By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A California
space research group plans to build, launch and operate a
privately funded space telescope to hunt for asteroids that may
be on a collision course with Earth, project managers said on
Thursday. The B612 Foundation - named after a fictional planet
in the book "The Little Prince" - is counting on private donors
to raise money for the wide-angle, infrared telescope and its
operations, estimated at a few hundred million dollars. The goal
is to chart 500,000 asteroids that fly relatively close to
Earth. The telescope, called Sentinel, will be positioned closer
to the sun than Earth so it can look outward and track
approaching asteroids for months, Apollo astronaut Rusty
Schweickart, chairman emeritus of B612, said during a conference
call. The technology exists to deflect an asteroid, provided it
is found in time, added former shuttle and space station
astronaut Ed Lu, the foundation's chairman and chief executive.
The goal is to have decades of notic