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NASA Proposes Manned Asteroid Mission
eldavojohn writes "NASA has proposed a manned asteroid mission to a near earth object. They mention this being viewed as a "gap-filler" to keep the public's attention between a lunar exploration & manned mars mission. The article also cites these goals as in line with the Constellation Program. From the article, 'Furthermore, a human venture to a space rock may well accelerate precursor robotic surveys of asteroids, Schweickart observed. "Early unmanned visits to asteroids ... it's the same pattern as we did with the Moon and we're doing right now with Mars. It's all pretty logical," he told SPACE.com.'"
The experience we get from a mission to asteroids could serve us well in the event that one heads towards earth. I mean, Bruce Willis isn't getting any younger.
insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
...that when the special edition of Armageddon is released, it'll be marked as "based on a true story?"
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
If the plan is to "land" on an asteroid and plant a flag (or whatever), it's probably a good idea to actually know ahead of time that there's solid ground there. If I recall correctly, the most recent asteroid fly-bys suggested that it was mostly loose gravel held together by microgravity. Imagine "landing" and finding yourself sinking into a bunch of rocks that start flying about.
Like NASA can do better than Armageddeon?
Maybe if they get Steve Buscemi to pilot the mission they have a chance.
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
Can we put some small ion engines on the asteroid? Because if we do that and can feed the engines with asteroid dust, we can move it into Earth orbit within my lifetime. And that would just be too cool.
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
Sign me up, I'm ready to take a vacation from *this* rock.
I wonder that if NASA is thinking about the public's attention, why not send rock-stars, or famous people to some asteroid? Make them do the television circuit to tell us all about it. I don't care about the risk of death due to failures.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Can we get Robert Patrick to be the lead commander of the mission? Although I did hate that one puzzle with the turtle bones...
A little shove would bring it nicely down upon an enemy state of your choice, without the messy fallout that nukes have.
Perhaps one of the Lagrange points would make people feel more comfortable.
Yeah, cause we've grown tired of our moon. We wish for more shiny objects to entertain us! We'll sort of the whole rocks falling us from space later, or Lucas will - his special effects are the coolest.
I was going to say something about Armageddon.. but I think thats well covered. Instead though, I found this article -
This just in! Britney Spears pays $92M to be the first woman to have a child on another spacial body. Sources report that she is no longer content to have child on earth, like the social norm. Critics suggest its just another cry for attention.
It's so great NASA has the right goal: entertaining the masses.
Fleur de Sel
...to "Pound me in the asteroid" prison.
yet, they want to land on an asteroid
i mean, set your bar high, but not so high you can't reach it.
... dont wanna fall asleep ...
damn you slashdot! Now I have cheesy late 90's Aerosmith humming in my brain..
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the obvious: Using an asteroid landing as a precusror to a mining mission.
If NASA's plans go forward, they're going to need a space infrastructure. Eventually, that will mean space-based manufacturing. For manufacturing, you need raw materials. Those raw materials are expensive to lift from Earth's gravity well. Ergo, the best solution is to mine them from much smaller gravity wells where the cost of transport is comparitively minimal.
The key issue that an mission to an asteroid would need to resolve is the actual composition and concentration of valuable ores. Scientists currently have a lot of educated guesses, but we won't know for sure until a geologist makes a proper survey.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
"gap-filler"? What a great way to suck the importance of the project while simultaneously insulting the future people who have yet to be assign to work on the "gap-filler".
zLimes.com - Simply the best default homepage!
Deep Impact was a much better movie IMHO than Armageddon.
Users of The Internet Movie Database seem to barely agree with me.
This is no cave... !!!
What's the basis for NASA's planning, here?
Science, or entertaining the public to keep the space budget healthy?
What happens when the public start to wonder why exactly we're sending men to the Moon and Mars and asteriods, just to have them come back again? what exactly did we get for it, except the bill? saying "it's for science" or "it's advancing towards men in space" is getting *old*. We don't have an off-planet base, we're not getting one in the next ten or twenty years.
When you consider that reality, statements like "for science" and "men in space" are ring hollow and people basically go "well, I can't see why we're doing this" and then your public support goes away.
