ASTEROID INSTITUTE A PROGRAM OF B612
ANNUAL PROGRESS REPORT
2019
WE HAVE A NEW LOOK! Launched in 2017, the Asteroid Institute is a program of B612 and is designed to be the international center of excellence for scientific collaboration on the discovery and deflection of asteroids as well as an incubator for new technologies. This report outlines progress on science and research within the Asteroid Institute and other public education programs at B612.
Cover: Clouds at sunset, by Ed Lu from the ISS This page: An atoll in the South Pacific, by Ed Lu from the ISS
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT This year we celebrated several important anniversaries. First,
In addition to our public education programs, Dr. Sarah Greenstreet, Senior Researcher
in March, the world came together to celebrate the 50th
at the Asteroid Institute, completed her research paper entitled “Required Deflection
anniversary of the Apollo missions. B612 co-founder Rusty
Impulses as a Function of Time Before Impact for Earth-Impacting Asteroids,” which
Schweickart’s Apollo 9 mission in March of 1969 was critical
should be published in late 2019 or early 2020. This paper describes her research using
for the success of the subsequent July 1969 Apollo 11 moon
the Asteroid Decision Analysis and Mapping (ADAM) platform. You can read more about
landing. His Apollo experience ultimately gave birth to a
what we learned from Sarah’s research on page 10. As ADAM’s capabilities are growing,
commitment to this planet. His visionary thinking has helped
we continue to focus our fundraising around the project. This year, we launched a funding
shape our organization and has allowed both B612 and Asteroid Day to grow and evolve.
campaign to secure multi-year support for several dedicated full-time technical team
You can read more about Rusty’s perspective on page 18 of this report.
members to continue to build and expand ADAM. And we continue to support other
Perhaps one of the things I am most excited to see is the growth of capability in the field we occupy. Last summer with asteroid 2018 LA, we saw our planet’s asteroid tracking and early warning system work together. Because of new alert systems in place, astronomers
science and technology programs such as the LSST Solar System Science Collaboration, University of Washington DIRAC Institute, and the San Diego Air & Space Museum through our grantmaking activities.
were able to assess the object shortly after discovery and determine its trajectory (it
In addition to our growing programs, we also welcomed Lawrence Wilkinson as a new
exploded over Botswana). However, this summer, another asteroid, asteroid 2019 OK,
board member. Lawrence has served on the boards of Oxygen Media, Common Sense
whizzed past Earth, having been detected only earlier that week, which surprised all of
Media, Wired Ventures, Pacific News Service, and The Institute for the Future, among
us as to its size and close proximity to our home planet. While our systems are improving,
others. He is an avid lover of all kinds of maps.
we still see an imperative for an increase in discovery rates. This will be possible only through increases in funding for technologies to find and track asteroids. This year, on June 30th, we celebrated the 5th anniversary of Asteroid Day. B612 is a founding sponsor of Asteroid Day, whose primary goal is to inspire the world’s citizens
We hope you enjoy reading about our progress and what’s possible when we work together to build shared understanding, computation tools, and partnerships. Looking ahead,
to learn more about asteroids—their role in the formation of our solar system, how we can use their resources, how asteroids can pave the way for future exploration, and, finally, how we can protect our planet from asteroid impacts. Since its founding in 2014, Asteroid Day has quickly grown into a global movement and is now recognized by the United Nations as “the international day of awareness and education about asteroids.” Asteroid Day, combined with B612’s other education
Danica Remy President, B612 Foundation Co-Founder, Asteroid Day
and advocacy efforts, has contributed to a strong shift in public pressure and discourse around planetary defense.
4
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
5
ABOUT US
IN THE LAST YEAR
B612 is dedicated to protecting Earth from asteroid impacts. We do this through:
Research Presented at the National Academy of Sciences
ASTEROID INSTITUTE
Driving forward science and technologies needed to protect Earth from asteroid impacts through the Asteroid Institute.
Harold Reitsema, our Mission Director at the Asteroid Institute, presented at the National Academy of Sciences on the work B612 has done on space-based asteroid observation missions. Dr. Reitsema presented B612’s research on what a constellation of satellites could achieve as well as the knowledge learned during the planning stages
ASTEROID
EDUCATION
Educating the public, the scientific community, and world
of the now-canceled Sentinel Mission.
governments about asteroids through programs such as Asteroid Day.
Research Presented at the Planetary
Since the organization’s inception in 2002, our work has been carried out entirely
Defense Conference The findings of the Asteroid Institute’s Dr. Sarah
through the support of private donors.
presented at the Planetary Defense Conference in College
R ight on the heels of the love relationship we have with Earth is a responsibility.
