NEO Asteroid Detection: Can Private Funded B612 do more

NASA's efforts in detecting, monitoring and alerting communities about NEOs and potential asteroid strikes have received criticism from many areas.

Some of the most ardent critics are ex-Nasa staff members. Nasa's NEO efforts are deemed insufficient by former agency astronauts and scientists who last year launched a bold project with high aims.

To design, finance, build and launch the first private space telescope to track asteroids and protect humanity.

The foundation called B612 is trying to raise $450 million to build and deploy a space telescope that would be called Sentinel and placed in orbit around the sun, at a distance of 273 million kilometers from the Earth to detect most objects that are otherwise not visible.

You realize that we have a responsibility to continue safe operations on board Spaceship Earth. And that means protecting humanity.” ~ Ed Lu, former NASA astronaut, STS-84, STS-106, Soyuz TMA-2, ISS Expedition 7

Organized by Piet Hut and Ed Lu, 

a group of 20 experts, in fields ranging from asteroid studies to propulsion to power technologies, came together around our common concern about Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) and how a large impact on Earth could destroy human civilization.

“We feel a certain urgency to get on with it so that we can be confident that we’re not going to have a cosmic disaster here for no good, justifiable reason, just because we didn’t get with it. So let’s get with it. That’s the name of the game.” ~ Rusty Schweickart, Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 9