And no bad thing if it did. NASA has been an unmitigated disaster for space travel and exploration. It's almost entirely prevented enterprise and investment into the field and substitued expensive, slow, bureaucratic, political-football State-run snails-pace development.
What have we got to show for the last thirty, fourty years of NASA?
We got men on the moon and then...
What?
One exploration satellite every year or two? Skylab for a bit, then that came down and after thirty years, we FINALLY have the ISS...and it's in low Earth orbit. What's the point, exactly? it's a frickin' expensive way to get into space.
Where's the innovation?
State run companies *DO NOT INNOVATE*.
And by God, if there's a field which needs innovation to get off the ground, it's space travel.
We need solutions to fundamental problems. You don't get that from a committee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dig
But, yeah, it was pretty lame, I think.
dude...hotmail's server says that too...very weird
You won't sink. The gravity's too weak, remember?
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Since when have they had trouble sending shuttles up? Sure, there have been disasters, but who said space travel was easy? They have landed on the moon, rammed a probe into a comet, and have 4 (IIRC) vehicles on or orbiting Mars.
The meek will inherit the Earth. The rest of us will go to the stars.
For all of you slashdot readers who have plenty of time on your hands, here is an excellent book on why going to the asteroids should be one of, if not THE, priorities of the manned space program. Although I haven't read it since I was young(er) I still remember it fondly as being one of my great inspirations for space travel. The ease of getting there (it is energetically easier to get to a Near Earth Orbit asteroid than going to the moon!), the resources available there (iron asteroids = lots of metals, icy asteroids/comets = water and volatiles, carbonaceous = building materials) and the potential for discovery/experience in deep space travel are covered in this fascinating book. It made a compelling case, without resort to more speculative ideas such as orbital habitats a la L-5, for why this is our logical next step after the moon.
2 87818
Of course the book was written before Luiz Alvarez proposed that asteroids likely were responsible for mass extinctions. However since that justification for travelling to the asteroids has been discussed endlessly I don't think the omission hurts this book.
If you can find this book (I'm sure it's been out of print for decades) and have the time to read it, please do, It will help restore the feeling of endless possibilities that some of us had about space travel when we were young.
"Islands in Space: The Challenge of the Planetoids" Donald Cox and Dandridge Cole
By the way, if you've read this far, you might want to check out my previous musings on asteroids - http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171538&cid=14
It's a good thing shuttles have zero to do with anything beyond near earth orbit. It will take a different kind of vehicle all together.
Interestingly enough the captcha word is "vacuum" how fitting.
NASA talks about this and that, shuffles around some papers, maybe changes the names of certain desk jobs, and nothing concrete comes out of it. This has been going on for, oh, a decade now (at least).
Whether we should blame NASA, Congress or the White House for this current situation is moot. Anything NASA says about future manned missions that involve something other than putting people into low-earh orbit in an aging space shuttle is a pipe dream, isn't particularly noteworthy and I fail to see why it belongs on the front page here.
I have Man Asteroids, and they hurt like hell when I sit down..
Michael Griffin has seen Armageddon too many times.
I think that "poke it with a stick" here is a substitute for "deliver unto the asteroid a large nuclear weapon."
If you can land on it, then you can probably drop a nuke there. That's the scientific part. However, actually putting a person there also satisfies the equally important goal of continuing NASA's public relations campaign and spurring public interest in space exploration.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
i can see it now... mining contracts that last 5-10-20 years... maybe they'll find some sort of alien life forms?
first, it makes sense to do this with ba-330 rather than the orion. in addition to mineral, it would make sense to find some amonnia asteroids and steer them towards mars. a few of those would help bring the temp and pressure up. but of course, a robotic could do the job just as well. in fact, in my mind, sending man to asteroids does not make sense until we can handle mars and the moon.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Capturing an asteroid for resources would be idiotic. Placing a spacecraft hull in orbit is simple. Tie together a few TransHab modules, and there you go. It is a one time cost. The real problem is consumables: Water, oxygen, propellant. You won't find usable quantities of these things on an asteroid.
No, what you want to do is capture a comet. Thousands, if not millions of tonnes of water, which can be cracked for oxygen. Also, plenty of other ices which can be used as propellant. Launch a giant plastic bag into an intercept orbit, seal the comet inside. As the sun heats the bag/comet, vent the gas to put the comet into a more usable orbit, and voila, a mountain sized chunk of water to live off of.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Doing manned missions for PR purposes seems pretty silly.
