Summary of the 2002 Arlington Workshop on the Scientific Requirements for Mitigation of Hazardous Comets and Asteroids

Abstract

The “Workshop on Scientific Requirements for Mitigation of Hazardous Comets and Asteroids,” supported by the NASA’s Office of Space Science, was held on September 3 – 6, 2002, at the Hyatt Hotel in Arlington, VA. Seventy-seven scientists, engineers and military experts from the United States, Europe, and Japan participated. Its purpose was to consider the scientific requirements for avoidance and mitigation of hazards to the Earth due to asteroids and comets, i.e., what should be done to ensure that an adequate base of scientific knowledge is created that will allow efficient development of a reliable, but as yet undefined, collision mitigation system when needed in the future. It became clear that the prime impediment to further advances in this field is the lack of any assigned responsibility to any national or international governmental organization to prepare for a disruptive collision and the absence of any authority to act in preparation for some future collision mitigation attempt.