Park, Maryland. The work was expanded into a paper for
RUSTY SCHWEICKART
Greenstreet’s research, “The Effect of Warning Time on the Deflection of Earth-Impacting Asteroids,” was
What started in 2002 as a visionary idea to develop the technology to deflect an asteroid has grown into a world-renowned organization and scientific
publication in a scientific journal, which is expected to be
institute with a key role in the emerging field of planetary defense. For
published in late 2019 or early 2020.
years, B612, our partners, and a global community of dedicated scientists and researchers have advocated for increased asteroid detection, and many victories have resulted from those efforts. Asteroid detection is now debated seriously in scientific, governmental, and public conversations.
B612 Sponsors the LSST Solar System Readiness Sprint For the second consecutive year, B612 sponsored the LSST Solar System Readiness Sprint, a convening of scientists ensuring the readiness of the scientific community to interpret LSST’s solar system data when it begins operation. One of the largest telescopes on Earth, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), will come online in 2022. It is expected to catalog millions of asteroids, including over 100,000 near-Earth objects. In order to be ready for this data, the scientific community is collaborating, collecting resources, and building analytical tools, including the Asteroid Institute’s ADAM project.
This cloud represents the approximately three million near-Earth asteroids larger than 25 meters that need to be found. The orange dot represents the 20,614, or less than .01%, that have currently been found. In 2018, 1,839 new near-Earth asteroids were found.
Upheaval Dome and the Green River, Canyonlands National Park, by Ed Lu from the ISS IN THE LAST YEAR
7
ASTEROID INSTITUTE LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
NUMBER OF NEAR-EARTH ASTEROIDS LARGER THAN A GIVEN SIZE
This year the Asteroid Institute continued to advance the 1,000,000
science and technologies to discover, track, and calculate the
[MORE THAN 5 MILLION]
trajectories of asteroids. The good news is that observatories around the world today have continued their successes at finding and tracking larger asteroids. And soon to be deployed mega-telescopes funded by government and academic syndicates promise to make a substantial contribution to the tracked population of smaller near-Earth asteroids down to about 140 meters in
800,000
under 140 meters in diameter will require different techniques and technologies. The principal project of the Asteroid Institute is ADAM, the Asteroid Decision Analysis and Mapping platform. ADAM is a platform for mapping, modeling, and analyzing asteroid observations and will form the basis for building future services such as mission planning, asteroid risk visualization, space navigation, and resource mapping. Such services will be important to a future space-based economy, for scientific studies, and for protecting Earth from asteroid impacts. ADAM’s orbit propagation and astrodynamics algorithms are hosted on the Google’s Cloud Services Platform, which enables large-scale parallel computations. Some exciting things from our work on ADAM are outlined in more detail on pages 10 and 11 of this report.
NUMBER OF ASTEROIDS
diameter. However, tracking the several million much harder to see smaller asteroids
600,000
Chelyabinsk, 2013 19 m (62 ft) 30 A-bombs equivalent 0.2% currently tracked of approx. 5 million
City Killer Tunguska, 1908 45 m (148 ft) 400 A-bombs equivalent 3% currently tracked of approx. 500,000
Civilization Ender 1,000 m (3,281 ft) 150,000 A-bombs equivalent 94% currently tracked of approx. 1,000
400,000
We are also pleased to share that we have secured funding from several new sources to support the expansion of our ADAM development team. Projects such as ADAM support the Asteroid Institute’s vision of developing a dynamic
NASA Goal 140 m (459 ft) Regional or Small State 7,000 A-bombs equivalent 33% currently tracked of approx 25,000
map of the inner solar system. This map, which is powered by world-class research partners and a global community of donors, will not only protect the planet from asteroid impacts, but it will also support efforts to open new frontiers and, potentially,
200,000
form a foundation for expansion of humanity into the solar system. To our future,
200
Dr. Ed Lu Executive Director, Asteroid Institute
8
LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ASTEROID INSTITUTE
400
600
800
DIAMETER OF ASTEROID (METERS) You can see from the boxes that nearly all near-Earth asteroids larger than one kilometer have been tracked, but the vast majority of smaller asteroids remain to be tracked. A-bomb equivalent is a measure of the explosive energy released, not radioactive by-products. *Underlying data set for this visualization from Alan Harris.