Not doing PR will guarantee that the entire Space Program ends up being nothing but a bunch of expensive lawn ornaments and a theme park in Florida.
It's only because of the public interest in space, and their willingless to spend a shitload of money on it, that there is the opportunity to conduct scientific research up there at all. Private industry isn't going to pay for it; at least not on anything like the scale that we've come to enjoy today.
The primary goal of the space program should be to ensure its own future existence, and that means keeping the public interested. If that means going and sending some guy up to stand on an asteroid for a photo op next to a flag, so be it. It's that sort of thing which will keep the money flowing.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
For 40 years, NASA has been sending astronauts into low Earth orbit and calling it "spaceflight". Dinking around in LEO is not space travel.
OK, there was the Apollo program. That begins to count. But the Apollo astronauts were still, at all times, within the Earth's gravity well (the moon is gravitationally bound to the Earth).
But now ...
"That kind of early demonstration mission might last no more than 60 or 90 days," Durda said, "and take the crew no farther than a few lunar distances away from Earth."
Finally. A human being is going to travel in space. Not very far. But it's a start, after decades of pitiful pretence.
Actually, we as taxpayers should demand that all government programs be more entertaining for the masses. As it is now, all we have is an occasional space mission and perpetual war. Surely the Department of Agriculture can whip up some excitement to keep those tax dollars flowing.
Of course, besides being scientifically unjustifiable, a manned asteroid mission will carry significant risk, so part of NASA's planning will have to include a spin campaign if something goes wrong. Most of "the masses" won't care any more about the asteroid mission than they do about the ISS.
It is quite obvious that this is the result from someone sending us a message from the future telling us to start this program. It only makes sense that an asteroid in our future will be heading towards us. Next we'll have to gather up the best men on the planet to take this bitch down. By starting this program now, we're saving ourselves for the future. It's all pretty logical.
Democracy is sort of a bitch that way. If you can't make your case for funding to the masses, they're going to ignore you; once that happens, the politicians will smell money, and move in for the kill.
Politics is circus. And thus, anything that derives its funding from the political process, or has to otherwise interact with it, needs to get with the program.
Unless you have some brilliant ideas on how to make NASA totally self-funding, it's the "PR stunt" missions that are going to effectively pay for all the boring research ones, that Mr. and Mrs. America don't care about.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The more impossible the goal, the better our chance of accomplishing it.
"Politicians in Space" would offend all the "Pigs in Space" fans. You don't want piss off Miss Piggy when she's wearing high heels in space.
Don't worry, it will be solid and filled with extremophile nanobacteria that make up trillions of minds, and watch the universe for all eternity. I just hope the cosmonauts won't hit the interface too much.
a "gap-filler" to keep the public's attention between a lunar exploration & manned Mars mission.
Since when is NASA about entertaining the public? They should only do this in case there is stuff to be gained other than the public's attention!
Infinite time means everything that can happen, will. You being you is absolutely incidental. You do not exist.
Astroids are definitly a much better endeavor than making a 3d image of the sun. The possibility for mining resources that are rare on earth or needed for space-based manufacuring are high. Who knows maybe we will be able to expand the known elements and open up a whole new scope of metallurgy.
I for one am willing to pay taxes for experiments with potential this has.
Actually, we as taxpayers should demand that all government programs be more entertaining for the masses. As it is now, all we have is an occasional space mission and perpetual war.
Well, up until the public realized it wasn't all fun and games, the war seemed to be performing its duties as World's Most Expensive Reality TV Show pretty well.
Actually, the military in general does a pretty good job of PR, in terms of making itself a focus of national pride. NASA could take some pointers from them.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Now if the gravity on the Moon was light enough for astronauts to easily bounce around, lose their balance and fall over, what would the chances be of having astronauts easily walk on the surface of an asteroid? (assuming the surface is solid enough for a fully suited human to stand on in the first place) The Moon is quite a bit more massive than even Ceres is, and we had slight issues walking around up there.
