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NASA Plans To "Lasso" Asteroid and Turn It Into Space Station
SternisheFan writes "NASA scientists are planning to capture a 500 ton asteroid, relocate it and turn it into a space station for astronauts to refuel on their way to Mars. From the article: 'The 1.6bn-pound plan will be considered by the White House's Office of Science and technology in the coming weeks, as it prepares to set its space exploration agenda for the next decade, the Daily Mail reported. According to a report prepared by NASA and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) scientists, an, 'asteroid capture capsule' would be attached to an old Atlas V rocket and directed towards the asteroid between the earth and the moon. Once close, the asteroid capsule would release a 50ft diameter bag that would wrap around the spinning rock using drawstrings. The craft would then turn on its thrusters, using an estimated 300kg of propellant, to stop the asteroid in its tracks and tow it into a gravitationally neutral spot. From here space explorers would have a stationary base from which to launch trips deeper into space. Though NASA declined to comment on the project, it is believed that technology would make it possible within 10-12 years. The technology would also open up the possibility of mining other asteroids for their metals and minerals. Some are full of iron which could be used in the making of new space stations, others are made up of water which could be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen to make fuel. It is hoped that the project will increase our understanding of asteroids, and even shed new light on the origin of life on Earth.'"
"... the Daily Mail reported." All i have to say
Nice editing, found two mistakes on a quick read.
What could possibly go wrong?
Sounds like some fun, how can folks like myself get involved?
Just add a 3D printer in there, maybe mention the species, and you're going to get rabid support among the mentally weak.
"a space station for astronauts to refuel on their way to Mars"
I hope they hire Andy Libby to do their calculations.
Anyway having a "gas station in space' is not that good unless you just have it in Earth orbit. Having one halfway to mars is not going to work because you would have to slow down to dock with it and waste delta V
"water which could be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen to make fuel"
The energy to split apart hydrogen from oxygen in water always exceeds or equals the energy received by burning the hydrogen. Welcome to physics.
Also, they're going to tow out a bunch of fuel and supplies, let's say halfway to Mars. Then they're going to launch a 2nd spacecraft and stop there to go get it. I have an idea. How about they put all the supplies on the first spacecraft instead and don't make a pitstop then just deal with the extra weight, which sounds easier than lassoing an asteroid.
Also, there is no gravitationally neutral spot, as every planet in the solar system is constantly moving.
We don't really have the capability to load everything needed for a round-trip.
I understand why refueling in Earth orbit makes sense, but I really don't understand the advantage of using an astroid as a way-station.
In order to use the astroid, one has to first match orbits with it, and then one has to change orbits again to get to the desired destination. Those seem like wasteful maneuvers. It isn't like stepping on a log that just happens to be floating by on a river; instead, both the ship and the fuel must match orbits with the astroid, and then the ship must change orbits to reach its original destination.
Wouldn't it be better to just refuel in Earth orbit?
(I'm serious about this, if anyone can enlighten me, I would appreciate it!)
Would it not be great irony if the effort later causes the asteroid to crash on Earth.
Ya I heard they found plastic on Mars too.
Editors edit submissions.
GENERATION O98346: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig and remove a random number from the generation. T
According to this article, the asteroid in question is between the earth and the moon. Wouldn't that make it a moon of the earth? Granted, a very small moon, but a moon none-the-less.
The 1.6bn-pound plan ... release a 50ft diameter ... estimated 300kg.
Can't trust an article that can't even keep its units in check.
Well, NASA hasn't said a word about this and they usually blab on and on about projects that won't even start for decades. But The Australian and India Times both reported that the Daily Fail wrote an article about it, so that's confirmation from three sources, right?
If Milhouse says it too, then it must be true.
It's not hard to get to Mars, the hard part is getting back.
One could be much more purely efficient with a solar sail or the like, no conversion, but they don't accelerate very quickly and have some problems tacking.
People keep touting the idea of mining metals from asteroids and using it to build spacecraft outside of the earth's gravity well, but do we actually know how to do that?
