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."

Comments

Planned mission != actual mission

[l2718]

NASA plans a large number of missions but political considerations affect their budget so much that I wouldn't bet this is going to happen, no matter how cool it sounds. Right now, Mars is officially high on the agenda, so stepping-stones toward Mars are hot. In 5 years the next administration might decide to take the unmanned direction and this will go to the back burner. For the moment this should be thought of as contingency planning.

Re:Planned mission != actual mission

[MBGMorden]

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.

Re:Paper studies do not a mission make

[l2718]

maybe *after* Mars is done

Actually, if you RTFA you'd see that NASA is floating this as one possible stepping-stone toward a Mars mission and as a potential use of the CEV. At 3-6 months the asteroid mission would be shorter than a trip to Mars, closer to Earth, and require simpler spacecraft (the CEV). It would serve as a test for the capabilities required for going to Mars (or even long-term to the moon), and for the abilities of the CEV. You are completely right that this is one idea they are kicking around on, and my guess is that the best description of their reasoning is:

We're going to build the CEV; officially Congress said we're supposed to be going the moon first and then to Mars. What could we do that would use the CEV, and could be sold to Congress as part of the politically-assigned goals?

Not to mention

[markov_chain]

What if they can't convince Bruce Willis to come along?

Re:Not to mention

[mdemonic]

Then they will all die hard

Land, schmand. Pull it into orbit!

[ThreeGigs]

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.

Re:Land, schmand. Pull it into orbit!

[evanbd]

It's got 1.37 km/s hyperbolic excess velocity, and on an orbit that damn near intersects ours. That means it takes a little more than 1370 m/s of delta-v to perform the capture. At 7.1E7 kg, that's about 6.6E13 joules -- approximately 15kt TNT equivalent worth of energy.

Assuming a high performance LOX/Methane engine, it would need about 34kt of propellant (rockets are inefficient for delta-v low relative to exhaust velocity). Note that this is a significant proportion of the asteroid mass. To make it economical, you'd need something more exotic -- a mass drive throwing bits of asteroid, or a high performance solar-electric ion drive, for example.

Re:Land, schmand. Pull it into orbit!

[afaik_ianal]

The actual object is only 71,000 tonnes, not 1.1 million tonnes as claimed by TFA.

The energy of any possible collision with Earth is "1.1 million tons of TNT", which is about 4.6 petajoules. I expect the energy required to pull it into orbit would be in that order of magnitude, as you'd basically be trying to slow the thing down as it got near us.

I'm not sure how you many nukes it would take to apply that much kinetic energy to an object in space, but the biggest nukes can release in the order of 2 petajoules of heat.

I'm not sure that I'd want an object that size -- without any means of correcting its orbit -- hovering over my house though.

Re:Land, schmand. Pull it into orbit!

[MichaelSmith]

a mass drive throwing bits of asteroid, or a high performance solar-electric ion drive, for example. To do that you need a sample of the asteroid, so you know what kind of reaction mass you are dealing with. I think it would be possible to install the engine on the second close pass, assuming a good examination on the first pass.

Re:Land, schmand. Pull it into orbit!

[SanityInAnarchy]

Well, if we can slow it down that much, I'd imagine we could use the same tricks to correct its orbit.

Somehow, I'm not that bothered by it -- how much does the moon weigh? It's often over your house, right?

Re:Land, schmand. Pull it into orbit!

[kvezach]

To make it economical, you'd need something more exotic -- a mass drive throwing bits of asteroid, or a high performance solar-electric ion drive, for example.

Or the other Orion.

Re:Land, schmand. Pull it into orbit!

[Anonymous Coward]

I offer the much better idea of nudging the asteroid so that it falls into a stable orbit between Mars and the Earth.

Then each time it comes round, regular trips from the Earth could stock it with food, water and air, as well as building long-term habitation. It would then become a 'Mars Bus', able to shift lots of material, as well as all the Mars tourists/colonists who will want to go.

And I haven't even patented this concept. Perhaps it's because I am from the UK and not American?

Re:Land, schmand. Pull it into orbit!

