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Don Yeomans
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American astronomer who left graduate school and joined a NASA Goddard team that was designing missions to comets. In 1976, he moved to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. Yeomans became head of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office, which watches for asteroids, comets and other space rocks, whose orbits bring them close to Earth.
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Science Quotes by Don Yeomans (3 quotes)
[There are only three ways to increase our chances against an asteroid aimed at Earth:] Find it early; find it early; find it early.
— Don Yeomans
On Near-Earth Object (NEO) Program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. As quoted in Bridget Mintz Testa, 'Saving the Earth by Inches Per Second', Mechanical Engineering (1 Apr 2014), 136, No. 4, 20.
It’s our job to make sure the solar system is well-behaved. Asteroid strikes are what we call “low-probability, high consequence” events. If we’re not investing in some kind of insurance, one of them, one day, could take us all out.
— Don Yeomans
On Near-Earth Object (NEO) Program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. As quoted in Jeffrey Kluger, 'The Man Who Guards the Planet', Time (9 Jun 2014), 36.
We are hit by tons of material every day, but it is all dust. We are all walking around with comet dust in our hair.
— Don Yeomans
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See also:
- Near-Earth Objects: Finding Them Before They Find Us, by Donald K. Yeomans. - book suggestion.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
