Campaign includes eBay Giving Works Charity Auction of personal items flown on the US Shuttle, International Space Station and Apollo 9 Space Missions – – Auction starts June 27 at 6:00 PM (Pacific Time)

Mountain View, Calif. (June 27, 2013) – With a slogan of “Prevent The Next Tunguska,” the B612 Foundation has launched a new campaign that will not only raise awareness for its mission: preventing life-threatening asteroid impacts, but also will auction for the first time, rare collectors’ items flown on historic Apollo and US Space Shuttle Missions.

Items for the Auction – which begins at 6:00 PM (Pacific Time) on Thursday, June 27 – were donated by B612 Foundation CEO Dr. Ed Lu, three time US Shuttle Astronaut and 6-month crewmember aboard the International Space Station, and B612 Chairman Emeritus Rusty Schweickart, Lunar Module Pilot on the historic Apollo 9 mission. Proceeds from the auction of these personal items flown into space will benefit the non-profit privately funded B612 Sentinel Space Telescope Mission.

“The B612 Foundation is carrying out a space mission on a scale that no other private organization is doing; we want to literally save the world. Not only will the money raised by this auction go to supporting the Sentinel Mission, but also we hope the increased attention to our cause will help everyone realize that they really can take a critical role in protecting our planet in a real and concrete way,” continued Lu. “Both Rusty and I were privileged to see the Earth as few others have, and that experience has convinced us that there is nothing more important than the B612 Sentinel Mission – simply because there is no more important mission than protecting our home planet.”

The threat of asteroids is real, and the odds of a major asteroid impact with a force capable of destroying any large city somewhere on Earth in your lifetime is 30 percent. To date, only about one percent or 10,000 of the nearly one million asteroids that could potentially hit Earth with enough force to devastate an entire metropolitan city have been observed and tracked. In just the first few months of operation, the Sentinel Space Telescope will surpass this total, and during the first five years of operation, will discover 50 times more Near Earth Objects (NEOs) than have been found by all other telescopes combined throughout history.

We have the technology to deflect these asteroids, but we cannot defend ourselves from an asteroid we have not yet seen. The B612 Sentinel Space Telescope will be the most effective asteroid detection and warning system ever built, and the only telescope capable of finding a million threatening asteroids. Sentinel will provide the missing capability that enables us to protect our planet from these potentially global scale natural disasters.

The last major asteroid impact was in Tunguska, Russia in 1908, where an asteroid destroyed an area larger than the Washington DC Metropolitan Area. More recently on February 15, 2013, we witnessed the close fly-by (17,000 miles from earth) of Asteroid DA-14 and also the real impact of a smaller asteroid near Chelyabinsk, Russia. “These events show us that we are playing a dangerous game of cosmic roulette,” continued Lu.

eBay Giving Works Auction with Auction Cause

The B612 Foundation auction is being hosted on eBay Giving Works (www.ebaygivingworks.com) in partnership with Auction Cause, the recognized leader in cause marketing campaigns. All proceeds of the campaign will help to fund the Sentinel Space Mission – the only space telescope with the capability to find the more than 1 million asteroids that threaten earth.

Donated by Rusty Schweickart, Apollo 9 Astronaut:

* Apollo 9 Flown American Flag
* Apollo 9 Robbins Medallion Lucite
* Apollo 9 Command Module Silver Pin
* Apollo 9 Lunar Module Pin
* Apollo 9 Embroidered Patch
Donated by Ed Lu, three-time US Astronaut and ISS resident
* STS106 Mission Embroidered Patch- flown aboard the United States Space Shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station, flown Sept 8-21 2000
* STS84 Flown Mission Embroidered Patch, flown May 24, 1997
* International Space Station Expedition 7 Flown Embroidered Patch: This Patch flew on a progress resupply ship and returned on a shuttle years later; launched May 2003- July 2005

The B612 auction items are featured at b612auction.com through July 7, and are listed through the eBay Giving Works Program. All proceeds will benefit the B612 Foundation.

About The B612 Foundation

B612 Sentinel aims to build, launch and operate the world’s first privately managed deep space telescope mission. Sentinel will create the first comprehensive dynamic map of our inner solar system, identifying the current and future locations and trajectories of Earth crossing asteroids. Ball Aerospace is the designated contractor to build Sentinel with the same expert team that built the Spitzer and Kepler space telescopes. Sentinel will launch in 2018. Through a Space Act Agreement with NASA, data will be collected and sent back to Earth via NASA’s Deep Space Network, which also will be used for tracking and navigation. For more information, visit: http://www.b612foundation.org”>http://www.b612foundation.org

About Auction Cause

Auction Cause is the leader in cause marketing campaigns, branding, and fundraising utilizing the eBay platform, generating more than 1 billion media impressions and counting. By integrating clients’ campaigns with social media outreach using Twitter, Facebook, blogs, viral videos, and more, Auction Cause is able to tap an even wider audience. The results are brand loyalty, nonprofit enthusiasm, and celebrity buzz – all while raising serious money for causes. For more information, please visit http://www.auctioncause.com

Contacts:

Diane Murphy, VP, PR-Cap Com, B612 Foundation (diane@b612foundation.org) Eric Gazin, President, Auction Cause (eric@auctioncause.com)

Join the B612 Team: Individuals, schools and other academic and research institutions interested in joining the B612 Team and attending events are encouraged to sign up at: http://www.b612foundation.org”>http://www.b612foundation.org and follow us on Facebook: /B612 Foundation; and Twitter: @B612Foundation

Photos/Video: https://vimeo.com/channels/b612 or http://b612foundation.org/newsroom/video/