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A Year After Chelyabinsk, NASA Readying Asteroid Response Mission
An anonymous reader sends this NASA report: "One year ago, on Feb. 15, 2013, the world was witness to the dangers presented by near-Earth Objects (NEOs) when a relatively small asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere, exploding over Chelyabinsk, Russia, and releasing more energy than a large atomic bomb. ... NASA is now pursuing new partnerships and collaborations in an Asteroid Grand Challenge to accelerate NASA's existing planetary defense work, which will help find all asteroid threats to human population and know what to do about them. In parallel, NASA is developing an Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) — a first-ever mission to identify, capture and redirect an asteroid to a safe orbit of Earth's moon for future exploration by astronauts in the 2020s. ... NASA is assessing two concepts to robotically capture and redirect an asteroid mass into a stable orbit around the moon. In the first proposed concept, NASA would capture and redirect an entire very small asteroid. In the alternative concept, NASA would retrieve a large, boulder-like mass from a larger asteroid and return it to this same lunar orbit. In both cases, astronauts aboard an Orion spacecraft would then study the redirected asteroid mass in the vicinity of the moon and bring back samples."
fizzz poss
That will be interesting for amateur astronomers as well. I know I would love to check that out
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
that almost everybody can agree deserves full funding
We've all been spelling it wrong, even the dictionaries, because that one in Russia last year certainly made an ass of itself. I guess in Britain the correct spelling is arseteroid.
Seriously, though, this is the kind of stuff I could only dream of as a kid. Incredibly cool!
Free Martian Whores!
Soon you can experiance the difficulty and possible mayhem for yourself in Kerbal Space Program. NASA is working with Squad to bring an official
DLC to KSP highlighting this mission.
Should be an absolute blast....and a huge feather in the cap for an indie game companys first foray into gaming. Especially since it is still in development (kind of an alpha game with an entire community of beta testers (and one place where beta doesn't suck!) If you have an interest, it is a truly unique game and well worth the pittance they are charging for it.
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/content/252-To-The-Mun-and-Back
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
Not a cover for developing the tech for asteroid mining operations using tax dollars.
Thinking all Americans would be given a chance to get a car cam to record such things.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Armageddon/Deep Impact 2: NASA mission accidentally brings killer asteroid into collision course with earth. Or maybe a documentary on how NASA is using asteroid winter to cancel out global warming. Carefully done, we can kill only a few million poor folks every once in a while to preserve our precious beach front property.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
Only a year after Chelyabinsk
but 65 million years after chicxulub
Donald Rumsfeld called the most difficult problems requiring dealing with the unknown, unknowns.
When you have an asteroid you detect with a long approach or known orbit, you have a manageable task in understanding what you can do.
When an asteroid approaches from the Earth's blind spot obscured by the Sun, we may have only weeks or months and there may be no way to exert enough energy quickly enough to modify its trajectory.
They refer to these situations as "extinction events" for a very good reason.
Its based on the SLS launcher and Orion vehicle - but political troubled projects. The mission seems technologically possible, but would likely be expensive and seems much larger and more complex than anything NASA has done recently.
I hope they do it - but I'm very skeptical that we have the political will for such a project.
"...capture and redirect an asteroid to a safe orbit of Earth's moon for future exploration by astronauts in the 2020s." Note that it's already 2014. At this point, we couldn't get a box kite in the air in six to fifteen years, let alone a mission like this. No budget, no sense of urgency, and no time to divvy up the contracts amongst the congressional districts.
Perhaps we've got a solution for the use of our nuclear arsenals!
The asteroids that pose a threat will fall into two classes: those already in solar orbit and those that come from outside the influence of the Sun. The ones orbiting the Sun have had billions of years to impact the earth (and other planets), and thus the probability of a harmful event is so close to zero that it isn't worth bothering about. Those coming from outside will not be seen until they are too close to the Earth to change their path. They'll look like a dim and brightening star, not really moving against the sky due to a lack of a transverse path. If an Eiffel Tower-sized object isn't detected until it hits, exactly how would we detect an object that is truly a threat to humanity?
