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NASA Asteroid Capture Mission To Be Proposed In 2014 Budget
MarkWhittington writes "Included in President Obama's 2014 budget request will be a $100 million line item for NASA for a mission to capture and bring an asteroid to a high orbit around the moon where it will be explored by astronauts. Whether the $2.6 billion mission is a replacement or a supplement to the president's planned human mission to an asteroid is unclear. The proposal was first developed by the Keck Institite in April, 2012 and has achieved new impetus due to the meteor incident over Russia and new fears of killer asteroids."
But why should we spend money on an asteroid capture mission when there are still banks that need fountains in their lobbies? Priorities, people!
Is this a real word? asteroinauts? really?
*nt*
You fucked up by posting that bitcoin address. I'm writing to the people at bitcoin.com to ask them to freeze your account and hand over your personal information.
Seriously.... What. The. Fuck.
Can you two homos just go make out on brokeback mountain already, and stop talking about how one of you misspelled "penetration", and how the other cockblocks with their hosts files while grabing the other's goat?
Goodness, it sure feels like being in a mountain range, trying to peer around those fucking orbital tether lengthed posts of pure premium bullsit the two of you somehoq manage to keep pushing out on demand. Shit stinks!
At this point, i'd be willing to risk the fucking extinction of all life on earth by redirecting siding spring C/2013 1A to miss Mars and land on both of your fucking heads instead.
The deaths of billions would be a small price to pay to shut you two cackling lovebirds up!
This is a program designed to be cut, to show that this administration is being 'fiscally responsible'... I expect many such 'pie-in-the-sky' projects to be proposed, only to be cut at the altar of fiscal responsibility... And blame the minority party for the cut as well.
Hey, if they can count as savings the money they don't spend on wars that have ended, why not propose wild plans to pump up the savings?
Do you know how much (in inflation-adjusted dollars) we have saved since we stopped fighting the Second World War these last 65+ years?!?!?!
Ken
catching a 7 meter 500 ton space rock has nothing whatever to do with diverting dangerous asteroids or killer asteroids or even the mostly annoying asteroid that broke Russian windows. Real asteroid diversion would use tutally different tactics over many months or years, provided early enough warning was had.
That was extremely poetic. I'll be surprised if that doesn't make it into the quote list.
That's not a bitcoin address, it's base64encode("/etc/hosts")
". . . can I keep it . . . ?"
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
But I read a post that he keeps his bitcoin wallet there!
An asteroinaut?
Silence is a state of mime.
Andrew Peter Kristopeit versus Jonathan Coulton... whoever wins, we lose.
I foresee that 2-3 days from now, depending on your time zone, the Pirate Bay will announce a joint project with NASA to host the first tracker in outer space.
So we will spend a reasonable amount of money to send a robot out someplace to fetch an asteroid and put it into lunar orbit so that some bozos can go check it out in person at much greater expense? Why not have the robot do everything for a lot less money? Could it be (just speculating here) that the $100M project is a distraction from the manned project that will, as usual, channel huge amounts of money for yet another pointless human presence?
Aerospace pork will never end. Their lobbying is just too strong, and hordes of fanboys still believe a human has to be out there or it isn't exciting enough.
Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck don't come cheap.
Some have an "in" and other have an "out."
Seriously, wouldn't sending a handful of robotic spacecraft to characterize larger asteroids be much more worthwhile? While it could be argued that astronauts on the surface of Mars with good geologic training and tools could be more productive than a robot, I'm not sure what value sending astronauts to such a small asteroid in lunar orbit really adds.
The asteroids that really threaten Earth are an order or two of magnitude bigger -- a hundred meters to a few kilometers in size. A 7 meter asteroid may give us some insight into their composition, but it would be better to actually go an analyze the actual type of asteroids we are worried about. Knowing details of their structure and how they are held together could immediately eliminate some solutions for diverting their course if the need ever arises and provide insight that could spark creative solutions that haven't yet been thought of. This kind of work could actually be done much cheaper with robots than astronauts if what we really care about are actual results.
plan to capture an asteroid, have something go wrong and find it breaking up an hitting several large population centres.
