Space Missions for Defense

You are helping a space agency design a mission portfolio that serves both science and planetary defense. Compare the goals, costs, timelines, and risks of asteroid flybys, sample-return missions, telescope surveys, and deflection experiments. Then outline how data from such missions can improve hazard prediction, impact modeling, and international preparedness. Finish by proposing how a mid-sized country can justify funding space science when the benefits are partly indirect and long term.