MEDIA ADVISORY September 5, 2008

Media Advisory: Association of Space Explorers Committee on Near Earth Objects

For the past two years the Association of Space Explorers (ASE) -- the international organization of astronauts and cosmonauts from 33 countries -- has been developing a program to protect the Earth from asteroid impacts.

To assist it in developing this decision program for the international community, the ASE’s Near-Earth Object (NEO) Committee formed a distinguished international Panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation. The Committee then organized a series of four workshops with the Panel to identify and address the international legal, political, scientific and disaster management aspects of the challenge.

The findings and recommendations from this work, Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response, will be detailed in a special press briefing to be held on September 25, 2008 at the Offices of the Google Foundation in San Francisco, California.

The results of this two-year effort will be submitted to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) in its 2009 sessions in Vienna, Austria for deliberation and action.

The ASE NEO Committee and its Panel will complete its deliberations in a final workshop in San Francisco, September 22-25. At the close of that workshop the ASE and its Panel of international experts will hold a press conference to announce the results of its program and its plans for bringing its recommendations to the attention of the world’s space agencies and political leaders.

WHEN: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2008 at 10:00 A.M.
WHERE: Offices of the Google Foundation
345 Spear St., 2nd Floor
San Francisco, California

Following the press conference individual astronauts, cosmonauts and Panel members will be available for personal interviews.

Press packets will be available at the reception area outside the press conference.

For more information, contact:

Rusty Schweickart, Chairman
ASE NEO Committee
rs@well.com, 707-343-1627

ASE-NEO Committee

• Rusty Schweickart, USA (Chair)
• Sergey Avdeev, Russia
• Franklin Chang-Diaz, Costa Rica
• Chris Hadfield, Canada
• Tom Jones, USA
• Ed Lu, USA
• Dorin Prunariu, Romania
• Viktor Savinykh, Russia
• Panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation
• Aidgun Ade Abiodun, Nigeria
• Vallampadugai Arunachalam, India
• Roger Bonnet, Switzerland
• Sergio Camacho-Lara, Mexico
• James George, Canada
• Tomifumi Godai, Japan
• Nandasiri Jasentuliyana, Sri Lanka
• Peter Jankowitsch, Austria
• Sergey Kapitza, Russia
• Paul Kovacs, Canada
• Walther Lichem, Austria
• Gordon McBean, Canada
• Martin Rees, UK
• Karlene Roberts, USA
• Michael Simpson, France
• Crispin Tickell, UK
• Richard Tremayne-Smith, UK
• James Zimmerman, USA