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".^[1]

The B612 project grew out of a one-day workshop on asteroid deflection organized by Piet Hut and Ed Lu at NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, on October 20, 2001. Participants Rusty Schweickart, Clark Chapman, Piet Hut, and Ed Lu established the B612 Foundation on October 7, 2002.^[2]

Schweickart, who is the chairman of the board, is the public face of the foundation.^[3] The board of directors is rounded out by Chapman, Hut, Lu, Daniel David Durda (eponym of 6141 Durda and another participant of the October 2001 workshop) and Geoffrey Baehr (former chief networking officer at Sun Microsystems and former partner at U.S. Venture Partners).^[4]

The foundation is named for the home asteroid of the eponymous hero of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince.^[5] Also inspired by The Little Prince is an asteroid discovered in 1993, though not identified as posing any threat to Earth impact, named 46610 Bésixdouze: The numerical part is the hexadecimal number 'B612' translated to decimal, while the textual part is French for "B six twelve".

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 Mountain View, California;^[4] they were previously located in Tiburon, California.^[6]

See also

• Spaceguard
• NEOShield
• Asteroid deflection
• 99942 Apophis
• Planetary Resources

References

External links

• official website
• Scientific American: The Asteroid Tugboat: To prevent an asteroid from hitting Earth, a space tug equipped with plasma engines could give it a push (article by Schweickart, Lu, Hut and Chapman)

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