[FPSPACE] Some NEO NEWS for David Morrison

[E.P. Grondine]

David Morrison wrote:

>Easterbrook has written an advocacy article, not 
>an objective discussion of this topic. His primary 
>thesis (which I will not discuss further here) is 
>that NASA should make asteroid defense 
>a major part of its mission

Hi all - 

Asteroid Defense is already a major part of NASA's
mission, by the instructions of the Congress given in 
the George Brown Jr. Amendment of 2005. That language 
is still law.

As far as impact estimates goes, using craters to date
planetary surfaces and then using the resulting 
dates to come up with estimates of the impact rates
is circular logic at its worst.

Not everyone shares Morrison's injection mechanism, 
nor his low estimates for cometary impact, and he knows 
this, so his claims for consensus are deliberately 
misleading.

That no one here aside from myself mentions this is
pitiful. If residents of other solar systems have 
the same problems understanding accretion, I'm not 
surprised intelligent life has not been detected 
elsewhere.



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