Analytical Metrics for Asteroid Mitigation

One of the most profound future challenges for human space activities is the development of practical engineering approaches to the deflection of hazardous solar system bodies. Over the past decades there have been many different approaches proposed and developed at a theoretical level, many of which have been reviewed in the NRC report “Defending Planet Earth.” With these many different approaches to mitigation, there is sometimes confusion about comparisons between these approaches with respect to the important parameters of deflection needed, time to go, the type of deflection and the significant unknowns involved with each approach. This paper will integrate previous studies to develop a common set of metrics by which different methods can be compared independent of system-level design. Such metrics can be used to help guide policy and engineering developments to deal with this hazard. The initial focus of this study is on developing a simple form of the effectiveness of a technique and the detectability of this technique over a given time span.