The mining side of things seems relatively straight-forward (not easy, but you wouldn't need anything radically new), but smelting and refining significant amounts of ore in low gravity could be rather difficult. As far as I understand, a traditional iron smelting plant uses gravity to help with the purification, allowing the slag to float to the surface, before tapping the good quality iron from the bottom of the blast furnace.
It seems like purifying and working ore in space would require entirely new ways of working with the raw materials. Perhaps using some kind of high temperature centrifuge to spin and separate the material.
I'm not saying it's not possible, but it doesn't seem quite as easy as some of the more excitable science-fictiony plans for space exploration treat it. Many of these plans feature major problems to solve that get glossed over as minor technicalities.
Paul Leader
Actually do something, so -- oh, I don't know -- you can actually work for NASA, the military, or a contractor in a space-related field, instead of making smartass remarks on slashdot that aren't remotely funny.
"Some are full of iron which could be used for in the making of new space stations"
I thought space stations were made of lightweight materials such as aluminum. Besides, how exactly are they going to process that raw iron mineral into usable parts and were will the large amounts of energy needed to do so come from?
i peed myself, just like I peed myself when I read of the formation of Planetary Resources.
I've been hoping for something like this forever, since at least the Homeworld games (mining space debris). I've posted and talked to numerous people that this should happen, most people thought I was retarded nuts bat shit crazy stupid in the head. YAY!
and when they launch to another planet from the asteroid, it will be kicked out of its "neutral" orbit and enter a declining apogee which eventually causes it to crash into Earth.
boy, I hope that colonization thing works OK
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Here is the link to the pdf download at California Institute of Technology: http://www.caltech.edu/search/sites/asteroids%20nasa#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=asteroids%20nasa&gsc.page=1
the irony of being attacked/impacted by something we decided to put in a trojan point will be fatal.
"From here space explorers would have a stationary base from which to launch trips deeper into space. "
Call it a "handy rock to drop on miscreants if they don't behave" and you'll get the double budget before you can blink.
A Lunar elevator needs a counterweight in L1 or L2 Moon-Earth lagrange points, perhaps NASA has plans to build an elevator too? Also 500 ton (tonne?) is about the weight of the ISS, and with the VSMIR drives that they are going to be testing soon on the ISS perhaps these new drives can move an ISS sized asteroid. I think this is all pretty exciting give us more of the big picture NASA.
They are suggesting using a large 'bag' of some type to capture the asteroid. How feasible is that, considering we're talking about a spinning asteroid with lots of sharp edges that would cut a "bag"? We'd need to stop its spin first, no?
It's be a great idea if you can somehow create an artifical gravity by spinning the asteroid and building "upside down" in caves so what on Earth is the ceiling is the floor. Residents of the base should experience as close to 1G of gravity as possible to not have health issues. Building deep enough into the asteroid would create shielding against the Sun's radiation/flares and protect against small meteorites. The poles would be the docking areas, perhaps an Outward and a Sunward port with different decon and other facilities. You can have a smaller asteroid nearby as a low-gravity lab, base for the autonomous exploratory and mining drones, etc.
That cant lasso a budget or interest
Yes, and I *would* be a science officer on this new, thusly lassoed, space station. Or I could just be a gas jockey, seeing how the place will be used for refueling purposes. Really I *would* take either job... but will I? I just don't think there's enough money in the world for space exploration of any serious kind to be done by governments. All those bloody wars are expensive. Unless, that is, commercial entities with commercial interests prod governments to do it. After all they prod them to bloody wars.
Ok. NASA / JPL you can pay me. I'm going to solves your issues with broad strokes and answer some criticisms I've heard.
The Asteroids are relatively small and could be set at Lagrange points
A Mirror Array could be set up to provide a centrifugal spin to the to asteroid
there by providing a gravitational pull which could be augmented with thrusters.
At tunnel Borer with a 3 - 10' diameter could be used to carve out workable space
You would need a prefab crucible structure, a fabrication / machine shop in
addition to communications, lab, habitation, Hydroponics / Life support and power generation
But above all you'd need a real commitment of time, energy, resources and long term will.
