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NASA Planning Mission To 40-Meter-Wide Asteroid
FudRucker points out a story from The Guardian about NASA's plans to visit 2000SG344, an asteroid 40 meters wide and weighing roughly 71 million kilograms. The manned mission would take three to six months, and it would make use of the Orion spacecraft, which will be replacing to retiring space shuttle fleet.
"A report seen by the Guardian notes that by sending astronauts on a three-month journey to the hurtling asteroid, scientists believe they would learn more about the psychological effects of long-term missions and the risks of working in deep space, and it would allow astronauts to test kits to convert subsurface ice into drinking water, breathable oxygen and even hydrogen to top up rocket fuel. All of which would be invaluable before embarking on a two-year expedition to Mars. As well as giving space officials a taste of more complex missions, samples taken from the rock could help scientists understand more about the birth of the solar system and how best to defend against asteroids that veer into Earth's path."
They should have them bring a can of white and Black Paint to measure its affect.
Okay, so it's really really big. But not "too" big. And it just happens to be in an orbit that's very close to earth's orbit around the sun. So I'm guessing that with the right nudges at the right times, it'd be possible to swing that rock around the moon and park it in orbit around the earth. And having a million tons of raw material in orbit is something that both makes more sense than a manned landing, and is a lot more interesting and exciting, to me at least.
Unmanned missions may be cheaper and safer, but sending out real people to expand the horizons of human activity in space is much more important. It gets people excited! That brings in money and inspires young people.
Then, when NASA has a huge group of talented experts and tons of cash, they can do real science instead of worrying every day about whether the budget will get slashed before they can complete the current round of experiments.
Their new capsule design is basically Apollo again so the old plans are on the table. An asteroid mission is a stepping stone to missions to the planets. It is shorter, but interesting all the same.
The asteroids are a likely resource for Earth. Planets are only of use to us for colonisation or science. There is no way to export from Mars to Earth for example, but water could be exported from asteroids to the moon.
This is a great idea. I can't wait to watch.
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"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
Ranting aside, asteroid landing is pretty important if we're going to take advantage of the iron, other metals, and energy available to space travel. Solar mirrors have to be made out of something: the entire fossil and nuclear energy demands of this planet can be provided with a fairly modest set of solar mirrors. Even if you think it's unsafe or a military issue to beam the energy down to Earth, there's enough manufacturing of toxic materials and especially of cumputer chips and crystalline structures that would benefit from operating in orbit instead of on the ground, where it's more idfficult and expensive to control temperature, maintain purity, control temperature, and avoid gravitic problems in the formation of crystalliine or porous materials.
Asteroid visits are a wonderful step towards the industrial use of space, far more effective and useful than a Mars mission. Do the Mars mission after we have a working space station that can build things, and a reliable supply line to it.
Does anyone who knows anything about solar physics know whether or not you could use a small body like this as a solar flare shelter? If you are in deep space or in a hard-to-change orbit around a large body (like the moon), if a solar flare happens you're out of luck. If you're on the surface of a body with little or no atmosphere I guess you're still out of luck. But with a small body like this could you just zip to the side in the shadow? Could this make long-term trips like this safer than say going to the moon?
The idea is reminiscent of an Arthur C. Clarke story about a trip to Icarus.
On a more sinister note, while the delta-V for CAPTURE of this body around earth might be prohibitive using todays technology, what about for IMPACT? Not the U.S. would want to do such an obvious war provoking act but wondering if it could be done with just chemical propellants. Of course it depends on how far in advance you have to alter the course, orbital parameters etc.
Now if we were really good at orbital mechanics we could possibly have it skim the atmosphere to lose some delta-v for capture. Don't think anyone's gonna try that though.
... what will be the affect of the next election on NASA and NASA's budget. According to this chart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NASA_budget_linegraph_BH.PNG), it looks like Democrats tend to roll back NASA's budget whereas Republicans tend to increase it, ignoring of course the Apollo years (arguably that money was looked at as Cold War defense expenditures, not space program expenses). To summarize the chart, during the Carter years, NASA's inflation-adjusted budget went down. During the Reagan years it went up a little. During Bush I it went up dramatically, and then it went down quite a bit during the Clinton (I?) years. During Bush II it also went up a little. Now what will happen should a) Obama b) Clinton II c) McCain become the next president? My guess would be a) down a lot, b) down a little, c) up a little.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct
This is proposed back in 1990, and was deemed to be a viable plan for going forward with technology we had at that time. As with all missions, we don't know the SPECIFICS (as in, we don't have blueprints of the craft to take us), but if we had those we'd probably already be on the way there now. There are enough sound plans out there that I'm sure if funding were approved for the mission, we'd be able to do it. The problem though, is not in solving problems, getting a clear roadmap, or whatnot. The problem is in getting the government to simply lay down the funding so we can go.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I'm much more excited about nasa going to an asteroid then going to Mars. We're decades, if not centuries away from being able to do anything useful with Mars except deny/confirm that it was once much, much nicer. Currently, it is a frozen sand trap that just happens to occupy an orbit between the Earth and the belt.
That nasa is even asking for plans made my whole day. Sam Gunn would be proud.