Probe to 'Look Inside' Asteroids

bigjnsa500 writes "A new space mission concept by the European Space Agency called Deep Interior was unveiled at a Paris conference earlier this week, according to the BBC. Apparently: 'It aims to look inside asteroids to reveal how they are made. Deep Interior would use radar to probe the origin and evolution of two near-Earth objects less than 1km across. The mission, which could launch some time later this decade, would also give clues to how the planets evolved.' NASA also has a similar concept called Deep Impact."

Comments

Probe? Roids?

[Neil Blender]

Cue the uranus jokes:

wait for it...

GO!

I looked into an Asteroids once

[Anonymous Crowhead]

Found a bunch of quarters.

Re:I looked into an Asteroids once

[rde]

Are you sure they were quarters? I thought most asteroids had a high nickel content.

So NASA is using movie names?

[NightWulf]

So at this rate let's see what NASA's future projects are:

Project Lord of the Rings (2012, Probe to check out the rings of Saturn)

Project Pluto Nash (2009, A giant probe/bomb to send to the planetoid Pluto in hopes of melting the ice)

Project Mercury Rising (2015, Mission to send an autistic austronaut to Mercury to see if it really is as hot as they think)

Come on people, what other movie names can fit in well with future NASA missions?

Re:So NASA is using movie names?

[SEWilco]

• Spiderman: Space elevator construction.
• Catwoman: Space elevator climbing.
• Fahrenheit 9/11: Testing of temperature measurement and conversion methods.
• Dude, Where's my Car?: Examination of Apollo lunar relics.
• I, Robot: Self-controlled self-directed probe searching for Philosopher's Stone.
• Control Room: Simulator of Control Room.
• The Day After Tomorrow: Government daily project scheduling research.
• Dodgeball: Moving Earth out of the way of asteroids
• Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle: Dual mission to test gas giant atmospheric fueling.
• A Home At The End Of The World: Antarctic Mars outpost simulation.
• The Hunting Of The President: Annual NASA budget approvals.
• Man On Fire: Launch pad safety testing.
• The Manchurian Candidate: Racing China to the Moon.
• Maria Full of Grace: Space burial missions.
• Natural Disaster: First mission to film an Earth-impact asteroid.
• Natural Distaster: Final mission to film an Earth-impact asteroid.
• Raising Helen: Launch of perfect mission to Trojan orbits.
• Sleepover: Concurrent artificial hibernation experiments.
• The Stepford Wives: Mission combining best of human and robotic technologies.
• The Story of the Weeping Camel: Lunar water extraction mission.
• Super Size Me: Food production from carbonaceous asteroid.
• The Terminal: Orbital spaceport.
• Thunderbirds: Rescue squad.
• Troy: Gold extraction mission to asteroid.
• Van Helsing: Orbital assembly of probe from pieces of old probes.
• The Village: First Lunar maternity ward.
• White Chicks: Underground lunar aquatic recreation facility.
• White Heat: Mercury rover mission.
• Little Black Book: Mission scheduling system.
• Alien vs. Predator: Mission to make two asteroids collide.
• We Don't Live Here Anymore: Probe to document effects after first Earth impact asteroid.
• Without A Paddle: Experiments in zero-gravity propulsion by astronaut in large enclosed space.
• Exorcist: The Beginning: First mission to hold an umbrella between warming Earth and the Sun.
• Remember Me, My Love: Archive library mission before first Earth-impact asteroid.
• Bright Young Things: Meteors caused by human space debris.
• The Brown Bunny: Lunar coprolites.
• Hero: NASA lobbyist.
• Vanity Fair: Satellite whose primary instrument is a telescope which examines its own reflection on terrestrial smooth surfaces.
• Last Life In The Universe: Ongoing reality show on NASA TV
• The Cookout: Automated management of rotation for the cooling of space habitats.
• Head In The Clouds: NASA mission statement.
• Taxi: Rutan outsourcing
• Shall We Dance: Phobos/Deimos sampling mission.
• Flight of the Phoenix: International Space Station emergency escape plan.
• After the Sunset: Post-terminator tracking probe.
• Terminator 2: Second post-terminator tracking probe.
• House of Flying Daggers: Saturn ring fly-through mission.
• The Woodsman: Android to be sent ahead of manned mission to prepare site and then await discovery.
• Proof: Global temperature measurement mission.
• Fat Albert: Orion drive test using proven "Fat Man" technology.
• Are We There Yet?: Mission status monitoring system.

radar vs. ground

[huxrules]

I don't knw what kind of radar these guys are planning to send. But GPR (ground penetrating radar) only goes a few meters. I seriously doubt that they are going to launch an AGEIS system. All this proves- manned space flight (while possibly silly) is terribly better at geology. Why? We got shovels sukka.

Re:Point please

[MikeCapone]

Maybe if you don't know what they are doing and why they are doing it, you should read on it instead of saying that because it doesn't immediately jump at you it's pointless.

For an interesting (and fairly simple) read, I suggest Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot. It covers many many things including why space exploration is important for us (for example, we found out about the ozone layer and what CFCs were doing by looking at Mars and about the Greenhouse effect by looking at Venus -- stuff that was totally unrelated at first).

Lots of points in fact...

[WegianWarrior]

Just to clarefy - the mission that are talked about is an ESA mission.. y'know, those guys that ain't NASA, nor russkies or from Red China? Anyway, thats really beside the point here.

I judge from your comment, you seem to think that learning about space for the sake of knowledge is not worth it... well, the other option is to learn about space with an eye to make money out of it. It has quite often been proposed that it ought to be possible to mine astroids for raw materials to use in space (build spacestations, spaceships and whatnot in space) or on earth. In order to do this, we need a better understanding on how an astroid is put together - thus this mission.

As for the NASA mission briefly mentioned, thats a completly different mission; it seeks to learn more about comets and how they are made up. While less than ideal for mining, this is important also - not just for the pure science (a concept I think you may find hard to understand) but because we one day may need to alter the orbit / blow up a comet that are on a collisioncourse with earth. If we don't know how it is put together, we're in a worse situation to do just that.