"Asteroids and Aliens" Steven J. Ostro Ft. Carl Sagan

I would like to post here a brief history of Steven J. Ostro as I have stumbled upon two most intriguing documents he has published with NASA. Among working with such names as Carl Sagan, he was awarded NASA medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement in 1991 and 2004 as well as receiving the Gerard P. Kuiper Prize from the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society in 2003. Finally, in 2008, he was elected a fellow of the American Geophysical Union which was awarded for acknowledged eminence in the Earth and Space sciences. Here is a breif overview of his life from Wikipedia.

Steven J. Ostro (1946-2008) was an American scientist specializing in radar astronomy. He worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Ostro led radar observations of numerous asteroids, as well as the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, Saturn's rings, and Mars and its satellites. As of May 2008, Ostro and his collaborators had detected 222 near-Earth asteroids (including 130 potentially hazardous objects and 24 binaries) and 118 main belt objects with radar[1]. He died December 15, 2008 due to complications related to cancer. He has been remembered fondly by his colleagues for both his personal and professional contributions.

Ostro was an early participant in discussion of the asteroid impact hazard, placing particular emphasis on the need to characterize asteroids before any deflection attempt. In a paper with Carl Sagan, Ostro noted that while the asteroid impact hazard is a long-term risk to any civilization, the risk associated with maintaining an active deflection program is higher, because it is just as easy to deflect an asteroid to impact Earth as to prevent it from doing so [6]. Ostro advocated for continued funding of the Arecibo Planetary Radar, on both hazard and scientific grounds.

I am posting here a document, "Asteroids and Aliens" by Steven J. Ostro of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, that provides an excellent analysis of two of the most important questions still facing humanity today.

Are We Alone?

and

Will a Rock From the Sky Wipe Us All Out?

One other document I'd like to post on here for further reference is his publication with Carl Sagan, "Cosmic Collisions and the Longevity of Non-spacefaring Galactic Civilizations".

I have found his writings very informative and I thought this would be the appropriate place to post this as like-minded minds might enjoy this.


[edit on 2-2-2010 by born2BWild]

S&F, thank you. This is great stuff for anyone interested in the Fermi paradox or any kind of serious thinking about E.Ts. for that matter.

makes me think of the Andromeda Strain

Makes me think that space weaponry should be utilized to deflect astroids.


[edit on 2-2-2010 by Lacenaire]

reply to post by Lacenaire


This is interesting for the fact that the weaponization of space is so controversial because fears arise for what other probabilities the weapons can and might be used for. For example against other countries and for more control and power.

In theory it would be a good solution yet there is too much room for the abuse of such a system. So unless there are imposed restrictions I do not expect this to happen unless it is done in total secrecy as has been speculated on before.

[edit on 2-2-2010 by born2BWild]

reply to post by born2BWild


I don't know about that. It seems like nukes can be abused in same way, and to the same end, just as easily and we went ahead and made them. We as humans have no history whatsoever of holding back on the development of a weapon that we have the technology to develop. I think that we either don't have the ability to weaponize space, or we believe that our current arsenal cannot be enhanced by the weaponization of space.

reply to post by Lacenaire


I am under the impression that we are trying to come up with ways to deflect an incoming astroid, but that we have no good solutions yet.

Astroid mitigation strategies