ngchunter,
You bring up some good, important points - and I certainly don't mean to trivialize the effort that would be required to restore accountability AND
transparency to NASA or any other attempt at a civilian space agency.
And I by no means mean to demonize NASA as sinister opponent of mankind, in fact I have a couple of friends who work there - although their access to
information, like most workers there, is heavily compartmentalised - but even they would admit that NASA'a loyalty lies first to the DoD and secondly
to the American Taxpayer.
While Near Earth Object Observation Initiatives, like the one you provided, are quite needed and informational - I fear that transparency flows only
one way - with the Govt. benefiting from the data, and reserving the right to censor or classify any data they find "destabilizing" for the general
public.
Academic and Governmental partnerships almost always follow this unfortunate - even insidious - pattern.
(the Jason groups being only one example)
en.wikipedia.org...
As far as who would regulate the clean up of Low Earth Objects - I would propose a civilian based Space Agency would be up to such a task - with the
cooperation of other "peaceful" nations.
While it is an engineering project of some magnitude - neither it - nor a Space Elevator program - are outside our "known" technical ability, even
in this early part of the 21st century.
Would the US Govt., in collusion with other 1st world Nations, downplay a substantial threat to civilization? - I honestly don't know - but their
track record of secrecy and manipulation - frankly stinks - and I'd rather not bet the Human race on their non supervised judgement.
"The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies,
to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far
outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its
arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there
is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of
official censorship and concealment"
- John F. Kennedy (April 27, 1961)
