Russia Adv – 1ac

Semiconductors key to hegemony

SIA 06, (Semiconductor Industry Association, “Innovation Leadership and the Semiconductor Industry,” 1/25/06, http://www.sia-online.org/downloads/Competitiveness.pdf)
For more than 50 years, leadership in technology has been the foundation of American strategy for economic growth, jobs creation and national security. The rapid application of technology to create and manufacture innovative products enables American workers to earn high wages in an increasingly competitive world. While innovation has driven America’s economic strength and security, U.S. leadership is not our birthright. Leadership in technology requires a commitment to excellence in K-12 education and funding basic research in our universities combined with immigration laws that allow the best and brightest from around the world to study in our universities and stay and work after graduation. In addition we must have a business climate that encourages investment and supports risk-taking. The U.S. semiconductor industry provides the enabling technology for thousands of products and services we use every day, such as PCs, cell phones and digital cameras. Semiconductors are also essential to the defense systems that ensure our national security. A vibrant domestic semiconductor industry is critical to U.S. economic strength and homeland security. Basic research conducted at America’s universities and the chip industry’s significant investments in commercialization have made it possible for American companies to maintain world leadership with a market share of nearly 50 percent. But, the U.S. share of leading-edge manufacturing capacity has been eroding rapidly. Other countries are seeking to displace the U.S. as the world’s technology leader by investing heavily in basic research, offering tax incentives and subsidies to attract investment, and training highly skilled scientists and engineers. To maintain our world leadership, we must choose to compete!
Heg solves all conflicts- de-escalation

Kagan, 07 (Robert, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace [“End of Dreams, Return of History”, 7/19, web)
This is a good thing, and it should continue to be a primary goal of American foreign policy to perpetuate this relatively benign international configuration of power. The unipolar order with the United States as the predominant power is unavoidably riddled with flaws and contradictions. It inspires fears and jealousies. The United States is not immune to error, like all other nations, and because of its size and importance in the international system those errors are magnified and take on greater significance than the errors of less powerful nations. Compared to the ideal Kantian international order, in which all the world ’s powers would be peace-loving equals, conducting themselves wisely, prudently, and in strict obeisance to international law, the unipolar system is both dangerous and unjust. Compared to any plausible alternative in the real world, however, it is relatively stable and less likely to produce a major war between great powers. It is also comparatively benevolent, from a liberal perspective, for it is more conducive to the principles of economic and political liberalism that Americans and many others value. American predominance does not stand in the way of progress toward a better world, therefore. It stands in the way of regression toward a more dangerous world. The choice is not between an American-dominated order and a world that looks like the European Union. The future international order will be shaped by those who have the power to shape it. The leaders of a post-American world will not meet in Brussels but in Beijing, Moscow, and Washington. The return of great powers and great games If the world is marked by the persistence of unipolarity, it is nevertheless also being shaped by the reemergence of competitive national ambitions of the kind that have shaped human affairs from time immemorial. During the Cold War, this historical tendency of great powers to jostle with one another for status and influence as well as for wealth and power was largely suppressed by the two superpowers and their rigid bipolar order. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has not been powerful enough, and probably could never be powerful enough, to suppress by itself the normal ambitions of nations. This does not mean the world has returned to multipolarity, since none of the large powers is in range of competing with the superpower for global influence. Nevertheless, several large powers are now competing for regional predominance, both with the United States and with each other. National ambition drives China’s foreign policy today, and although it is tempered by prudence and the desire to appear as unthreatening as possible to the rest of the world, the Chinese are powerfully motivated to return their nation to what they regard as its traditional position as the preeminent power in East Asia. They do not share a European, postmodern view that power is pass é; hence their now two-decades-long military buildup and modernization. Like the Americans, they believe power, including military power, is