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NEAR Lives On; Balloon Doesn't
Rix writes "CNN has another story about NEAR. Apparently, they've extended the mission again - until Feb 28th - to gather even more data. They also have a simulation of NEAR's descent. Unfortunately in QT, so I can't comment on it." And a short update to the balloon story posted just few hours ago: it popped.
Let's see. Mass of EROS = 7.2 million billion kilograms. Mass of NEAR = 805 kg (includes propellant). Propulsion capabilities of NEAR = 100-lb thruster. Speed of impact = 4 mph (1.9 meters per second).
So. A 4mph collision between a big thing, and a thing with a mass of 0.00000000001118% or less of the big thing. Total effect: somewhat slight.
Risk assessment: "We might get some asshole debating whether the impact might throw EROS off course ... other than that, seems safe enough"
Heidi Wall wrote:
This is the kind of spasce mission that NASA should do more of. This mission was essentially all about prospecting - going out to check out the asteroids and see what resources they have for us to rape and use for our own ends. [...] it is clear that the only possible reason anyone other than a scientist could be interested in an asteroid is for the resources that it contains.
Well, I agree there should be more exploration of the asteroids. Prospecting, however, is just a very-long-term (very very long term) upside from a mission such as NEAR. The mission objective has much more to do with planetology and cosmology -- the origins of the solar system -- than it does with asteroid mining. (For one thing, we don't really need to send a vehicle to a body to find out whether it has metal or not.)
Already Japanese companies are interested, and many have asteroid mining as part of their 100 plans (Japanese companies plan far into the future, unlike western capaitalist companies). Here in the west our companies do not plan beyond the next shareholder AGM, generally speaking, and so our government has to take the lead in making long term plans for our society.
Not even the government, really. Although this mission is not, as I noted above, an example with much relevance to commercial exploitation, the planning that you speak of does take place in academia and in many R&D think tanks that are collaborations between industry and academia. NASA has been singularly unsuccessful in helping "commercialize" space, and most experts today would prefer that they stick to science and long-term R&D.
I congratulate NASA and the government for the foresight they are showing here. It is vital that the USA get a good place in the biggest resource bonanza of the 21st century. Vital for our future.
Again, you don't seem to have a grasp of the relevance of this mission. We don't need a probe to tell us there are resources out there. What we do need is cheap access to space, and the right economic conditions. For instance, resource substitution remains a much more economical approach than asteroid mining for the forseeable future.
My only quibble is with them making the results of this mission public, and the data available to all. Would the Chinese do it? No. The Japanese? No. Only the idealistic Americans. We need to close the lid on this, for it is needed for our future in the face of our competitors.
Ridiculous. YOu don't have the slightest understanding of how the scientific community works, which casts into doubt everythign else you've said. Japanese research by their space agency is made public. A lot of Chinese research is made public as well. We have an excellent history of scientific cooperation with the Japanese; your xenophobia seems to have bounced through a time warp from 1979 or something, and is very prejudiced as well. Do Americans have a monopoly on idealism? Do the Chinese have a monopoly on secrecy? Good grief.
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