Planetary defense office proposed to protect Earth against asteroid impacts

Space.com : To protect Earth from asteroids and comets, the Ad-Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense issued a report to the NASA Advisory Council recommending the establishment of a planetary defense coordination office. The task force called for NASA to organize, acquire, investigate, prepare, and lead national and international efforts in planetary defense against near-Earth objects. Such a planetary defense program could cost $250 million to $300 million per year over the next decade; the task force “strongly recommends” that the funding be explicitly set aside by Congress as a separate agency budget line and not be diverted from existing NASA science exploration. This isn’t the first time such a proposal has been made: The International Astronomical Union and some member countries of the European Union have come up with similar suggestions, but the NASA council report is the first to provide a specific roadmap for developing such an institution.