We should be looking at getting the technology to capture LARGE asteroids instead of planning a mission to mars. If we use government funds to push private industries into getting a large rock with value into moons orbit it can provide us with a source of material to help us colonies space which is a much better goal than trying to visit mars with humans. We can continue use robots to explore mars while we work on mining space rocks for rare earths for earth and also for space and for a moon base. Perhaps it would be even better to capture a comet since the most valuable space element is water. http://rawcell.com/
This is an awesome idea should they get it right.
And if they get it wrong, screw up the asteroid's course and then set it directly on a path for the earth?
That sounds like 10-100x too small a number. I'd be shocked if they successfully did that for $100 million.
If they find one of those solid gold asteroids they'd have an ROI of 1000%
capture and bring an asteroid to a high orbit...achieved new impetus due to the meteor incident over Russia and new fears of killer asteroids
Well of course the liberal impulse would be to imprison a killer asteroid instead of just executing it. I'm sure they are already developing a plan to redeem the astroid while in captivity so it can be a productive member of the celestial bodies upon release. Never mind that it's going to get anal probed every night by our tight-knit community of space trash while held in orbit and eventually just figure out how to use gravity to fall on some defenseless person.
I really wish that we would test out some technologies for diverting large asteroids so that we're not trying to scramble at the last minute when we realize something large is coming our way. I'd like to know for certain that we'll be ready for when we see something coming our way that could cause us some serious pain or even extinction.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Smells like yet another 'Sweetheart Deal' by WH and DoE and a 'significant other.'
Ethics violations, Fraud, and money laundering through WH (Kenya), DoE (Los Angeles) and NASA (Huston and Grand Cayman Islands Offshore Banks) bank accounts.
Wow. Looks like Obama is taking a page from Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme playbook and desperately trying to 'Tiger Woods' it.
Imagine seeing an astronaut by an asteroid, with the Earth and Moon in the background.
Sig: I stole this sig.
This NASA 'proposal't is worse than possible, worse than possible, truly BUTT FUCKED, and they did the nasty to themselves.
In the 2030s historians will compare notes on the destruction of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the U.S.A. Department of Commerce.
Their reevaluations will be disturbing and shocking.
It's a handy thing to practice catching, and a handy thing to have in orbit to practice refining fuel, but L2 is not the place to do it. L1 and L2 are extremely unstable, you have to continuously consume fuel to remain there, though you can reduce the amount by orbiting them. L3 is better, but on the opposite side of the primary. L4 and L5 are where you can actually store stuff stably - that's where asteroid fields tend to naturally accumulate.
Where L2 is useful is to hide something from the primary - for example space telescopes orbiting the Earth-Sun L2 remain constantly shielded from the sun by the Earth's shadow. Or in space-elevator scenarios, where for example a cable extending from he Moon through the Earth-Moon L1 or L2 points will hang stably in tension.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Nothing there to tax.
Ok, so once the asteroid collector has delivered the asteroid to high lunar orbit, what does the spacecraft do then?
Well, if its got even a tiny fraction of its propellant left over (remember it just towed something maybe 100x its size clear across the inner solar system) , it slowly spirals down to low earth orbit and... REFUELS.
Now here's where things get interesting. Once it's refueled (remember its main consumable is up to 12,000 lbs. of Xenon, it gets its energy from solar power), it can do any number of things. Of course it could be sent out again to get another asteroid (including, as I mentioned in a previous post, one with precious WATER) but that might be boring. How about having it PAY FOR ITSELF by moving satellites from LEO to geosynchronous orbit. (This is very expensive as it typically requires an additional booster, I think the cost per pound is at least double that to low orbit). I think this market is on the order of $5B per year.