a good thing to have and that it is better to have more of it than less. Perhaps more significant is the Chinese perception, also shared by Americans, that status and honor, and not just wealth and security, are important for a nation. The Chinese do not share the view that power is passé; hence their now twodecades- long military buildup. Japan, meanwhile, which in the past could have been counted as an aspiring postmodern power — with its pacifist constitution and low defense spending — now appears embarked on a more traditional national course. Partly this is in reaction to the rising power of China and concerns about North Korea ’s nuclear weapons. But it is also driven by Japan’s own national ambition to be a leader in East Asia or at least not to play second fiddle or “little brother” to China. China and Japan are now in a competitive quest with each trying to augment its own status and power and to prevent the other ’s rise to predominance, and this competition has a military and strategic as well as an economic and political component. Their competition is such that a nation like South Korea, with a long unhappy history as a pawn between the two powers, is once again worrying both about a “greater China” and about the return of Japanese nationalism. As Aaron Friedberg commented, the East Asian future looks more like Europe ’s past than its present. But it also looks like Asia’s past. Russian foreign policy, too, looks more like something from the nineteenth century. It is being driven by a typical, and typically Russian, blend of national resentment and ambition. A postmodern Russia simply seeking integration into the new European order, the Russia of Andrei Kozyrev, would not be troubled by the eastward enlargement of the eu and nato, would not insist on predominant influence over its “near abroad,” and would not use its natural resources as means of gaining geopolitical leverage and enhancing Russia ’s international status in an attempt to regain the lost glories of the Soviet empire and Peter the Great. But Russia, like China and Japan, is moved by more traditional great-power considerations, including the pursuit of those valuable if intangible national interests: honor and respect. Although Russian leaders complain about threats to their security from nato and the United States, the Russian sense of insecurity has more to do with resentment and national identity than with plausible external military threats. 16 Russia’s complaint today is not with this or that weapons system. It is the entire post-Cold War settlement of the 1990s that Russia resents and wants to revise. But that does not make insecurity less a factor in Russia ’s relations with the world; indeed, it makes finding compromise with the Russians all the more difficult. One could add others to this list of great powers with traditional rather than postmodern aspirations. India ’s regional ambitions are more muted, or are focused most intently on Pakistan, but it is clearly engaged in competition with China for dominance in the Indian Ocean and sees itself, correctly, as an emerging great power on the world scene. In the Middle East there is Iran, which mingles religious fervor with a historical sense of superiority and leadership in its region. 17 Its nuclear program is as much about the desire for regional hegemony as about defending Iranian territory from attack by the United States. Even the European Union, in its way, expresses a pan-European national ambition to play a significant role in the world, and it has become the vehicle for channeling German, French, and British ambitions in what Europeans regard as a safe supranational direction. Europeans seek honor and respect, too, but of a postmodern variety. The honor they seek is to occupy the moral high ground in the world, to exercise moral authority, to wield political and economic influence as an antidote to militarism, to be the keeper of the global conscience, and to be recognized and admired by others for playing this role. Islam is not a nation, but many Muslims express a kind of religious nationalism, and the leaders of radical Islam, including al Qaeda, do seek to establish a theocratic nation or confederation of nations that would encompass a wide swath of the Middle East and beyond. Like national movements elsewhere, Islamists have a yearning for respect, including self-respect, and a desire for honor. Their national identity has been molded in defiance against stronger and often oppressive outside powers, and also by memories of ancient superiority over those same powers. China had its “century of humiliation.” Islamists have more than a century of humiliation to look back on, a humiliation of which Israel has become the living symbol, which is partly why even Muslims who are neither radical nor fundamentalist proffer their sympathy and even their support to violent extremists who can turn the tables on the dominant liberal West, and particularly on a dominant America which implanted and still feeds the Israeli cancer in their midst. Islamists have more than a century of humiliation to look back on. Israel has become its living symbol. Finally, there is the United States itself. As a matter