Sadly I can't point to the Math or Science to make that last part happen.
Misfit.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Wouldn't something like this use twice the fuel needed to get to Mars? They don't accelerate the whole way, and having to stop in the middle and accelerate again, only to have to decelerate again when you reach Mars seems pointless and wasteful. I'll admit I'm not a rocket scientist or physicist, but I doubt there's a way to carry enough fuel to do a full burn all the way to Mars, even with a fuelling point half way there. At least not with fuel loaded before take off. If you're going to load up fuel after you leave Earth, why not just use a bigger fuel tank and have enough to get you there without stopping before you head out.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
The craft doing the work should be christened "Marcus Garvey".
The fuel could be launched from the asteroid and dock with the moving mars craft.
You see, in another four years, a new president will take over. This president will decide that they want to leave a legacy through NASA, as all the proceeding presidents since Kennedy have (all wanting to share in some of that immortality), and blow up Obama's plan for this new presidents plan. Just like Obama did to Bush (remember we were going back to the moon a mere 5 years ago!) and as I'm sure Bush did to Clinton and Clinton to Bush and Bush to Reagan and Reagan to Carter and well you get the idea.
It's like the pharaohs of ancient Egypt; when the last one dies you either deface his monuments and put your name up there or you outright destroy them.
No progress to be made here!
Who said they were going to put it HALFWAY TO MARS?
Oh right, you did.
Whereas the actual SUMMARY (not even TFA) says: "between the earth and the moon".
PRO TIP: If you're trying to show off your intelligence, demonstrating basic reading comprehension is one of the first steps.
And the mods gave you +5 Insightful for this. Jesus fucking wept.
I'm a bit confused about the 'gravitationally neutral' part of this. Doesn't that... not exist in the solar system? By definition of being in a solar system, isn't everything inside of it kinda... y'know... drawn towards the star in the middle of it?
I'm not sure how it's possible to keep this rock "still" in space. For starters, everything is moving at different speeds, so the two planets will be constantly shifting further and closer to eachother, what with the whole 'rotation around the sun' thing.
So will this asteroid be rotating around the sun? Around the earth? Around Mars? It's going to have to be stuck in SOME kind of orbit, otherwise I can't possibly fathom how it won't just fall into the sun. The only possible way I can see it staying "still" is if the rocket drags it to a stop, but then is permenantly burning fuel exactly away from the sun, at exactly the same strength as the sun's gravity. And then having to adjust constantly for the various planets that come by on THEIR rotations around the sun, if they get close enough to exert any kind of gravitational pull on the asteroid.
I'd read the article, but it appears to be blocked at work. Any chance this is covered in there?
With a trillion dollar ( $1,000,000,000,000 ) per year and growing deficit, with new regs to push the last productive ( taxable ) businesses and jobs offshore, with more Americans getting benefits from Uncle Sugar Daddy than there are those who pay taxes, with the green back losing it's reserve status, and a president who equates cutting spending with kiddie porn and who wants to start another war in Syria, you don't have a hope in hell of keeping NASA going, let alone lasso-ing an asteroid ( sigh ).
ntr
Wow, a whole 300 kg of propellant. I am impressed..
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I believe the idea is to put the "way-station" in orbit - after all energetically speaking Earth orbit is over half way to Mars. Where the asteroid factors in is that to have a way-station you need (1) a station, and (2) supplies. You could bring those up from Earth, but then you haven't really gained much beyond just basic orbital refueling (actually you've lost out since the way station mass is all "wasted"). OR... you could bring supplies from elsewhere - say towed in from the Earth's L3 or L4 asteroid fields - the energy difference is actually quite minor if you don't mind waiting a few years for delivery. That way you can capture icy asteroids to process into water, air, and fuel. Or if you're feeling ambitious you can capture a metallic asteroid and have a huge pile of nickel and iron to work with to build your station - you don't even need to refine it first, just melt it down and start building. You might still want to build much of your Mars-ship itself on Earth where you can make lightweight composite material, but much of the load-bearing structure (and mass) could potentially be built in orbit from materials that have never touched Earth. When you consider that it currently costs upwards of $100/kg to get something into orbit the advantages are obvious.