1,000
ASTEROID INSTITUTE UNDERSTANDING WHAT IT TAKES TO DIVERT ASTEROIDS
long ahead of time we must take action. These results will help us understand the requirements for real-life spacecraft designs to deflect asteroids. Over the next few years, this work will be especially relevant as asteroid deflection tests are carried out. For instance, the upcoming NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission
By Dr. Ed Lu Depending when we act upon it, how hard is it to move an asteroid? Are there big variations in deflection difficulty? How will this research help us protect Earth from asteroid impacts?
will be launched in July 2021 to test a kinetic impact asteroid deflection by running into a small asteroid and measuring the resultant change in trajectory. For the first time, humanity will change the orbit of a celestial body! You can follow updates on this exciting mission at the DART homepage. One big unknown in this mission is how much asteroid material will be thrown off in the collision with the DART spacecraft, which
Asteroid Institute Senior Researcher Dr. Sarah Greenstreet was the lead author on
affects how much impulse is transmitted to the asteroid. A principal goal of the DART
a recently submitted research paper entitled “Required Deflection Impulses as a
mission and a proposed ESA follow-on mission called HERA is to measure this effect.
Function of Time Before Impact for Earth-Impacting Asteroids,” with contributors
Once we better understand the real-world effectiveness of kinetic impactors and
Mike Loucks, John Carrico, Tatiana Kichkaylo, Mario Juric, and myself. This paper
other asteroid deflection mechanisms, we will be able to use this knowledge together
examines the range of difficulty (technically, the magnitude of the imparted change
with our understanding of required deflection impulses from Dr. Greenstreet’s paper
in velocity) for deflecting asteroids depending upon how long prior to impact action
to better plan for and execute an actual asteroid deflection (which we know we will
is taken. We find that there is a considerable spread in difficulty to deflect asteroids,
someday face).
with some requiring an order of magnitude more or less deflection impulse than the median. We identified the easy cases as being primarily asteroids with more highly sensitive trajectories due to their being affected by an earlier close approach to a planet. Unfortunately, the easiest to deflect asteroids are also the ones that are most difficult to identify as being on an impact trajectory. The more difficult cases, on the other hand, were primarily due to asteroids being on an overtaking trajectory with Earth (or vice versa), much like a rear-end car collision on a highway. From a scientific standpoint, what was significant about this work is that we were able to quantify the actual distributions of deflection difficulty as a function of time prior to impact.
To carry out the work on the Greenstreet et al. paper required the simulation of the trajectories of ten thousand theoretical (or virtual) asteroids whose orbits were chosen to match the distribution of actual Earth-impacting asteroids, which required us to build a very fast asteroid orbit propagator. A propagator allows us to calculate the future location of an asteroid based on its initial location and velocity, taking into account the gravity fields of the Sun and planets, as well as other much smaller effects, including the gravity of other asteroids, the non-sphericity of the Sun and planets, and even corrections due to the curvature of space-time from Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity! The computational infrastructure we built for this research paper will also
The practical application of this work is that it helps us better understand the planetary
become a key building block of the Asteroid Decision and Mapping (ADAM) project.
defense requirements for both asteroid tracking as well as asteroid deflection. Knowing the types of orbits that are most difficult to deflect will help us design telescope observing strategies for finding those impacting asteroids earlier in order to be able to deflect them with less difficulty. Conversely, knowing the types of orbits that are
The ADAM project is made possible through the support of a community of
the most difficult to identify as threats will also help us design observing strategies
donors around the world including the William K. Bowes Jr. Foundation, Steve
to focus more attention on these asteroids. And by better understanding the range of deflection scenarios we are likely to face, we will also better understand not only
Jurvetson, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and three anonymous major donors, in addition to donors from 46 countries.
how much we need to alter asteroid trajectories in order to deflect them, but how
10
UNDERSTANDING WHAT IT TAKES TO DIVERT ASTEROIDS
UNDERSTANDING WHAT IT TAKES TO DIVERT ASTEROIDS
11
ASTEROID INSTITUTE IMPACT PROBABILITY & THE SPIRIT OF OPENNESS
By Professor Mario Juric and Joachim Moeyens The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), due to enter operation in 2022, will conduct the largest census of bodies in the solar system, including the population of nearby potentially hazardous asteroids. The members of our team located at the DIRAC Institute at the University of Washington—the center of solar system software efforts for LSST—are working to understand how objects on a collision course with Earth would be discovered by LSST. If the LSST finds such an object, would we immediately know it’s heading toward a collision? If not, when would we know? At what point does the probability of impact turn into certainty? When that happens, will there be enough time to react? Or should we deploy other telescopes to
Ninety-nine out of one hundred asteroids arrive unannounced. The way forward on this is not to rely on hope as your strategy. We can do something about it and we should. ED LU
proactively follow up potentially dangerous discoveries? To answer these questions, our team is developing a simulation framework that makes use of the ADAM platform to create tens of thousands of simulations of how the LSST would observe an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Each studied case faithfully simulates how the discovery and the recognition of an impending impact would unfold. We look at when the object would first be discovered and whether the preliminary orbit indicates it is dangerous. The system then observes how such an asteroid’s
impact probability changes (grows) as more and more observations are added. And, finally, we assess the thresholds of when the probability indicates targeted follow-up (and, ultimately, mitigation action) is needed. The results of this study will be published next year. They will give the community a roadmap on how to follow up and react to potential impactors discovered with the LSST. And in the spirit of B612’s commitment to openness, the frameworks and analysis software we have built in the process will be made available for everyone to verify and use.