of national policy stretching back across numerous administrations, Democratic and Republican, liberal and conservative, Americans have insisted on preserving regional predominance in East Asia; the Middle East; the Western Hemisphere; until recently, Europe; and now, increasingly, Central Asia. This was its goal after the Second World War, and since the end of the Cold War, beginning with the first Bush administration and continuing through the Clinton years, the United States did not retract but expanded its influence eastward across Europe and into the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Even as it maintains its position as the predominant global power, it is also engaged in hegemonic competitions in these regions with China in East and Central Asia, with Iran in the Middle East and Central Asia, and with Russia in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. The United States, too, is more of a traditional than a postmodern power, and though Americans are loath to acknowledge it, they generally prefer their global place as “No. 1” and are equally loath to relinquish it. Once having entered a region, whether for practical or idealistic reasons, they are remarkably slow to withdraw from it until they believe they have substantially transformed it in their own image. They profess indifference to the world and claim they just want to be left alone even as they seek daily to shape the behavior of billions of people around the globe. The jostling for status and influence among these ambitious nations and would-be nations is a second defining feature of the new post-Cold War international system. Nationalism in all its forms is back, if it ever went away, and so is international competition for power, influence, honor, and status. American predominance prevents these rivalries from intensifying — its regional as well as its global predominance. Were the United States to diminish its influence in the regions where it is currently the strongest power, the other nations would settle disputes as great and lesser powers have done in the past: sometimes through diplomacy and accommodation but often through confrontation and wars of varying scope, intensity, and destructiveness. One novel aspect of such a multipolar world is that most of these powers would possess nuclear weapons. That could make wars between them less likely, or it could simply make them more catastrophic. It is easy but also dangerous to underestimate the role the United States plays in providing a measure of stability in the world even as it also disrupts stability. For instance, the United States is the dominant naval power everywhere, such that other nations cannot compete with it even in their home waters. They either happily or grudgingly allow the United States Navy to be the guarantor of international waterways and trade routes, of international access to markets and raw materials such as oil. Even when the United States engages in a war, it is able to play its role as guardian of the waterways. In a more genuinely multipolar world, however, it would not. Nations would compete for naval dominance at least in their own regions and possibly beyond. Conflict between nations would involve struggles on the oceans as well as on land. Armed embargos, of the kind used in World War i and other major conflicts, would disrupt trade flows in a way that is now impossible. Such order as exists in the world rests not only on the goodwill of peoples but also on American power. Such order as exists in the world rests not merely on the goodwill of peoples but on a foundation provided by American power. Even the European Union, that great geopolitical miracle, owes its founding to American power, for without it the European nations after World War ii would never have felt secure enough to reintegrate Germany. Most Europeans recoil at the thought, but even today Europe ’s stability depends on the guarantee, however distant and one hopes unnecessary, thatthe United States could step in to check any dangerous development on the continent. In a genuinely multipolar world, that would not be possible without renewing the danger of world war. People who believe greater equality among nations would be preferable to the present American predominance often succumb to a basic logical fallacy. They believe the order the world enjoys today exists independently of American power. They imagine that in a world where American power was diminished, the aspects of international order that they like would remain in place. But that ’s not the way it works. International order does not rest on ideas and institutions. It is shaped by configurations of power. The international order we know today reflects the distribution of power in the world since World War ii, and especially since the end of the Cold War. A different configuration of power, a multipolar world in which the poles were Russia, China, the United States, India, and Europe, would produce its own kind of order, with different rules and norms reflecting the interests of the powerful states that would have a hand in shaping it. Would that international order be an improvement? Perhaps for Beijing and Moscow it would. But it is