Not Sentinel Mission is particular, but some work has been done on asteroids. Basically, the the value of asteroid surveillance for reducing extinction risk is small as we have already identified basically all of the >1km asteroids, and that’s the size that they would need to be to cause an extinction-level catastrophe.
That’s to say nothing of the prospects for learning to intercept asteroids, or the prospects of preventing events that fall short of an extinction-level threat.
The other thing to note here is that we’ve survived asteroids for lots of geological time (millions of years), so it would be really surprising if we got taken out by a natural risk in the next century. That’s why people generally think that tech risks are more likely.
I can’t find much online but there’s this, and you could also search for Carl Shulman and Seth Baum, who might’ve also covered the issue.
Has anyone done an EA evaluation of (formerly B612) Sentinel Mission’s expected value?
Not Sentinel Mission is particular, but some work has been done on asteroids. Basically, the the value of asteroid surveillance for reducing extinction risk is small as we have already identified basically all of the >1km asteroids, and that’s the size that they would need to be to cause an extinction-level catastrophe.
That’s to say nothing of the prospects for learning to intercept asteroids, or the prospects of preventing events that fall short of an extinction-level threat.
The other thing to note here is that we’ve survived asteroids for lots of geological time (millions of years), so it would be really surprising if we got taken out by a natural risk in the next century. That’s why people generally think that tech risks are more likely.
I can’t find much online but there’s this, and you could also search for Carl Shulman and Seth Baum, who might’ve also covered the issue.