Meanwhile, you've now developed the technologies necessary to capture an asteroid into Earth orbit, had a chance to study what an asteroid really is from a practical up-close-and-personal perspective, and have a working orbital asteroid processing plant for future endeavors.
As for the "gravitationally neutral position" between the Earth and Moon, I can only assume they mean the L1 point. It'd be like balancing on the edge of a knife and would require constant orbital adjustments (a complicated 3D "spiral" orbit around the point can stabilize things immensely, but might make docking a bit trickier). As far as I can think of, the only immediate benefit that you're traveling freakishly slowly - it actually only takes slightly more energy to reach the Earth-Moon L1 point than to reach low orbit, while you've managed to climb *much* further out of the Earth's gravitational well - almost all the energy goes to fighting gravity rather than reaching orbital velocity. As a long-term benefit you have an industrial space-station established at the L1 point, from which you could build an elevator to the lunar surface to enable efficient Lunar missions - unlike an Earth-based space elevator which would have to be built from exotic materials stronger than anything currently discovered, a Lunar L1 elevator could be built from materials basic like carbon fiber produced from carbonaceous asteroids, and maybe even from steel cable (which would likely be much simpler to produce, but I'm not sure it could be strong enough.)
That also means that any asteroids captured from the Earth-Sun L3 and L4 points, where they are more-or-less at rest relative to the Earth, would need much less momentum to reach orbital velocity - just set them drifting towards Earth and then execute a last-minute capture maneuver using the Earth's gravity to provide most of the needed speed. Of course there would be very little margin for error - objects at the L1 point won't have enough velocity to maintain an orbit around either the Earth or the Moon if they're not perfectly in the "sweet spot". I can only hope they plan to stick some explosives in any target asteroid to break it up into harmless meteors if the capture maneuver fails and sends it plummeting towards Earth.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Nice. Just add fuel energy ... and you've got fuel! Brought to you by the emission-free hydrogen car. We'll just squeeze an extra column into the periodic table between manganese and iron. Natrium: 25.5 protons. Chemical properties: Does not pollute. Application: Leak-proof hydrogen piping. Abundance: Just rub your fingers.
It's a little closer to sanity to describe hydrolysis as fueling water into a self-actualizing propellant.
Of course, lobbing iron ingots out of a rail gun achieves the same end, but that's not energy efficient for the momentum transfer achieved if the ingots eject at a high velocity (though it does conserve your ejectulate reserves).
More efficient to build the rail gun into the giant rock and lob the spacecraft with a giant rail gun. I doubt hydrolized water is the best available battery chemistry, though perhaps platinum is dirt cheap.
There must be some clever way to time the launch schedule to partially cancel out the drift term transferred to giant rock.
Even that's not hard, just really, really expensive when the fuel costs upwards of $100/kg just to get it into orbit. On the other hand if you can produce it cheaply in orbit from materials that have never set foot on Earth, and send a refueling pod drifting on a multi-year low-energy trajectory to a Mars parking orbit so it'll be waiting for the primary mission, it'd be a LOT cheaper.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I don't know how you got onto /. without knowing what a Lagrange Point is, but yeah it's more-or-less gravity neutral there. (More so at L4 and L5 than the others, but in any case you need only minimal fuel for station keeping.) And that makes it a good place for a fuel depot. In fact, it's better than refueling in LEO if you're using fuel mined from asteroids, because you need less fuel (on average) to get that fuel to L5 than to LEO. And the reverse is true as well... In order to refuel along the way you need to get either the fuel to LEO or the spacecraft to L5, and it's probably a lot more economical to do the latter than the former. (Depends on the mission of course, but for Mars, definitely.)