doubtful that it would suit the tastes of enlightenment liberals in the United States and Europe. The current order, of course, is not only far from perfect but also offers no guarantee against major conflict among the world ’s great powers. Even under the umbrella of unipolarity, regional conflicts involving the large powers may erupt. War could erupt between China and Taiwan and draw in both the United States and Japan. War could erupt between Russia and Georgia, forcing the United States and its European allies to decide whether to intervene or suffer the consequences of a Russian victory. Conflict between India and Pakistan remains possible, as does conflict between Iran and Israel or other Middle Eastern states. These, too, could draw in other great powers, including the United States. Such conflicts may be unavoidable no matter what policies the United States pursues. But they are more likely to erupt if the United States weakens or withdraws from its positions of regional dominance. This is especially true in East Asia, where most nations agree that a reliable American power has a stabilizing and pacific effect on the region. That is certainly the view of most of China ’s neighbors. But even China, which seeks gradually to supplant the United States as the dominant power in the region, faces the dilemma that an American withdrawal could unleash an ambitious, independent, nationalist Japan. Conflicts are more likely to erupt if the United States withdraws from its positions of regional dominance. In Europe, too, the departure of the United States from the scene — even if it remained the world’s most powerful nation — could be destabilizing. It could tempt Russia to an even more overbearing and potentially forceful approach to unruly nations on its periphery. Although some realist theorists seem to imagine that the disappearance of the Soviet Union put an end to the possibility of confrontation between Russia and the West, and therefore to the need for a permanent American role in Europe, history suggests that conflicts in Europe involving Russia are possible even without Soviet communism. If the United States withdrew from Europe — if it adopted what some call a strategy of “offshore balancing” — this could in time increase the likelihood of conflict involving Russia and its near neighbors, which could in turn draw the United States back in under unfavorable circumstances. It is also optimistic to imagine that a retrenchment of the American position in the Middle East and the assumption of a more passive, “offshore” role would lead to greater stability there. The vital interest the United States has in access to oil and the role it plays in keeping access open to other nations in Europe and Asia make it unlikely that American leaders could or would stand back and hope for the best while the powers in the region battle it out. Nor would a more “even-handed” policy toward Israel, which some see as the magic key to unlocking peace, stability, and comity in the Middle East, obviate the need to come to Israel ’s aid if its security became threatened. That commitment, paired with the American commitment to protect strategic oil supplies for most of the world, practically ensures a heavy American military presence in the region, both on the seas and on the ground. The subtraction of American power from any region would not end conflict but would simply change the equation. In the Middle East, competition for influence among powers both inside and outside the region has raged for at least two centuries. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism doesn ’t change this. It only adds a new and more threatening dimension to the competition, which neither a sudden end to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians nor an immediate American withdrawal from Iraq would change. The alternative to American predominance in the region is not balance and peace. It is further competition. The region and the states within it remain relatively weak. A diminution of American influence would not be followed by a diminution of other external influences. One could expect deeper involvement by both China and Russia, if only to secure their interests. 18 And one could also expect the more powerful states of the region, particularly Iran, to expand and fill the vacuum. It is doubtful that any American administration would voluntarily take actions that could shift the balance of power in the Middle East further toward Russia, China, or Iran. The world hasn ’t changed that much. An American withdrawal from Iraq will not return things to “normal” or to a new kind of stability in the region. It will produce a new instability, onelikely to draw the United States back in again. The alternative to American regional predominance in the Middle East and elsewhere is not a new regional stability. In an era of burgeoning nationalism, the future is likely to be one of intensified competition among nations and nationalist movements. Difficult as it may be to extend American predominance into the future, no one should imagine that a reduction of American power or a retraction of American influence and global involvement will provide an easier path.
