Ever since the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence pioneered really, really distributed computing by distributing a screensaver that would download tiny problems in radio-telescope data analysis personal computers could finish while the user was away, IT has been a kind of volunteer number cruncher for the space program.
Though NASA usually has a good enough budget and odd enough requirements not to have to ask ordinary citizens for help with its calculations, the budget has been shrinking and number of near-Earth space objects has been growing, both to the point that NASA could use a little help.
It just launched a program called " Target Asteroids!" that is designed to recruit amateur astronomers to help find new asteroids and confirm the trajectories of old ones in time for the launch of a probe that will visit and take samples from an asteroid in near Earth orbit.
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