NASA Probe Orbiting Asteroid Vesta

astroengine writes "Mission managers of NASA's Dawn asteroid probe had a long Saturday, waiting for news from the asteroid belt. Eventually they got the news they were hoping for: Dawn had entered Vesta orbit. This is the first time in history that an object in the asteroid belt has been orbited by an artificial satellite. It's taken four years for the ion thruster-propelled spacecraft to reach the asteroid and there was some uncertainty as to whether the probe had been captured by the asteroid's gravity at all. But after a long period of waiting, mission managers received the signal after Dawn was able to orientate its antenna toward Earth."

Comments

"Doomsday Asteroid?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, what loathsome editing by Discovery: they injected a video clip about a "Doomsday Asteroid" wiping out the earth into the middle of an article about Dawn visiting Vesta. The two are unrelated, but the juxtaposition somehow makes it sound like NASA is fulfilling some Hollywood fantasy about visiting the asteroid that will come smashing into Earth unless we send [current B-rate movie star] on the now-defunct Space Shuttle to nuke it.

Re:"Doomsday Asteroid?"

[retroworks]

Actually, I just watched the video, and it's related to the story. The "doomsday asteroid" video is mostly an interview with NASA Senior Scientist Joseph A. Nuth III. When Discovery questions him about strategies for the 1/45,000 chance of an asteroid hitting the earth in calendar year 2029. When asked about real strategies for dealing with an impending asteroid impact, Nuth explains that a lack of data or record of observation of the asteroid belt makes strategies rather futile. Whether to paint it to use solar reflection power, or blowing it up, etc., requires closer observation of the asteroid belt... which is background justification for Vesta's trip to the asteroid belt.

As for "juxtaposition", the story appears in July, the seventh month of the year. According to dictionary.com, the seventh month of the "civil year" is also called the "Nisan" or "Nissan" (from the Asyrian calendar) So this article is about the Nissan Vesta.

Re:"Doomsday Asteroid?"

[hairyfeet]

The asteroid in question is called Apophis and I'd say the bitch of the thing is not that it could hit us in 2029 (very very unlikely) but that it could swing close enough to earth in 2029 as to have its orbit nudged thus setting us up for an impact in 2036.

This to me would seem like a perfect cause to get the government to invest in NASA as per the earlier article posted here, as having a beacon placed on Apophis to keep track of the sucker and ensure we are able to accurately predict its orbit would be a smart move. Its next pass will be in 2013 which isn't a lot of time but should be time enough to prep a probe to land on it and plant a beacon.

Re:Sending astronauts?

[rubycodez]

Why are you so fixated on U.S. capabilities, it only matters that mankind can put people into orbit, and the U.S. space program has a large number of useful missions in progress or soon to launch, and many as collaboration with other nations. Patriotism has no place in science.

Ah, Vesta first

[Baloroth]

FTFA:

Dawn will remain in orbit around Vesta for a year, before gently boosting away to begin the trip to Ceres, the second half of its asteroid belt adventure.

That was actually my first thought: "Why is this visiting Vesta and not Ceres?" Ceres (might) have surface water and an atmosphere, so it makes more sense as a base. Its also larger (about 4 times the mass/size, although, surprisingly, it has nearly the same gravity, .027g to Vesta's .022g) and looks one hell of a lot more interesting. I mean, both are just big rocks in space, but Ceres is actually dwarf planet class and looks like it could serve as a quite effective base for more missions past the asteroid belt.

Of course, visiting both makes sense. Vesta may have also been a nice test run for gravitational capture, since it doesn't have an atmosphere and its smaller, but has similar gravity. Establishing a (manned) base in the asteroid belt seems like it could be an enormous step forward in space. The asteroids could potentially be mined, providing a financial incentive to visit, plus their low gravity makes them easy to escape after loading up on fuel/ore or for constructing spacecraft (anyone else think the idea of a spaceship factory in the asteroid belts is pretty cool?). All in all, this is a pretty cool (if pretty small) step forward in getting off this rock. I can see why Obama wants to send an astronaut to the belt by 2025, even if I know it'll probably take till 2040 or so.

Re:What if they Pentagon bought more efficient A/C

[thrich81]

If it makes you feel any better, (it did for me) that number ($20 billion) for air conditioning in Afghanistan is highly debatable and was put forward by a guy who was a brigadier general but now is in the private sector, selling technologies branded as energy-efficient to the Defense Department. More from the source article (http://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137414737/among-the-costs-of-war-20b-in-air-conditioning): "Now it's important to note that wrapped up in Anderson's $20 billion figure are all kind of other expenditures – for instance, the cost of building and maintaining roads in Afghanistan, securing those roads, managing the security operations for those roads. That all costs a lot of money and is part of the overall war effort in Afghanistan." And, "The Pentagon disputes the calculation made by Anderson about air conditioning costs. Defense Department spokesman Dave Lapan says that in fiscal year 2010, the Pentagon spent approximately $15 billion on energy for all military operations around the world. The Pentagon says when it comes to Afghanistan, it spent $1.5 billion from October 2010 to May 2011 on fuel. That fuel was used for heating and air conditioning systems, but also for aircraft, unmanned aerial systems, combat vehicles, computers and electricity inside military structures."

Patriotism is not compatible with science

[rocket rancher]

Science is a collaborative effort. Nearly every advance the parent cited can be traced back to development work done by people who were not born in the US. Von Braun, Tsiolkovsky, and Fermi come to mind immediately, along with Einstein, Turing, Goedel, Bohr, Pauling, Dirac, Mendeleev, and Roentgen. National pride is fine, but it rings kinda hollow when one is aware of just how connected all scientific advancement is. The idea that all of those achievements are somehow the sole purview of the US is absurd.

Re:Sending astronauts?

[Tenebrousedge]

There is no such thing as a good form of patriotism, unless it is dissent. The US has plundered the world to enrich an astonishingly small minority, and you're saying it's okay because a dollar or two fell into the science bucket along the way? Our contributions fo human suffering dwarf our contributions to knowledge. Patriotism is evil, just one more way to deny our common humanity and place ourselves above others.

Allow me to quote:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final analysis, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

America has nothing to be proud of. We are tyrants, criminals, and murderers all, not to mention the way we've polluted the earth so that our children's children will curse our names. Altruistic patriotism? The third world thanks you for your most benign munificence. It's a thin shroud to drag over two centuries of violent imperialism; you delude none but yourself, and display only conceit. You have allowed yourself to fall into comfortable ignorance, an ignorance of the world outside your borders, an ignorance not only free from want or suffering but free from their conception. The world entire is brimming with pain, and has no use for armchair altruism or fools who rest on the laurels of others and naively hope for change. They sow the wind, that shall yet reap the whirlwind.