Orion spacecraft is crucial – its key to risk reduction and confidence building measures for NEO exploration

Landis et al, 08 (*Rob R., AIAA member and NASA Johnson Space Center, Mission Operations Directorate, **David J. Korsmeyer, AIAA member and NASA Ames Research Center, Intelligent Systems Division, ***Paul A. Abell, Research Scientist, Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona and NASA Johnson Space Center, Astromaterials Research & Exploration Science,****Daniel R. Adamo, AIAA member and Trajectory Consultant, *****Thomas D. Jones, AIAA member and Association of Space Explorers, “A Piloted Orion Flight to a Near-Earth Object: A Feasibility Study”, http://pdf.aiaa.org/...PV2008_3550.pdf) AFL
The notion of a piloted mission to a near-Earth object (NEO) was first discussed in 1966 as an alternate follow-on utilization of the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn 5 hardware for a piloted mission to the asteroid 433 Eros. The mission would have been a flyby for the 1975 opposition of 433 Eros (Smith, 1966)1. During the 1975 opposition, Eros came within 0.15 AU of the Earth and Smith (1966) detailed the necessary capabilities to upgrade the Apollo/Saturn 5 hardware for a 500+ day round trip mission! More than 20 years later, NASA re-examined the ideas of visiting NEOs in greater depth as part of the Space Exploration Initiative in 1989 (Davis et al., 1990)2. Since then, four other studies have examined the details of sending humans to NEOs (Nash, et al., 1989; Jones, et al., 1994, 2002; Mazanek, et al., 2005)3,4,5,6. The most recent assessment has been undertaken by the Advanced Programs Office (APO) within NASA’s Constellation Program. This particular study team includes representatives across NASA and is examining the feasibility of sending a Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), the Orion spacecraft, to a NEO. Depending on the suite of spacecraft and integrated components, a mission profile would include two or three astronauts on a 90 to 120 day spaceflight; including a 7 to 14-day stay at the NEO itself. The most significant advantage of piloted missions to a NEO is that it strengthens the foundation for the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) and Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS) in the run up to the lunar sorties and Moon base development beginning at the end of the next decade (~2020). This mission is motivated by the desire to perform an early developmental test of exploration hardware and operations in the middle part of the next decade – before the completion of the Ares 5 heavy lift launcher and the LSAM lunar lander. In order to minimize the impact to current CEV development and to maximize the applicability and validity of this mission to Constellation test objectives, an unmodified Block II CEV is assumed. Missions to NEOs reinforce the Constellation Program with an uncanny suite of benefits: deep space operational experience (i.e., the manned CEV will be several light-seconds from the Earth); risk reduction for space hardware; confidence building for future mission scenarios (e.g., lunar poles and farside, other NEOs, and eventually, Mars); early in situ resource utilization (ISRU) evaluation; as well as a rich scientific return. Sending a human expedition to a NEO, within the context of the VSE and ESAS, will help NASA regain crucial operational experience conducting human exploration missions – which has not attempted since Apollo 17. Further, in terms of ��v and propellant requirements, NEOs are more easily accessible than the Moon. This incremental step along the way towards Mars can serve as the next generation Apollo 8 for the Constellation Program, marking humanity’s first foray beyond the Earth-Moon system.
Second, it’s indispensable for studying and monitoring NEOs – that’s vital to detection and mitigation

Landis et al, 08 (*Rob R., AIAA member and NASA Johnson Space Center, Mission Operations Directorate, **David J. Korsmeyer, AIAA member and NASA Ames Research Center, Intelligent Systems Division, ***Paul A. Abell, Research Scientist, Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona and NASA Johnson Space Center, Astromaterials Research & Exploration Science,****Daniel R. Adamo, AIAA member and Trajectory Consultant, *****Thomas D. Jones, AIAA member and Association of Space Explorers, “A Piloted Orion Flight to a Near-Earth Object: A Feasibility Study”, http://pdf.aiaa.org/...PV2008_3550.pdf) AFL
The CEV would have several basic capabilities in order to complete the scientific and technical objectives of the mission. These would involve aspects of remote sensing, deployment/re-deployment of surface experiment packages, and surface sampling techniques. The precursor mission to the NEO should have adequately characterized the surface and near-space environment to reduce the risk to the CEV and its assets. Hence the majority of CEV operations should take place during close proximity (~ a few to several hundred meters from the surface) to the NEO. Such operations have been found to be challenging for remotely controlled spacecraft due to round trip light delay times of several seconds or minutes, but will probably be inconsequential for piloted operations from a vehicle like the CEV. In terms of remote sensing capability, the CEV should have a high-resolution camera for detailed surface characterization and optical navigation. A light detection and ranging (LIDAR) system would be wanted for hazard avoidance (during close proximity operations) and detailed