A volcano in the Pacific Northwest, by Ed Lu from the ISS
12
IMPACT PROBABILITY & THE SPIRIT OF OPENNESS
PROGRAM EVOLUTION
2002
2008–2009
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
B612 founded with the goal of significantly altering the orbit of an asteroid in a controlled manner.
B612 funds design study at JPL showing feasibility of the gravity tractor.
B612 releases asteroid impact video with data from the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization.
B612’s “Sentinel to Find 500,000 Near-Earth Asteroids,” published in IEEE Spectrum.
Asteroid Day is recognized by the United Nations and holds 500 events worldwide.
B612 launches the Asteroid Institute program, a virtual organization comprised of planetary scientists and engineers around the world.
Asteroid Institute announces Google and AGI as ADAM technology partners.
Final report on Sentinel’s infrared technology research and synthetic tracking shared with the National Academy of Sciences.
B612 is Founding Sponsor of the Asteroid Day project, a global asteroid-awareness campaign.
B612 hosts Bay Area Asteroid Day event with California Academy of Sciences.
2012–2013
B612 leads the Apophis debate.
B612 announces the Sentinel Space Telescope project.
Asteroid Day project holds 150 events worldwide.
Sentinel project passes its first major technical review.
2005 B612 announces the invention of the gravity tractor in Nature.
B612 endorses NEOCam and LSST for 100 m+ solution and stops fundraising for Sentinel project.
B612 funds Caltech research study to validate synthetic tracking feasibility.
Asteroid Institute builds team for ADAM to provide analytical tools for asteroid defense scenarios. B612 publishes call for shared solar system map in Financial Times.
SENTINEL
TE IS DEBA APOPH TRACTOR GRAVITY
On Asteroid Day, 2,000+ events held worldwide, 48hour live asteroid broadcast, and United Nations OOSA publishes Planetary Defence Report. Asteroid Institute publishes synthetic tracking results as a NASA technical report.
SYNTHE TIC TRA CKING ASTERO ID
ASE NEO COMMITTEE
2012–2013
Congress gives NASA the goal of finding 90 percent of asteroids larger than 140 meters, called the George E. Brown Jr. Act.
Open letter sent to NASA about deflection mission planning and discussions regarding potential impact of asteroid 2011 AG5.
2006 United Nations ASE NEO Committee initiated.
A 19 m meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, injuring over 1,500 people and damaging thousands of buildings across six cities.
UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and General Assembly pass resolution creating International Asteroid Warning Network. Construction project for Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) begins.
Asteroid Day celebrates 5th anniversary and streams 21day global broadcast about asteroids. ADAM Engineer Funding campaign launched.
DAY
ASTER OID
2005
Asteroid Institute research on deflection impulses to move asteroids presented at Planetary Defense Conference.
2016
2014
2012
2010
2008
2006
2004
2002
B612 Foundation celebrates 15th anniversary.
Asteroid Institute announces appointment of Senior Research Fellows.
NASA announces Planetary Defense Coordination Office.
2018
2004–2008
B612 begins Asteroid Decision Analysis and Mapping project (ADAM) to improve the ability to make decisions on potential asteroid threats.
Asteroid Day project moves to Luxembourg and holds a 24-hour live asteroids broadcast. 1,200 events are held worldwide. Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) almost funded by EU and USA.
DECIS ION
ANAL YSIS A ND M APPI NG (A DA
Pew Research poll shows Americans believe asteroid monitoring should be national priority. Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) fully funded for 2022 impact.
M)
The Hayabusa2 spacecraft surveyed the asteroid Ryugu. The Japanese mission will return samples of Ryugu from above and below the surface. Associated Press research shows Americans believe asteroid monitoring should be a national priority.