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... they just don't have the funds or capabilities of NASA. Yet. They are all backed by "angel investors" from other industries who want to see private companies enter space, hence they started their own companies to try and bring commercial space into fruition:
Armadillo Aerospace (John Carmack)
Blue Origin (Jeff Bezos)
SpaceX (Elon Munsk)
XCOR(various members of RRS and others)
The irrational feelings of the masses affect science all the time. Look at stem-cell research; that's a whole field that's basically turned into a proxy battleground for anti-abortion groups. I think a lot of researchers there tried to just stay out of the mud-slinging, but in doing so they basically got run over: it wasn't until after the religious groups got their laws passed that any of the research organizations started doing their own PR. If they had been doing good PR work from the beginning, it might have never become a national issue.
Science doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's not something that can just happen on some high academic plane, removed from the ugly realities of the political process. If you want money, you need to make average people -- people, in many cases, with a high school education and a crappy one at that -- understand or at least feel connected to what you're doing. And you need to do it constantly: not just when you've got a problem and need public support. You need to bring the public along from Day 1. I hope that these asteroid missions are NASA finally waking up and realizing that you can't ignore the public on one hand, and expect them to pay for your research on the other. It doesn't work that way.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
We should be aspiring to send an intelligent squid, instead. Maybe it can find some artificial wormhole device embedded in an NEO, and its progeny will go on to conquer to Trojan asteroids...
Your favorite sig sucks
Automated mining equipment, automated processing plants that separate one mineral from another and triage it into other automated machines, such as smelters.
We need moon-based telescopes, solar collectors, huge inflatable terrariums where it is possible for scientists, engineers and technicians to reside while researching and performing maintenance on the automated equipment.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._ClarkeSir Arthur C. Clarke's collected stories his excellent vision of how a moon base should run and why we need to do it.
Why bother spending all that money visiting asteroids, when if we just sit back and wait, the asteroids will come to us?
A picture begins to emerge. Those who control space controls the world. First the legislative bill that denies space to any of the US's enemies and now a announcement for a manned expedition to a NEA. I wonder if this will start a space race with China and Pakistan. Well, better us than them. We need to have a strong prescence in space if only to discourage our enemies from attacking us. And there is the excitement factor too.
Capturing a near-Earth-orbit asteroid for use in space-based manufacturing will be technically difficult. It will involve creation of new techniques and technologies. It will tax the creativity and problem solving skills of our best and brightest. We can't even guarantee success.
On the other hand...
Mining, refining and even manufacturing in space makes total sense. Let's learn how to use the off-planet resources to accomplish off-planet expansion. Using huge amounts of energy resources to mine, refine and launch mass into space seems wasteful. The one thing there is no shortage of in space is energy. A few large mirrors would provide enough energy to do smelting operations that on Earth we would accomplish by burning coal or natural-gas. And, as noted in earlier posts, the gravity well of Earth makes getting sufficient quantities of materials into space to do large-scale projects very, very expensive.
From an accounting point of view the risks and difficulties presented by this kind of project make it unattractive. But, unless mankind will finish the remainder of its days stuck in the cradle of Earth, someone will have to achieve this kind of project. I would love to be part of the generation that finally attempts it.
This is an ancient line of reasoning going back to the pre-Apollo Lunar Surveyor missions. It was a silly argument then and now. The surface of Eros was strong enough for NEAR to land on. Ofcourse any discussion of strength in a 0.001g gravity field is kind of silly. Soil compaction, even in a low g environment will tend to increase over time as the surface is struck by impactors, even on a disrupted asteroid.
an ill wind that blows no good
This will be advertised as something else, but we all know it will be a training mission, a dress rehearsal if you will, for when they have to go shove an asteroid out of its earth-meeting orbit. If history is any clue, when that happens for real, we will just manage in our jubilation over saving the human race, neglect to notice that we have just placed that asteroid into a near future earth-meeting orbit that we have no data on.
Heard any good sigs lately?
This sounds like a problematic space mission because of the potential of collisions. I'm not talking about the Star Wars image of an asteroid field. But, any asteroids we approach will probably be of significant size. And, they'll probably be surrounded by a cloud of small rocks or particles. Maybe you can inch up to one from a long way out to mitigate the risk of high-speed impacts, but it seems like impacts will be a certainty.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
In Soviet Russia, asteroid lands on you!