topography measurements. In addition, the CEV should be outfitted with a radar transmitter to perform tomography of the object. This would allow a detailed look at the interior structure of the NEO. Given that several NEOs appear to have a high degree of porosity (e.g., Itokawa is estimated to be 40% void space by volume), it is important to measure this characteristic of the target NEO. Such information on its internal structure, not only has implications for the formation and impact history of the NEO, but may have major implications for future hazard mitigation techniques of such objects. Another advantage of the CEV is the capability to place and re-deploy relatively small scientific packages on the surface of the NEO with a significant amount of precision. Such packages as remotely operated (or autonomous) rovers/hoppers with one or two instruments could greatly enhance the amount of data obtained from the surface, and fine tune the site selection for subsequent sample collection. Other packages that may be deployed could be in situ experiments designed to test such technologies as surface anchors/tethers, drills/excavation equipment, or materials/component extraction equipment. One experiment that the CEV could do very well is to deploy a series of seismic sensors across the surface of the NEO, and then detonate one (or more) small explosive charges to help determine its interior structure. The CEV could also deploy a transponder to the surface of the object for a long term study of the NEO’s orbital motion. This could be particularly useful for monitoring such objects that have the potential for a possible Earth impact in the future. Undoubtedly the biggest asset that the CEV has at its core is the crew. The crew can adapt to specific situations and adjust experiments and operations with much more flexibility than a robotic spacecraft. The crew has an added advantage for EVA capability and sample collection during close proximity operations. The ability for the crew to land, traverse, and then collect one or more macroscopic samples from specific terrains on the surface of an NEO is the most crucial scientific aspect of this type of mission. Having a human being interacting in real time with the NEO surface material and sampling various locales (e.g., Muses Sea region or the Little Woomera terrain on asteroid Itokawa) would bring a wealth of scientific information on such things as particle size, potential space weathering effects, impact history, material properties, and near surface densities of the NEO. To date, the planetary scientific community has based much of its interpretation of the formation of asteroids and comets (i.e., parent bodies of the NEO population) on data from meteorite and inter-planetary dust particles found on Earth. These materials are known to come from such objects, but the exact location of the specific parent bodies within the solar system is not generally known. Unfortunately direct connections of these samples to specific objects cannot be made with any degree of certainty, which limits the ability of scientists to put their findings in a larger context. However, with pristine samples from known locations within the solar system, scientists can start to “map outcrops” and glean new insights into the compositions and formation history of these NEOs. While such knowledge will aid in the development of a better understanding of our solar system, it also has the potential for more practical applications such as resource utilization (water, precious metals, oxygen, etc.) and NEO hazard mitigation (material properties, internal structures, macro-porosities, etc.). Hence, there is a vast amount of potential to gain from a targeted sample return mission using the CEV to a NEO.
Technical barriers can be overcome in just a few years – it’s our best hope at avoiding catastrophic collisions

Future Pundit 4 – Quoting Fr. Astronaut Russell Schweickart (chairman of the B612 foundation which is dedicated to to the development of anti-asteroid defenses), Astronaut Edward Lu (President of the B612 foundation) (4/16/04, We Should Develop Defenses Against Large Asteroidshttp://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002054.html)

Former NASA astronaut Russell L. "Rusty" Schweickart is currently Chairman of the B612 Foundation which is dedicated to the development of anti-asteroid defenses to protect planet Earth from Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs). The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space held hearings on April 7, 2004 about Near Earth Objects (NEO) which included discussion of what should be done about asteroids that may strike planet Earth. Schweickart recently testified before those hearings presenting arguments on the feasibility and desirability of developing a system for diverting any large asteroid found to be on a collision course with Earth. It became immediately clear to us that the combination of advanced propulsion technologies and small space qualified nuclear reactors, both operating in prototype form already, would be powerful enough, with reasonable future development, to deflect most threatening asteroids away from a collision with the Earth, given a decade or more of advance warning. Nevertheless we saw two immediate problems. First we lack the specific knowledge of the characteristics of NEAs necessary to design anything approaching a reliable operational system. We could readily show that the technology would exist within a few years to get to and land on an asteroid. We also determined