OFFICIAL NASA PRESS RELEASE

Donald L. Savage
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                                    
           
 August 3, 1994
(Phone:  202/358-1547)

RELEASE:  94-128

NASA APPOINTS NEAR-EARTH OBJECT SEARCH COMMITTEE

 NASA today announced the establishment of a committee that will
develop a 
plan to identify and catalogue, to the extent practicable within
10 years, 
all comets and asteroids which may threaten Earth.

 Dr. Eugene Shoemaker was appointed as Chairman of the
eight-member Near-
Earth Object Search Committee.  Shoemaker, an astronomer with the
Lowell 
Observatory and professor emeritus with the U.S. Geological
Survey, also was 
co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 which collided with
Jupiter last 
month.

 The committee was formed in response to Congressional direction
to NASA to 
develop a plan in coordination with the Department of Defense and
the space 
agencies of other countries.  The plan's objective is to identify
and 
catalogue, to the extent practicable, the orbital characteristics
of all 
comets and asteroids greater than about 1/2 mile (1 kilometer) in
diameter in 
orbit around the Sun that cross the orbit of the Earth.  The plan
is to 
include estimated budgetary requirements for fiscal years 1996
through 2000. 

 The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology amended the
NASA 
Authorization bill to require the NASA Administrator to submit
the plan to 
the Congress by Feb. 1, 1995.  Also appointed to the committee
are:

     Dr. Jurgen H. Rahe, Executive Secretary, NASA Headquarters,
Wash., D.C.
     Dr. Gregory Canavan, Dept. of Energy Los Alamos National
Laboratory, N.M.
     Dr. Alan J. Harris, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif.
     Dr. David Morrison, NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain
View, Calif.
     Dr. David L. Rabinowitz, Carnegie Institution, Wash., D.C.
     Dr. Michael J. Mumma, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md.
     Col. Simon P. Worden, U.S. Air Force Space Command, Colorado
Springs, 
Colo.

- end -

NOTE TO EDITORS:  Copies of the Jan. 25, 1992, report of the NASA

International Near-Earth Detection Workshop called, "The
Spaceguard Survey," 
are available to news media by faxing requests to the NASA
Newsroom at 
202/358-4210.