A NASA expert asks to prepare for the risks of an asteroid impact

In an interview with EFE within the framework of the ‘The Many Pathways to Spaces’ conference that addresses issues such as the economy and the colonization of space in Oviedo, northern Spain, Campis recalled that “major impacts” such as the one that extinct the dinosaurs are “inevitable” if humanity does not develop the techniques, technologies and action programs necessary to deflect asteroids that may collide with the Earth.

The NASA expert has clarified that currently there are no known asteroids that “stalk” the planet and that the probability of one impacting during the life of an individual is “very low”, but he has insisted that humanity must prepare for it through the so-called “planetary defense” if it wants to survive in the long term as a civilization.

“At least three or four decades ago,” NASA “managed to convince the US government that a threat existed” and since then it has coordinated a global network of telescopes and scientists who are responsible for discovering asteroids and determining whether their trajectory is dangerous for the planet based on a probability model called the Torino scale, according to Campins.

Although human civilization has not yet been threatened by the impact of an asteroid, there are currently many space agencies that collaborate internationally to carry out simulations “every three years” in order to have an “institutional memory” that helps them react in case of real danger, he noted.

NASA already speaks of “planetary defense” when referring to programs such as DART, which demonstrated in 2022 that it is possible to change the orbit of a small asteroid with a kinetic impact., “although it sounds like science fiction,” he noted.

In April 2029, the asteroid Apophis, a 375-meter mass, will pass less than 32,000 kilometers from the Earth’s surface, below the orbit of many communications satellites, which could allow it to be sighted from Earth without lack of professional means.

Campis has stressed that “in this encounter of Apophis with the Earth there is no risk of deviation”, although in the future the asteroid could modify its orbit and threaten an impact.

For this reason, he attaches great importance to the study of the asteroid that will be carried out by the NASA Osiris-Apex space mission, of which he himself is a part, and the Ramses spacecraft of the European Space Agency (ESA), which is still under construction.

NASA and ESA vessels will have the opportunity to analyze, among other things, how Apophis deforms and changes when it comes under the influence of Earth’s gravity.

Asteroids that approach Earth acquire a speed similar to that of the planet, which makes them “ideal for space mining,” according to Campins.

The expert recalled that NASA’s Osiris-Rex mission, predecessor of the current Osiris-Apex and in which he also participated, found on the asteroid Bennu a surface of hydrated silicates, that is, clay.

“From there you can extract water,” which is “the most valuable material outside the Earth’s atmosphere,” he explained, because it can be separated into hydrogen and oxygen to “sell it as fuel” to satellites orbiting the Earth.

Furthermore, the NASA expert added that materials such as platinum, rare earths or raw materials that, without being precious, allow for “printing structures in space” to save the transportation from Earth of non-essential components, can be obtained from asteroids.

Although this use of asteroids is not yet a reality, Campins has stated that “in one or two decades” it will begin to occur, since in his opinion it would be a “very practical” exploitation in order to create and maintain data centers and bases in space.