January 4, 2000. Copyright 2000. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

ARMAGEDDON TEAM TO ASSESS ASTEROID RISK

LONDON, January 4, Graphic News: A TASK force to save the world has been set up by new LabourÕs Science Minister Lord Sainsbury.

The Department of Trade and Industry plans to build an Armageddon institute in Britain to combat the threat of an asteroid hitting Earth and destroying all life.

The three-man Near Earth Objects Task Force will investigate the chances of a huge astronomical collision Ð however remote Ð and report to the British National Space Centre on how the UK should contribute to international efforts to prevent a strike.

The centre, which would probably be sited in Northern Ireland, will trace the courses of hundreds of thousands of rogue rocks whose orbits cross the EarthÕs, and then work out the chance of a collision. It could thus draw up plans to save the world by destroying them or pushing them off course with nuclear weapons.

The team will be headed by Dr Harry Atkinson, former council chairman of the European Space Agency and an asteroid expert.

The 70-year-old New Zealander will be joined by Sir Crispin Tickell, former British Ambassador to the United Nations and a leading environmentalist, and David Watson, president of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Lord Sainsbury said that he was ÒdelightedÓ that such a well-qualified team of experts had agreed to join the task force.
/ENDS