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What activities has the US undertaken in this field?
The main US activity is run by the Near Earth Object Program Office based at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) whose purpose is to coordinate NASA sponsored efforts to detect, track and characterise near Earth objects and identify asteroids and comets that are potentially hazardous to Earth. NASA has been set a goal by the US Congress to detect at least 90% of all NEOs with diameter greater than 1 km within 10 years. There are many groups in the US actively involved in performing and following up NEO observations. NASA also makes use of radar facilities at Goldstone and Arecibo. Some work at NASA and the Los Alamos National Laboratory has looked at ways of deflecting approaching near Earth objects. Further work at universities has looked at the effects of impacts on land and over the oceans. Furthermore, NASA has a large space science program that funds a number of spacecraft missions to asteroids and comets, for instance NEAR and Deep Impact.
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Is the UK hanging on NASA’s coat tails?
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