ASTEROID INSTITUTE RESEARCHERS & COLLABORATORS Hank Grabowski, Software and Aerospace Engineer
Dr. Mario Juric, Associate Professor of Astronomy, University of Washington
Virginia Tech, BS and MS in Aerospace, Aeronautical, and Astronautical Engineering
Princeton University, PhD in Astrophysics
Hank is a co-founder of ADS, a leading aerospace
Professor Juric holds the Washington Research Foundation
engineering, software development, and space situational
Data Science Term Chair. He is a Senior Fellow at the uni-
awareness company and served as the company’s Chief
versity’s eScience Institute, dedicated to advancing research
Technology Officer. ADS was acquired by L3Harris in 2018.
in big data. Professor Juric is also the Solar System Data
Hank currently serves as an open-source software and
Processing Lead for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
decentralized web advocate and independent consultant.
(LSST), the largest astronomical survey ever to be undertaken.
His ADAM contributions focus on implementing the open-
His ADAM contributions focus on applying and extending
source
ADAM to large, LSST-scale asteroid discovery problems.
astrodynamics
computation
components
and
integration with analysis and visualization tools. Joachim Moeyens, University of Washington Postdoctoral Researcher Dr. Sarah Greenstreet, Senior Researcher University of British Columbia, MS and PhD in Astronomy
University of Washington, BS and MS in Physics and Astronomy, PhD (in progress) Moeyens is interested in big data and software-driven
Dr. Greenstreet’s research interests include near-Earth
solutions to problems in astronomy. He is now working
asteroid orbital dynamics, main-belt asteroid resonances,
on algorithms to discover minor planets in astronomical
co-orbital solar system objects, impact and crater formation
surveys, in particular, on the LSST’s Moving Object Pipeline
rates, resonant mechanisms that create retrograde asteroids,
System (MOPS) and on a novel algorithm named Tracklet-
and near-Earth object population modeling. Her work with
less Heliocentric Orbit Recovery (THOR). His ADAM
the ADAM platform includes studying the change in velocity
contributions focus on simulating LSST discoveries of
that must be imparted to an impacting asteroid in order to
synthetic impactor asteroids and understanding how their
deflect it from Earth.
impact probability evolves over time.
Lowell Hanson, Astrodynamicist
Allan Posner, Systems Engineer and Astrodynamicist
Colorado State University, MS Systems Engineering (in progress)
Johns Hopkins University, MS in Computer Science, BA and MA in Physics
Lowell completed his BS in Aerospace Physics at Metropolitan
Allan has played integral roles in NASA and DoD programs.
State University of Denver in 2019. He is now pursuing an MS
For NASA’s Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR), he
in Systems Engineering at Colorado State University and also
designed and performed in-flight trajectory-correction
working as a research assistant at CSU’s Energy Institute. His
maneuvers and led in-flight operations of the magnetometer
ADAM contributions focus on developing end-user software
and
to interact with ADAM.
contributions focus on analyzing potential PHA-collision
the
multi-spectral-imaging
camera.
His
ADAM
scenarios and creating use cases for subsequent predictions and analyses.
16
RESEARCHERS & COLLABORATORS
RESEARCHERS & COLLABORATORS
17
COSMIC BIRTH, EVOLUTION, AND OUR SHARED RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FUTURE A Retrospective by Rusty Schweickart
Why do we celebrate the 50th anniversary of anything? The “thing” was the big deal, right? So then it must be to remind us of what that thing 50 years ago was and why it is now still worthy of thinking about and celebrating. Was Apollo 9 that big a deal? Well, it’s certainly a big deal in that it was the mission that I flew on! In and of itself, however, Apollo 9 was just one essential step of many in the Apollo program. It didn’t even go to the Moon! So what’s the big deal? For me, it’s not any one flight. The big enough deal, for me, is to reflect on Apollo having been a collective decision, 50 years ago, to send out from Earth a small cohort of humans to another world. From that barren, desolate, colorless world, we humans (for we all went) looked back at Earth, the home of all the life that we know of, and realized in a personal way that we both love Earth (Mom) and are beginning a historic voyage into the larger cosmos. That is a big deal. I choose to view this as cosmic birth. More pragmatic people might reflect on it as Kennedy’s response to the Soviet geopolitical challenge. Or perhaps as the inevitable consequence of advances in rocket technology needed to deliver nuclear weapons. To
the ASE. We fly together on the International Space Station. We are well aware of the issues and tensions between and among our home nations. But we sense a larger future. We’ve worked in laboratories and in the UN to develop the technology and geopolitical
Earthrise by Bill Anders, Apollo 8 and B612 Founding Circle member
systems to protect Earth from devastating asteroid impacts. We are on an evolutionary process of living off this planet in the future. We can no longer burden Earth, and we are a biological species which will expand. We will grow, go beyond, and extend. We started Asteroid Day with a recognition that we will one day be a multi-planet
