NASA won't meet a congressionally ordered goal to find 90 percent of nearby and potentially dangerous asteroids larger than 460 feet (140 meters) in diameter, the agency's inspector general said on Monday.
The shortfall comes despite a 10-fold increase in NASA's annual budget over the past five years — from $4 million in 2009 to $40 million in 2014 — to track and assess potentially dangerous asteroids and comets. So-called near-Earth objects, or NEOs, fly within about 28 million miles (45 million km) of Earth.
The agency's efforts are poorly coordinated, ill-managed and under-staffed, according to a 32-page report titled "NASA's Efforts to Identify Near-Earth Objects and Mitigate Hazards," by NASA Inspector General Paul Martin.