acted out a situation with a 72% chance of an asteroid hitting Earth in 14 years. The results were scary.
Even though they've had over a decade to prepare, the practice showed that space agencies are not prepared to gather detailed information about possible threats and take the necessary steps. It's still unclear how choices about space missions are made in these situations, both in the US and around the world.
Also, not everyone knows what the UN-backed Space Mission Planning and Advisory Group (SMPAG) is supposed to do when an asteroid threatens. NASA says a clear decision-making process should be set up for planetary defense scenarios, and drills should be held to test this process. Making more people aware of SMPAG's role in coordinating space projects is also important.
Maintaining the work needed for asteroid defense for 14 years is very hard. Keeping ready is harder than it sounds because of things like political will, budget cycles, and changing events in the world. At the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Terik Daly oversees the planetary defense area. He talked about how crucial it is for countries to work together.
Daly said in his speech that experts don't know of giant asteroids that will hit Earth in the next hundred years. However, many possibly dangerous asteroids have not yet been found. This shows how important it is to stay alert and work together as a global community.
What Should We Do If an Asteroid Hits Earth? Establishing a Response Plan
Assume that NASA experts find an asteroid with a 72% chance of hitting Earth on July 12, 2038. The asteroid, about 80 to 800 meters across, is dangerous. It won't be able to make any more observations for seven months because it is behind the Sun.
Almost 100 people from different organizations and agencies looked at how ready the world is to deal with such a threat. Three main choices were looking at waiting for more information, starting a mission to find out more, or planning a complicated rendezvous mission to change the asteroid's path.
The best way to get important information was to plan a $200 million to $400 million flyby trip. After this, a rendezvous operation might be worth $800 million to $1 billion to push the asteroid away. These efforts would be based on what was learned from NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which hit an asteroid moonlet safely in 2022.
Even though tactics look good, there are still significant problems to solve. Because of how politics work, action might not be taken until the effects are apparent, and it might be hard to get money for preventative steps. Keeping people from spreading false information is also very important.
Experts say that more studies and testing of other ways to reduce damage, like ion beam technology, are needed. NASA is making an infrared camera called the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor. This will help them find dangerous asteroids early on. The world will be better prepared to deal with an asteroid danger thanks to future tabletop exercises and regular briefings that will improve readiness.
NASA's planetary defense officer, Emeritus Lindley Johnson, said the real value lies in planning and talking with others. These things are essential for protecting our planet from asteroids and effective planetary defense.
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