mandate for life to grow and survive. And for Earth life, this mandate translates into
species. But before that, we need to first deal with the existential threat of asteroid
reaching out beyond the planet into the cosmos. We’ve now peeked out beyond the
impacts in order to give us the time to become the multi-planet species we will
birth canal as far as the Moon, but we have no more of a clue than a baby does of what
eventually evolve into. We have the intelligence and the power to ensure the survival
life will hold. What we do know now is that we really love our Mom and that we are just
of life on Earth. It is up to us. We know technically how to protect Earth, but the big challenge in ensuring we don’t
The Apollo 8 guys “got this” as they watched, almost in shock, the beautiful blue
succumb to this existential threat is geopolitical. The decision to deflect an asteroid
and white Earthrise over the grey, cratered, lunar horizon. Archibald MacLeish “got it”
is a planetary decision. This is a decision in which time is of the essence. We started
when he wrote about the crew half way to the Moon, looking back at Earth “… What
Asteroid Day to begin the process of understanding this existential threat so that when
came to their minds was the life on that little, lonely, floating planet; that tiny raft in the
it actually manifests, we can respond to it collectively.
enormous, empty night. ‘Is it inhabited?’”
RUSTY SCHWEICKART RETROSPECTIVE
men and women from 38 countries, each of whom has flown in space, are members of
me those, and other real and logical reasons, pale in comparison with the evolutionary
beginning an amazing journey!
18
and love for the planet than to remain separate in our national tribes. Today, over 400
So, for me, this is the big deal worthy of celebration 50 years after we first landed
We went to the Moon as Americans; we’ll go to Mars and further as people from Earth.
on the Moon. Landed on the Moon … and looked back at Earth! What we saw was a
I started the Association of Space Explorers at the height of the Cold War because I
fantastic reality: the unbelievably beautiful home of all the life in our little corner of the
knew that it was far more important that we few astronauts and cosmonauts who had
universe. What we realized was our responsibility for doing whatever we can to extend
seen Earth with our own eyes from space get together to celebrate our commonality
and continue this amazing evolutionary experiment we call life.
RUSTY SCHWEICKART RETROSPECTIVE
19
ASTEROID DAY INTERNSHIP PROGRAM Funding of B612 helps support the Asteroid Day internship program. Members of the program join the Asteroid Day team in Luxembourg for hands-on experience in a startup environment and produce the global broadcast and local programs.
ASTEROID
EDUCATION
ASTEROID DAY GLOBAL This year marks the 5th anniversary of Asteroid Day, a UN-recognized day of public awareness modeled after Earth Day. Since Asteroid Day launched, it has delivered six billion impressions globally in print and broadcast and has enabled thousands of
Joelle Byars
Abdalla Dafiah
COPYWRITING AND OPERATIONS
VIDEO TECHNICIAN
University of Nebraska–Lincoln MA and PhD in English (in progress)
Metropolitan State University of Denver BA in Video Production (in progress)
independently organized events around the world. Asteroid Day started with a global call to action titled “The 100X Declaration.” The 100X Declaration received international attention, garnering a global cross section of signatures from B612 supporters, scientists, astronauts, global business leaders, celebrities, and notables. The 100X Declaration calls on the world to: (1) Employ available technology to detect and track near-Earth asteroids via governments and private and philanthropic organizations; (2) advance a rapid hundredfold acceleration of the discovery and tracking of near-Earth asteroids to 100,000 per year within the next ten years; and (3) promote a global adoption of Asteroid Day on June 30. In the five years since Asteroid Day was launched, the third goal was achieved within
Forrest Pommer-Schindler
Lisa Franck
STUDIO MANAGER
OPERATIONS
San Francisco State University BA in Broadcast Communications (in progress)
Miami University BS in Kinesiology (in progress)
one year. The first two goals have made modest global progress, but more work must be done in the area of asteroid discovery, as we highlight in this report. B612 aims to achieve the first two goals through research and technology at the Asteroid Institute.
Zach Gerber
Katie Young
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
VIDEO EDITOR
Metropolitan State University of Denver BA in Technical Comm and Interactive Media (expected 2019)
Metropolitan State University of Denver MS in Technical Communications, 2019
21
ASTEROID
EDUCATION
Our Asteroid Education program increases awareness about asteroids and science through public speaking and exposure in the media. In addition to Asteroid Day, this year we shared stories about our work and why the world should learn more about asteroids. We have highlighted a few public education activities from this last year. Dr. Ed Lu, Danica Remy, Rusty Schweickart, and Others ASTEROID DAY LIVE!
