A very big Asteroid will fly by the Earth next week and its size has been described “as large as the Empire State Building” by many news agencies. According to experts and professionals, there is no reason to worry and the date has been established for its proximity to our planet is next August 10th.
WHAT IS IT?
The asteroid is knows as 2006 QQ23 and will be reach approximately 1.1 million miles from the planet according to NASA and it is 1.870 Feet in diameter, probably the closest (and bigger) to Earth recorded.. . This Asteroid has been orbiting around the planet for at least 100 years (taking into account when it started to be monitored). NASA says that the asteroid’s route has been mapped till 2200 … Is that reliable?
WHAT IS NASA DOING?
Last month, NASA explained (in a 20 page report) the requirements that the agency needs in order to be prepared for “NEOs” (Near-Earth Objects). This raised big questions in the Congress, Professionals, Universities and of course, the White House. Is NASA using its funds correctly? No one knows.
According to Quartz publication “NASA says it can’t afford to build a space telescope considered the fastest way to identify asteroids that might impact the Earth with terrible consequences.” This is very interesting as if NASA cannot afford the costs and the Federal Government is not looking forward to fund this then … Who will take care of this?
INTERNATIONAL OPERATION
While NASA keeps “funding” the operation of companies like SpaceX (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), other countries decided to invest more money into space programs. The idea that private companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin or even Boing might make the costs “cheaper” for the White House, China, Japan, the EU and Russia do not think the same.
The European Union is working close with Israel and Japan to develop “high quality” rockets in an effort to challenge SpaceX. It is not clear how this strategy will work, but apparently, private developers (Engineering, Programming, Industrial Design) are working together like SpaceX is doing with NASA. Even though this projects share information with the North American Agency … this might look like the start of a “Space Race” that this time, will include Chinese Powerful Funding …
What do you think? Should NASA work better with resources? How fast can China catch up with NASA’s projects?
