Justification of NEO impact mitigation activities by risk management
Abstract
The possibility of impacts of near-Earth objects (NEOs) on Earth is a typical high-consequence and low-probability risk. The relevance of this threat is often unrecognised by governments and therefore proposals for activities on NEO impact mitigation are frequently rejected. The Risk Management approach clearly categorises this risk as a "high-consequence - low-probability" risk, which requires at least "moderate" attention. The result of this analysis is that current world wide expenditures to prepare for the NEO impact threat (i.e. NEO search, orbit tracking, analysis of mitigation methods, etc.) are comparably low and should be increased significantly. The maximum expenditure estimates as defined by the Risk Management approach are given.
- Publication:
-
Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana
- Pub Date:
- September 2002
- Bibcode:
- 2002MmSAI..73..747G