Rusty Schweickart
Dr. Ed Lu
SPACE.COM
“A METEOR EXPLODED OVER THE
Members of B612 and the scientific com-
BERING SEA WITH THE ENERGY OF
munity gathered in Luxembourg for three
B612 co-founder Rusty Schweickart dis-
10 ATOMIC BOMBS,” POPULAR SCIENCE
cussed the multidimensional aspects of asteroids, asteroid deflection, and Apollo 9.
Popular Science interviewed Ed Lu about the meteor that exploded in early 2019 over the Bering Sea.
days of programming, broadcast to millions
Dr. Ed Lu
of households, to encourage the conversation
NPR’S WEEKEND EDITION
about asteroids and planetary defense.
Ed Lu was featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition about the meteor that exploded over the Bering Sea.
November
December
2019
March
April
June
August
Dr. Ed Lu
Dr. Ed Lu, Featured Speaker
John Carrico and Mike Loucks
Danica Remy
DAVID RUMSEY MAP CENTER,
THE LONG NOW FOUNDATION
AGI PODCAST
NBC NEWS
Ed spoke to guests at the Long Now
Analytical
hosted
Danica Remy highlights the need to advance
Ed Lu partnered with the David Rumsey Map
Foundation about the need for a four-
Asteroid Institute Astrodynamicists John
asteroid discovery and create an inventory of
Center at Stanford University to present our
dimensional map of the inner solar system.
Carrico and Mike Loucks on their podcast.
all the asteroids near Earth.
STANFORD UNIVERSITY
vision to chart the high frontier of space.
Graphics
Inc.
(AGI)
They discussed the Asteroid Institute’s latest research on propagating asteroid orbits and predicting the force needed to prevent an asteroid from hitting Earth and how AGI’s STK software is helping us achieve this.
22
ASTEROID EDUCATION
ASTEROID EDUCATION
23
FOUNDING CIRCLE
ASTEROID CIRCLE
ANONYMOUS x 7
Eliot Gillum
Scott McGregor and Laurie Girand
Rick Armstrong
ANONYMOUS LEADERSHIP GIFT x 3*
Glaser Progress Foundation
Matt Mullenweg
The Barringer Crater Company
Bill Anders
Dane Glasgow
Diane Murphy
Jim Chervenak
Geoffrey Baehr
Steve and Julie Grimm
Peter Norvig
Lynn and Anisya Fritz
William K. Bowes Jr. Foundation*
Garrett Gruener and Amy Slater
Shervin Pishevar
Arthur Gleckler and Kristine Kelly
Brian Burton and James Mercer,
VK Hsu & Sons Foundation Ltd.
The Peggy Rawls Family Fund
Jensen Huang
James D. and Justin Jameson
Ray Rothrock
Tito’s Handmade Vodka
Don Carlson
Margaret Jonsson Family Foundation
Edwin Sahakian
Vinton and Sigrid Cerf
Steve Jurvetson*
Rusty Schweickart and Nancy Ramsey
Y(Imc) Chapman
Dominik Kaiser
Tim Trueman
Emily and David Corrigan
Steve Krausz
Robert C. and Fallon B. Vaughn
Asa Denton
Vladas Lašas
Ben Wheeler
Esther Dyson
James Leszczenski
Yishan Wong and Kimberly Algeri-Wong
Alan Eustace
David Liddle and Ruthann Quindlen
Sasha Galitsky
Suzanna Mak
Gillikin Family
Greg McAdoo
Broken Bells
Top row (left to right): Hillary Aiken, Yvonne Ellington, and John Montrym; John Kobs and Danica Remy; Dana Stalder, Rusty Schweickart, and Guests at Meteor Crater. Bottom row (left to right): Ed Lu and Erik Charlton; Paul Chodas, Mark Boslough, and Clark Chapman; Guests at the Asteroid Day Tech Briefing in Luxembourg.
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FOUNDING CIRCLE
*Leadership Gift ($1 M–$5 M)
Top row (left to right): Magdalena and Xavier Thillen; Tim Dougherty, Nicholas Paul Brysiewicz, and Benjamin Grant at The Interval; Lynne Jones of the DIRAC Institute. Bottom row (left to right): Meredith Moss, Rusty Schweickart, and Lisa Burke at the Asteroid Day Gala; Guests at the Asteroid Day Tech Briefing; Romanian Cosmonaut Dorin Prunariu, Tatiana Zamfiroiu, Crina Prunariu, and Romanian Ambassador Lilian Zamfiroiu. ASTEROID CIRCLE
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We have donors from 46 countries.
