NASA’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration has released an internal report from its Planetary Defense Coordination Office. The document states that NASA currently does not have the infrastructure to adequately protect the Earth from asteroid impact.

The report describes the results of the exercises carried out within the scope of the proposed asteroid impact scenario. The proposed scenario was: 72% chance of colliding with an asteroid on July 12, 2038, 14 years later, conditions that would prevent it from hitting Earth are unknown. The asteroid’s diameter is between 60 and 800 m, but its size is more likely to be between 100 and 320 m.

The probability that no one will be affected by the asteroid is 45%, the probability that more than 1000 people will be affected is 47%, the probability that 100,000 people will be affected is 28%, the probability that more than 1 million people will be affected is 28%, the probability that 10 million people will be affected is 0.04%. Its sphere of influence included many densely populated regions such as Mexico, the United States, Portugal, Spain, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The report states:

Sustaining the space mission, disaster preparedness, and communications efforts for 14 years will be challenging due to budget cycles, political leadership, personnel changes, and ever-changing world events.

Exercise participants found critical flaws in NASA’s response to the scenario. Most of the main problems were in the internal planning and communications departments. For example, it is noted that there is no clearly defined procedure for intervening in such an asteroid. It is also emphasized that so far only one experiment, the DART mission, has been carried out in practice to prevent a collision with the Earth. Double Asteroid Redirection Test – “double asteroid redirection test”).

NASA noted:

The decision-making process for space missions in the event of an asteroid threat remains unclear. This process has not been adequately defined either in the United States or internationally.