In other words, this is a case of a real problem with no practical solution. It makes great politics, though, as lots of people are afraid of the unknown and are willing to throw money at government-sponsored flying saucer detectors.
They are either lying or stupid.
Since when is 1/2 megaton large for an atomic bomb? That is small maybe even tiny.
Yes, they want to sensationalize for page hits but lying is lying.
"In the alternative concept, NASA would retrieve a large, boulder-like mass from a larger asteroid and return it to this same lunar orbit."
Wouldn't taking a chunk out of an existing asteroid change it's trajectory and response to external gravity fields? What if we break up an asteroid and the bits go flying off and trash a planet that otherwise would have been fine if we didn't start tinkering around with celestial bodies?
guess who is also going all in Asteroid Response? Russia. Not a mention of that in this thread. The Russians will probably far outspend the USA also. The USA is in a bad spot where Congress seems to think there is some virtue in reducing NASA's budget. The Russians intend to own this program which should create a lot of jobs.
Loon.
Because you dismiss the program, and you have determined in your almighty wisdom that nothing can be done, it's cancelled.
You are Not Even Wrong.
NASA: "a first-ever mission to identify, capture and redirect an asteroid to a safe orbit of Earth's moon" ... ...
MALCOM: "But if a butterfly flaps its wings in Japan..."
NASA: "Err.. we never watched Jurassic Park..."
* Ian Malcom gets stands on his chair and flaps
NASA:
MALCOM:
KNOBI: "That's no moon..."
* The room falls silent...
Noes. Don't destroy 7 billion of us! (Nov. 2, 2000 rules)
Has anyone considered that this tech can be weaponized ? Of course I'm all for a planetary wide protection against space debris, but it seems that the technology to intercept and redirect asteroids and such could be used to selectively wipe out entire nations without there ever being a radiological alert going off ..
"and releasing more energy than a large atomic bomb" in the first reports it was "a small atomic bomb".
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
They try to wrangle an astroid into orbit but totally fail and it arcs straight into the earth? What do they say then "Oh hey our bad. That astroid we were gonna look at... Yeah... It's about to rain down hellfire and oh! It is actually a lot heavier than calculated so.. Hold On!"
I don't think the younger ones can appreciate just how fast tech is happening.(just as our generation did not)
To put it into a different perspective:
Sputnik had not even reached voting age(USA) when we landed on the moon...using tech based on 25 year old tech(NAZI V-2 rockets)
About the only thing I'd like to add to your list is:
3) development of better radiation shielding for both spacecraft and spacesuits.
4) coming up with ways to counteract physiological damage from long term micro-gravity exposure.
(I realize #3 could be included in your #2, but this is such a huge issue for long term space endeavors, that it needs more emphasis)
If you would plot a graph so that tech advances were plotted along a timeline, we are at the 'base' of a steep mountain(heading 'up') that would be represented by the graph...a 'hockey stick' if you will.
It boggles my mind when I try to fit the world I grew up into this modern world. Going to the moon was just sci-fi stuff of fantasy...now it's old history to the young ones.
*Old Geezer anecdote warning!*
I was a NASA brat, and I still remember all of the dinner parties held by NASA employees for the sole purpose of watching the pilot episode of "Star Trek", and the excitement surrounding that event, the engineer's discussions and their 'critic review' of the tech portrayed in that show.
For you kiddies, that's 'Star Trek:TOS' ;-)
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
That explains why a lot of sci-fi has China and Russia as the two primary 'Space Powers', and the US on the sidelines.
When it comes to the whole 'space' thing, the Russians have always had the balls to stick to what was practical, and then 'just do it', while we seem to have lost our balls(politically, as far as NASA budgets go) on the moon somewhere.
The Russian's 'ownership of space' happened some years back. Their only upcoming competitor seems to be China, but they are not really breathing down Russia's neck yet.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti