- B612 Foundation
The B612 Foundation is a private foundation dedicated to protecting the Earth from asteroid strikes. Their immediate goal is to "significantly alter the orbit of an asteroid in a controlled manner by 2015".
The B612 project grew out of a one-day workshop on asteroid deflection organized by
Piet Hut andEd Lu atNASA Johnson Space Center ,Houston ,Texas , onOctober 20 ,2001 . ParticipantsRusty Schweickart ,Clark Chapman ,Piet Hut , andEd Lu established the B612 Foundation onOctober 7 ,2002 .It is named for the home asteroid of the eponymous hero of
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 's "The Little Prince ".Financial status
The B612 Foundation is a California
501(c)(3) non-profit, private foundation. Financial contributions to the B612 Foundation are tax exempt. Its principal offices are in Tiburon, CA.ee also
*
Spaceguard
*Asteroid deflection
*99942 Apophis External links
* [http://www.b612foundation.org/ B612 Foundation]
* [http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/asteroid_deflection_030205.html In Defense of Earth Keeping Asteroids at a Distance]
* [http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=000EB755-511C-1F7F-911C83414B7F0000 The Asteroid Tugboat: To prevent an asteroid from hitting Earth, a space tug equipped with plasma engines could give it a push] By Russell L. Schweickart (from "Scientific American ")
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