The reason why this would work is because the asteroid tug would clearly be capable of moving very(!) large payloads. It wouldn't even have to be very slow, if it can accelerate a 500 ton asteroid at 1/10,000th of a g, it could accelerate a 5 ton satellite at say 1/200th of a gee (taking into account the tug's own weight). So it could deliver the satellites in weeks if not days. Of course there would need to be a few minor design modifications to the tug. The collapsible "bag" would have to be removable and some sort of industry standard docking ports added. There would need to be some provision for refueling ports and critical components (gyroscopes, reaction wheels, electronics) would need to be replaceable/upgradeable like the Hubble space telescope. Of course servicing this "space tug" in this way is probably beyond the near term capabilities of robotics. However, rather than this being a problem, it could be an opportunity -
- for the International Space Station to actually be USEFUL. Here it could serve as a fuel depot, servicing "garage" and interchange point for these "space tugs". The kind of problem that robotics can't handle yet are ideally suited for an astronaut with a wrench (and maybe some elbow grease). The fact that the main propellant for these tugs is Xenon, an inert noble element, makes handling the fuel much less problematic (no problems with corrosion or toxicity) and safer (no fear of explosive combustion). Even the fact that these tugs use ion thrusters would be an advantage meaning that everything would be happening very slowly, if one went out of control they could probably move the entire station out of the way (like they do when avoiding space junk). The station could also keep spare, interchangeable parts for these tugs such as additional "bags" or robot arms or other modules. In short, the ISS would have a PURPOSE.
With even a little thought, these space tugs have lots of additional uses. The same high power ion engines that can move a 500 ton asteroid could also send 500 tons of cargo cheaply (if slowly) to Mars. The same collapsible bag that can capture a tumbling asteroid can easily capture a much lighter piece of space junk. All it takes is for a government with foresight to make the initial investment that may (as I've suggested) quickly repay itself perhaps many times over. And isn't that the purpose of government (if not NASA)?
(By the way, putting the mini-asteroid in high lunar orbit may be useful as a last resort because, if we detect a threatening object heading our way, it might be in a good position that we could put the mini-asteroid on a new trajectory to hit the object and thus deflect it out of the way. With luck the 500 ton mass will strike the incoming object at a high incidental angle and at a significant velocity since it'll be coming from a completely different orbit. Of course it would be much preferred to nudge the incoming object years before in deep space off of an intercept trajectory but if we're caught with our pants down it would be nice to have a big rock whirling in the sling of its lunar orbit. In that case, we coud call it "David's Rock" or "The Goliath Killer".)
It's all about capturing a big asteroid and smashing it to dust.
The first one is a test.
This reminds me of a novel I just read, THE MYOSHI EFFECT. Fiction, meet fact.
i fear that some air force generals as readed Footfall by larry niven and jerry pournelle.
But I read a post that he keeps his bitcoin wallet there!
his "tip wallet" data is here: http://blockchain.info/fb/1etlgu
And I will donate all my bitcoins to pay off the national debt of the USA, and I'm a terrorist!
THIS is why he's doing it & proof of it, here -> http://interviews.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3585927&cid=43295193 when others pointed out Jeremiah Cornelius forgot to submit one of the "first post spams" masquerading as myself as AC, & mistakenly submitted one of the impersonations of myself as his registered 'luser' name here on /. forums.
Pretty pitiful actually, but like every up to no good idiot does? He screwed up & submitted it under his registered 'luser' name here, instead of his ac submittals he's been doing.
* Jeremiah Cornelius: DO YOURSELF, and the rest of us, A GIANT FAVOR MAN: Seek professional psychiatric help!
(Since Jeremiah Cornelius obviously can't get over the fact he made a spelling error on what it is HE ALLEGEDLY DID FOR A LIVING? That's not MY fault... it's HIS!)
APK
P.S.=> I seriously must have dusted JC (in his mind @ least) for his BAD spelling error & it "got his goat"...
I.E.-> Catching what he claimed to do as a job, for YEARS he left "PENETRATION" (correct) spelled as "PENTRATION" (incorrect) on his resume on LinkedIn & I pointed it out as he & his friends trolled me as usual (webmistressrachel, gmhowell, & crew (probably ALL JC no doubt using alterate emails or TOR to do it as a possible - I've caught "them & theirs" doing it before, ala Barbara, not Barbie = TomHudson (same person))).
So THAT is what has gotten his goat in a technical debate & his "geek angst" could only come up with *trying* to "impersonate me" in every news thread on /. for the month of March 2013 so far!
(Just to attempt to 'discredit me' as a spammer here obviously)
Doing so, by posting that "$10,000 challenge" &/or reposts of my old posts on hosts file value to end users into EVERY SINGLE NEWS ARTICLE POSTED on /. ...
It's all I can think of that *might* cause such a mentally troubled 'reaction' like the Jeremiah Cornelius is doing & there's NO QUESTION he's the one doing this spamming of nearly every posted article masquerading as myself...!
... apk