[Gilmoure]

It's 40 m across. It's smaller in size than the space shuttle or the ISS. You'd need to be outside of most urban zones to even see it, assuming they put it in LEO. If it was set orbiting the moon, good luck spotting it with nekkid eye. As for gravitational effects on your cycles, I think a garbage truck down the street would have more effect on you.

Hmm

[aitikin]

So that's why they were wondering about the effects of staying in bed for 90 days!

Hopefully

[Strange Ranger]

Hopefully through their all research, hard work, and bravery they'll finally discover
what it's like to go out one side of the screen and come back in the other.

Finally!

[Erpo]

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.

Re:Finally!

[Haoie]

Yes, but think of the vast, vast differences in cost.

No pun intended, it's astronomically different.

Re:Finally!

[2short]

"Think of all the money they could have saved if they sent a few robots up there."

They could have sent thousands of robots.

We've got two rovers operating on Mars for years for a fraction of the price it costs to send one human to the IIS in low Earth orbit. There's no question the robots get you more science for your buck, all the humans cling to is that they are better PR, but I wonder if that's true anymore? Here's a test: Without looking it up, think of the names of those rovers on Mars. Now think of the names of the current ISS inhabitants. You're paying hundreds of times as much for every day the ISS inhabitant is there.

Re:Paper studies do not a mission make

[MichaelSmith]

It would be awesome, don't get me wrong.. I actually think this is The Way To Go [TM] and I'm surprised to even see this being studied but NASA is not planning to send a manned mission to an asteroid, not now, not in 20 years time.. maybe *after* Mars is done but as I doubt NASA will have anything to do with that, I'm thinking they won't have anything to do with going to an asteroid either. Plans were made to do it with Apollo, in the 1970's but then the Shuttle came along and the US confined themselves to low earth orbit.

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.

Wrong Orion

[stjobe]

it would make use of the Orion spacecraft

Too bad it's the wrong Orion. Would have been a hell of a lot cooler if it was a project Orion spacecraft instead of a souped up Apollo capsule.

What about the War?

[freedom_india]

Would somebody *please* think of the children???
I mean if NASA goes on spending recklessly on such projects, who is going to feed the poor kids in Iraq, and not to mention upcoming Iran, Syria and N.Korea (although in this case it would be radioactive S.Korean kids).
NASA is just literally throwing money away to send 2 girls and 1 man away for tax-payer-funded jaunts to the ultimate holiday-spot: Asteriod!
I say we snatch NASA's budgets and feed it to Cheney; er sorry, Halliburton so that they could prosecute this devastating War to its conclusion.
Of all the daring, reckless things NASA can do, this rates the 3rd worst: The first was the Hubble-Schubble telescope thingy that NASA claims can take photos 130 million light-years away, but can't take photos of my Pet Cat! I mean who wants to look into the past 130 million years ago? Didn't God say he created Earth 6,000 years ago?
Secondly they sent TWO stupid rovers to Mars and cheer loudly when their rovers cross 6 mph speed. I mean, come on. My Hummer easily tops at 112 mph on a Texas village road! Who the hell needs photos from Mars, when the money can be spent to 'assist' JP Morgan and Citibank so that the poor executives can support their children at harvard? Plus Mars has no oil or CNG. Atleast Venus and Europa have oil.
Thirdly now this stupid honeymoon jaunt for 3 months!!!

Re:What about the War?

[Antique Geekmeister]

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.

You don't get it...

[iamacat]

This is a coverup of the fact that 2000SG344 will hit Earth as was originally reported in year 2000. What is a more perfect cover than to actually plan out the whole mission under the guise of advancing science or preparing for Mars? Then, once independent scientists wise up, public can be reassured that NASA developed the technology to deflect the asteroid with a series of controlled, directed pocket nuke type charges.

Re:You don't get it...

[Hognoxious]

And Bruce Willis fits into this scenario how?

Landing...

[TrevorB]

Just a technical note. With an asteroid this tiny, you don't land on it, you dock with it. The gravity will be practically non-existent.

Probably best to go nose first, nose down. Then you'll be able to see it so you don't hit it so hard.

Solar Flare shelter?

[wisebabo]

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.

Escape velocity

[LotsOfPhil]

The escape velocity on this asteroid is 1.5 cm/s. Yes, centimeters. One small step for man, one giant trajectory for that same man.