There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think. -Victor Hugo
NASA, in our post 11/7 era, is suggesting going to an astroid? Maybe our president could lead the team? In fond memory of Sam Kinison, "WTF! There is an Astorid orbiting our planet! Practice on that! Oh! Oooooooooooooh! I am in NASA Hell! Oh! Ooooooooooooooooh"
"Slowly, one by one, the Peguins steal my sanity." - Unknown
My 6-year old has been trying to do this in the kitchen for a couple of years now, using baking soda, vinegar, a bottle and a balloon.
science is a religion
Interesting you mention that. Before the first moonlandings, there was a similar concern: there was a theory that the soil consisted of such a fine dust that it had properties similar to a liquid, and that anything landing on it would just sink. Arthur C. Clarke even wrote a novel exploring this idea: "A fall of moondust". A nice read, but of course a bit outdated.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
But in that case, why not just cut to the chase? If the space program depends for its success on being entertainment for the masses, then the obvious solution is to send Paris Hilton into space to do a reality show.
Seem to recall when Bruce Willis went to an asteroid, he broke a drill bit and it was a serious problem.
Real World: ISS
Real World: Moon
Real World: Asteroid
Real World: Mars
Then there would be plenty of participants for Real World: Challenge - LEO
Or you can s/Real World/Survivor/g if your preferences swing that way.
There's already been a recent ./ post about Extreme Makeover, Mars Edition.
It sounds theoretically feasible, but technically a nightmare. If a meteor knocked a hole in your bag (pretty likely over time), you would suddenly have a second jet, and you didn't get to pick which way it's pointed, so it's effectively uncontrolled. It might hit the earth instead of orbiting. If it broke apart due to the warming, your bag is completely history.
Plus, when was the last time somebody wrapped something that big? It would probably take hundreds of thousands of pounds of plastic, plus some sort of machine that to lay it all down. And you'd need nozzles. If you want to control it, you can't just cut a hole and call it good. And you have to the center of mass precisely, which would change as material is jettisoned, or it tumbles.
Also, you're talking about a lot of momentum change here, from a low impulse thruster. Comets move fast through the inner solar system. It would take a lot of mass and a long time to swing it into a useful orbit.
Probably a better idea is to land a couple solar or nuclear powered mass drivers on the comet that would actively launch material in the opposite direction you wanted to accellerate the main mass. It's still a major leap beyond what we can technically and economically accomplish right now...except perhaps if we found ourselves absolutely needing to and we had enough time.
People do things the same way until they think of a better way. I hear a lot of people talking about "in-situ resource utilization", but most seem to be thinking of trying to duplicate what is currently done in the industrialized world. What they seem to gloss over is the need for the tools to make the tools to bootstrap in-situ industry in space. This is sort of like saying, how do you make a blacksmith shop (used for making other tools and finished goods) when you have limited carrying space on your person or in your covered wagon?
How about a new series of contests with prizes related to developing items using only the resources available in a certain local? For example, have a student competition that starts with dirt, sand, clay, etc. from a given area and challenge them to build something. One contest could be for simply developing a container. Simple, you say? What if the resource available is just sand? Granite? You could allow the use of other materials, but heavily penalize the use of consumables. Various levels of award money could be available for making a container capable of holding a liquid or even an air-tight container (bonus points for higher pressure capacity before bursting).
Another contest could be for creating electronic components using "in-situ" resources. Conductors, insulator, resistor, semiconductor, etc. are all needed for modern manufacturing. Also, contests for creating things like heating elements, power generators/collectors, etc. would be good for creating industrial components.
Some people have talked about using solar ovens, etc. as a means for making these things. Lets put it to the test! Its science fiction or speculation until somebody actually does it. Once people make progress in these areas in the public arena, you'll start to see some of the more successful ideas adapted for real missions.
science is a religion
Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to send miners with big drills, nukes and bruce willis? Correct me if i'm going in the wrong direction here.
Forget that!
1. Send robots. Find out what the asteroids are made of. NASA Should PR the crap out of this.
2. Send people. Mine them sumbitches!
3. Soft land mined materials back to earth.
4. Make inorganic raw materials so cheap as to be economically valueless. Like grass or wood or
minerals in Starcraft.
5. Ravage various economies.
6. Profit!
YMMV on steps 1-5. But at least I've solved that nasty ???? between ideas and profit!