DONOR HONOR ROLL All Gifts $500–$24,999*
ANONYMOUS
Aki Korhonen
Eric Tilenius
Andrew Baruch
Sam Lichtenstein
Jan Magne Tjensvold
Richard Bowen
Scott Manley
Varian Family Fund
Rick Bradford
Bob McIntosh
James and Cynthia Walker
John Clendenin
Ernie McNabb
Sam Welsh
John Conery
Michael Meek
Magnus Wentzel
George Cornecelli
John Kenneth Menges Jr.
Lawrence Wilkinson
Steve Denning
Glenn Mercer
Jon Winston
Albert Ender
Patrick Murphy
Matt Wyndowe
Ray Erikson
Drummond Pike
Joseph L. Fischer
Dirk Pranke
Patrick D. Garvey
Kathryn Roberts
Daniel and Dean Hawes
Scott and Nola Schneider
Keith Hughes
Rolf Schreiber
Robert Jedicke
James Sewell
Glen Knowles
Douglas Simpkinson
* From September 1, 2018, to October 1, 2019
Tibet, by Ed Lu from the International Space Station
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DONOR HONOR ROLL
GOVERNING BOARD
B612 FOUNDATION
HEADQUARTERED
Dr. David Liddle, Chair
Danica Remy, President
IN SILICON VALLEY
Geoffrey Baehr Dr. Clark Chapman Dr. Dan Durda Garrett Gruener Dr. Ed Lu, Co-Founder Danica Remy, President Lawrence Wilkinson
Hillary Aiken, Vice President Joelle Byars Writer & Operations — Univ. Nebraska Daniel de Zeeuw Data & Business Systems Manager Diane Murphy Vice President, PR Alex Shwe Operations — Univ. Wisconsin
ASTEROID INSTITUTE, A PROGRAM OF B612
ASTEROID DAY TEAM
Dr. Ed Lu, Executive Director
Dr. Brian May, Co-Founder, United Kingdom Danica Remy, Co-Founder, California, USA Grig Richters, Co-Founder, Germany Rusty Schweickart, Co-Founder, California, USA
Dr. Marc Buie, Mission Scientist Jonny Dyer, Spacecraft Systems Engineer Dr. Scott Hubbard, Mission Strategist Dr. Roger Linfield, Mission Analyst Dr. Harold Reitsema, Mission Director Dr. Sam Waldman, Avionic Engineer ADAM PROJECT TEAM
John Carrico, Project Manager and Astrodynamicist Dr. Siegfried Eggl, Researcher Hank Grabowski, Systems Engineer and Astrodynamicist Dr. Sarah Greenstreet, Senior Researcher Lowell Hanson III, Astrodynamicist
Hillary Aiken, Gala Manager, California, USA Max Alexander, Photographer, United Kingdom Venelin Bochev, Operations Manager, Bulgaria Leonie Boucheron, Production, Luxembourg Joelle Byars, Copy & Operations, Hawaii, USA Abdalla Dafiah, Video Technician, Colorado, USA Daniel de Zeeuw, Data Systems, California, USA Colleen Fiaschetti, Brand & Project Manager, Utah, USA Lisa Franck, Production, California, USA Zach Gerber, Graphic Design, Colorado, USA
Dean Hawes, Technical Program Manager
Philippine Griveaud, Sponsors & Speakers, Luxembourg
Dr. Mario Juric, Research Advisor
Chris Jennings, Production, Colorado, USA
Dr. Tatiana Kichkaylo, Senior Engineer
Diane Murphy, Press Relations, California, USA
Laura Lark, Engineer
Forrest Pommer-Schindler, Studio Manager, California USA
Mike Loucks, Astrodynamicist Joachim Moeyens, Researcher Samira Motiwala, Astrodynamicist Allan Posner, Systems Engineer and Astrodynamicist Dr. Vivek Vittaldev, Mission Researcher
Dorin Prunariu, Asteroid Day Ambassador, Romania Razvan-Petru Radu, Advisor, Luxembourg Georges Schmit, Chair, Luxembourg Katie Young, Video Editor, Colorado, USA
MAILING ADDRESS
20 Sunnyside Ave., Suite 427 Mill Valley, CA 94941 United States Phone 650-644-4539 www.b612foundation.org
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