NEOCam: Not Ready For Prime Time

NASA Selects Two Missions to Explore the Early Solar System, NASA
“In addition to selecting the Lucy and Psyche missions for formulation, the agency will extend funding for the Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) project for an additional year. The NEOCam space telescope is designed to survey regions of space closest to Earth’s orbit, where potentially hazardous asteroids may be found.”
NASA Cancels Space Act Agreement With B612 Foundation, earlier post
NASA Cancels B612 Sentinel Agreement and Then Picks JPL NEOCam, earlier post
Keith’s earlier note: Isn’t it a litte odd that the decision to cancel the Space Act Agreement with B612 for its “Sentinel” asteroid hunting mission suddenly came to light on the eve of Discovery mission finalists being announced — and that JPL’s asteroid hunting “NEOCam” mission is among those selected for further work?. These spacecraft even look a lot alike. JPL folks clearly saw Sentinel as competition – even if it was Sentinel team that first pushed the envelope on this whole idea. JPLers were pushing Lindley Johnson and others at NASA HQ to end the Sentinel agreement. At this point Johnson could use all the help he can get given how miserably his organization’s NEO work has been progressing.
Keith’s update: A lot of people in the planetary science community were pushing for an in-space NEO/asteroid detection capability such as this. For a while, NASA SMD used to get around the issue (and funding it) by saying “Oh, we don’t have to worry about that, B612 is going to do that for us”. But then the pressure from JPL began to mount and NASA pulled the rug out from under B612 to make the way easier for NEOCam. Now, a year later, they don’t even pick NEOCam – but they keep it on life support – perhaps until JPL can submit another proposal next time.
If we are going to map all the NEOs, we could easily use both B612 and Neocam. That is if we consider it important to.. you know… not get hit by an asteroid.
B612 was just magical thinking by retired astronauts looking for something to do. NEOCAM had JPL behind it and should have had NASA Hqts behind it. Unfortunately, NASA Hqts is filled primarily with “scientists” for whom Science and power is their god.
This is “the game” and all its glory. It really is a shame what happened to the B612 Foundation. Maybe Congressman Adam Schiff can do something about this.
While regrettable this is also a teachable moment to everyone who really wants to change the culture we are residing in. How do we correct things like this?
You know all takes a back seat to a mini-Tunguska event that makes Chelyabinsk sound like a 1972 Volkswagen backfiring in your neighbor’s drive.
For all those that thought the B612 foundation could find the funding for their mission, just remember that magical thinking only works in the Magic Kingdom of Disneyland.
One could make the argument that the “mission” of mapping potentially hazardous NEOs is a “strategic mission” that supersedes the science that is normally within the realm of competed missions. In other words, NASA could chose to do a mission like this outside of the Discovery program as a “mini Flagship mission.” In fact, one could make the case that it shouldn’t even come from the SMD budget as it stands because it’s principal purpose is planetary defense.
So the budget should come from DOD. Or is it Homeland Security?
That’s a really great question. It’s hard to argue that it’s NOT a national security issue. But it’s also an INTERnational security issue, too.
“mini Flagship” is probably the wrong term, since flagship missions are supposed to be the big, expensive ones, and sometimes people call a New Frontiers mission a “mini flagship.” You’re really taking about a “directed” rather than a “competed” mission. It would take some work to find the money, but there’s no reason (in principle) NASA couldn’t do a directed, $250 million mission. They could also compete it, but specify that they were only interested in a NEO survey mission. After all, New Frontiers missions are compered but the AO specified one of five allowed targets.
As far as who gets to pay, things involving NEO hazards are in NASA’s strategic plan and (I think) under the Science Mission Directorate. Until DoD gets a planetary defense line item, I guess SMD is stuck paying the bills.
I agree. But here NASA’s role is to basically to detect and track NEOs. This could just as easily be a Space Command role and wouldn’t even have to come out of the NASA budget at all. Given how oversubscribed NASA is with more worthy SMD projects than resources, I would think having the DoD involved at a minimum as a co-sponsor would be highly attractive. The recent WH reports on planetary defense policy, if read and implemented by the new Administration could provide the basis for this to occur. Results could be shared with the science community. NASA funds this data analysis.
I like the idea of competing it as the process should provide best value.
NEOCam strikes me as more of a “utility” mission than a science mission, which may be its problem with fitting into a program such as Discovery.
I know science would come out of the mission, but its primary purpose is to find rocks with our name & address on them.
Nothing wrong with identifying asteroids and COMETS that could tag earth. Just think of the environmental damage a big one could do. If NASA is really responsible for identifying these objects and not responsible for mitigating or destroying them before they hit us, there is nothing wrong with the NEOCAM mission. I realize that it will take money from the “sacred” science budget but I would like to have my friends survive a comet or asteroid impact.