Personally, I'm just happy to see NASA looking at long-term plans that aren't focused on a BTDT "flags & footprints" mission with no follow up. Turning an asteroid into a space station is a good idea, and a major step toward robust space infrastructure. Ultimately I reckon the bulk of this work will be done by private industry, but it's good to have NASA get out in front of this trend. Even just announcing this plan will get private-sector resources working on it. (What they should do is offer an open 5-year contract for fuel delivery at L5 at, say, 1-10/th their cost of launching it from Earth.)
Even just setting up an outpost there at L5 would create a "demand pull" toward supplying its needs. The nascent "NewSpace" industry is champing at the bit, waiting for this sort of opportunity. A reliable commitment from government would go a long way in this sector.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Maybe they can use this,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45676693@N03/6959137824/
mfwright@batnet.com
More fantasy from the guys (never girls) of NASA. These guys don't seem to realize that that they are a cold-war relic, like NATO, and their reason for existence ended with the television shots of astronauts playing golf on the moon. Which was a long time ago. Now space exploits like 'lassoing asteriods' is the provence of Hollywood.
These NASA boys are in a celestial cluster-fuck. They believe that the future in space is completely unlimited, if only the feds would simply give them enough money. Say, about ten percent of the entire federal budget like back in the good-old Apollo days. Sorry, chumps, but it ain't gonna happen. The feds are locked in a partisian battle unseen in American history just to allocate monies to keep basic services functioning. With half the politicians wanting to shut down every government service except the defence industry and the marijuana police and the other half wanting to give the treasury to billionaire bankers, there's nothing left for moonbeam projects like lassoing asteriods.
So everything that you read about projected NASA exploits for the next decade or so is in reality just dreams and fantasies of the Tom Swift engineers and NASA project managers. NONE of it will ever come to pass.
And that includes all the talk about sending astronauts to Mars or back to the moon. The Americans are broke, they ain't got no money, honey. And how they deal with it is by absolute denial. Which means endless talk and planning for fantasy projects like this one. Like Walter Cronkite used to say back when NASA actually was a powerful political force, " That's the way it is".
The asteroid rights group will pop up screaming illegal occupation and violation of their sacred homeland.
They're doing the same thing, but it's a private company. And they're hiring.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
There are countless teams within and funded by NASA to develop all manner of mission concepts. It doesn't mean that it's actually seriously contemplated. What usually happens is someone comes up with an idea "Hey, can we grab an asteroid and hold it steady?", and they get a team together to study all the issues: how much delta V does it take, what kind of schemes could you use (sticky bombs, nets, small strands of kevlar deployed by lilliputian subrobots, etc.), what science could you get from this that you wouldn't get any other way, etc.
then it goes the hopper with all the other ideas.
Oooh, looky - British Lefties have developed their own "Faux News" rant
Did you get tired of watching the American Lefties have all the fun?
You need to move up, and get yourself an Occupy Movement. These occasional shop-bricking riots don't provide nearly as much steady work
Busytech of the worst kind.
E Proelio Veritas.
... It's a space station.
This is the best restaurant I ever eat in
Retarded idea. Also, we've never found water anywhere but on Earth.
"The craft would then turn on its thrusters, using an estimated 300kg of propellant, to stop the asteroid in its tracks and tow it into a gravitationally neutral spot."
I've heard of patently-absurd statements, but this one is flying out of orbit
And the mods gave you +5 Insightful for this. Jesus fucking wept.
This surprises you?
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
To provide radiation shielding roughly equivalent to our atmosphere, you need around 10 tonnes of material above each square metre of the spacecraft. (Minor corrections for photo-electric factor and other cross-section issues ; this is a first approximation.) So, 500 tonnes would suffice for shielding around 50 sq.m of spacecraft surface.
That's a sphere of about 2m in radius.
Proof of concept - yes. Workable spacecraft for a working crew? No. Radiation shielded chamber for solar storms ... just possibly.
Taking on board the warning about it being a Daily Flail article - the most useful thing is exercising the back-of-an-envelope calculations.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"