An internal watchdog agency says that NASA's efforts to identify, track and do something about potentially threatening asteroids are not well-integrated and lack proper oversight. Top NASA executives agreed with the criticism and promised to fix the problems within a year.
Monday's report from NASA's Office of Inspector General focuses on the agency's program to deal with near-Earth objects. That program is budgeted at $40 million a year, which represents a tenfold increase over what it was five years ago. The NEO Program Office coordinates NASA's efforts to catalog comets and asteroids in Earth-crossing orbits - and also plays a role in planning future missions to near-Earth objects.
One of the office's goals, mandated by Congress almost a decade ago, is to track at least 90 percent of the near-Earth objects wider than 460 feet (140 meters) by 2020. Objects of that size could cause regional devastation if they were to hit Earth at just the wrong place.
Last year's blowup of a much smaller asteroid over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, which caused millions of dollars of damage and injured more than 1,000 people, drew the world's attention to the threat posed by near-Earth objects.
However, the inspector general's report said NASA wouldn't meet its 2020 goal, given its current structure and resources. It suggested that the lack of coordination was part of the problem.
'We believe the program would be more efficient, effective and transparent were it organized and managed in accordance with standard NASA research program requirements,' the inspector general's report said.
The report faulted the NEO Program's lack of structure, and said its resources are inadequate for handling its growing agenda. It said the program's executive office fell short when it came to overseeing progress in the asteroid-tracking effort. What's more, there were no formal partnerships with the Defense Department or the National Science Foundation, or with international space agencies. Those groups could make significant contributions to the effort, the report said.
Even before Monday's publication, the inspector general's office shared a draft of the report with John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for the science mission directorate. In a written response, Grunsfeld said NASA management concurred with the report and laid out a schedule for making changes.
By next March, NASA plans to develop a revised set of internal policies and figure out how many staff members will be needed for the NEO Program. The space agency said it will lay out a new strategic plan for the program by next September. That's also the promised time frame for establishing a plan for additional formal partnerships, and for developing an oversight process to make sure asteroid detection efforts are coordinated and not duplicative.
The inspector general's office said Grunsfeld's comments were 'responsive' to the concerns raised by the report, and that it would close the case 'upon verification and completion of the proposed corrective actions.'
First published September 15 2014, 12:24 PM
Alan BoyleAlan Boyle is the science editor for NBC News Digital. He joined MSNBC.com at its inception in July 1996, and took on the science role in July 1997 with the landing of NASA's Mars Pathfinder probe. Boyle is responsible for coverage of science and space for NBCNews.com.Boyle joined NBCNews.com from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, where he was the foreign desk editor from 1987 to 1996. Boyle has won awards for science journalism from numerous organizations, including the National Academies, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Association of Science Writers. Boyle is the author of 'The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference.' He lives in Bellevue, Wash.
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