that after arriving at the asteroid we would have enough propulsive energy available to successfully deflect the asteroid from an Earth impact a decade or so later. What was missing however was knowledge about the structure and characteristics of asteroids detailed enough to enable successful and secure attachment to it. Second we recognized that before we would be able to gather such detailed information about NEAs there would likely be many public announcements about near misses and possible future impacts with asteroids which would alarm the general public and generate a growing demand for action. We felt strongly that there needed to be some legitimate answer to the inevitable question which will be put to public officials and decision makers, "and what are you doing about this?" These two considerations led us to the conclusion that the most responsible course of action would be to mount a demonstration mission to a NEA (one of our choosing) which would accomplish two essential tasks; 1) gather critical information on the nature of asteroid structure and surface characteristics, and 2) while there, push on the asteroid enough to slightly change its orbit thereby clearly demonstrating to the public that humanity now has the technology to protect the Earth from this hazard in the future. We furthermore determined that this demonstration mission could be done with currently emerging capabilities within 10-12 years. We therefore adopted the goal of "altering the orbit of an asteroid, in a controlled manner, by 2015". Astronaut Edward Lu, President of the B612 Foundation also testified at the Senate hearings arguing for Recent developments have now given us the potential to defend the Earth against these natural disasters. To develop this capability we have proposed a spacecraft mission to significantly alter the orbit of an asteroid in a controlled manner by 2015. Why move an asteroid? There is a 10 percent chance that during our lifetimes there will be a 60 meter asteroid that impacts Earth with energy 10 megatons (roughly equivalent to 700 simultaneous Hiroshima sized bombs). There is even a very remote one in 50,000 chance that you and I and everyone we know, along with most of humanity and human civilization, will perish together with the impact of a much larger kilometer or more sized asteroid. We now have the potential to change these odds. There are many unknowns surrounding how to go about deflecting an asteroid, but the surest way to learn about both asteroids themselves as well as the mechanics of moving them is to actually try a demonstration mission. The first attempt to deflect an asteroid should not be when it counts for real, because there are no doubt many surprises in store as we learn how to manipulate asteroids. Why by 2015? The time to test, learn, and experiment is now. A number of recent developments in space nuclear power and high efficiency propulsion have made this goal feasible. The goal of 2015 is challenging, but doable, and will serve to focus the development efforts.
Nuclear propulsion solves fastest and is key to solving both small and large NEO asteroids

Future Pundit 4 – Quoting Fr. Astronaut Russell Schweickart (chairman of the B612 foundation which is dedicated to to the development of anti-asteroid defenses), Astronaut Edward Lu (President of the B612 foundation) (4/16/04, We Should Develop Defenses Against Large Asteroidshttp://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002054.html)

I have previously argued that the development of nuclear ion propulsion for the JIMO mission is an excellent idea. Well, development of a space nuclear propulsion system for any number of missions is a great idea because it then allows the propulsion system to be used on something that may some day save millions or perhaps even billions of lives. The development of a space nuclear propulsion system ought to be greatly accelerated so that we have a method to protect us against asteroids as soon as possible. Encouragingly the Bush Administration has allocated $3 billion over the next 5 years for Project Prometheus. NASA has more on Prometheus. Aside from still moving too slowly to develop technologies to use against an asteroid that is on a collision course there is still one big problem with NASA's current strategy: the amount of money going into finding asteroids on a collision course with Earth is still chump change. NASA spends a modest $3.5 million per year as part of the Spaceguard Survey search for large asteroids, the sort that could cause global damage, including a global "winter" that might last years and could kill off some species and possibly threaten civilization. The current mission of the NASA Near-Earth Object Program is focused on finding only the bigger asteroids and not even all of them. NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office will focus on the goal of locating at least 90 percent of the estimated 2,000 asteroids and comets that approach the Earth and are larger than about 2/3-mile (about 1 kilometer) in diameter, by the end of the next decade. “These are objects that are difficult to detect because of their relatively small size, but are large enough to cause global effects if one hit the Earth,” said Dr. Donald K. Yeomans of JPL, who will head the new program office. “Finding a majority of this population will require the efforts of researchers at several NASA centers, at universities and at observatories across the country, and will require the participation by the international astronomy community as well.”