Instead of using a bag to de-spin the asteroid, why not use a giant lathe tool,
and make a death star while we are at it? Lol.
Mark
-Original Message-
From: meteorite-list-boun...@meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-boun...@meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Ron Baalke
Sent: 11 April 2013 00:12
To: Meteorite Mailing List
Subject: [meteorite-list] Inside NASA's Plan to Catch an Asteroid
http://www.space.com/20612-nasa-asteroid-capture-mission-explained.html
Inside NASA's Plan to Catch an Asteroid (Bruce Willis Not Required) by Mike
Wall space.com
10 April 2013
President Barack Obama's 2014 federal budget request, which was released
Wednesday (April 10), gives NASA $105 million to jump-start a program that
would snag an asteroid and park it near the moon. Astronauts would then visit
the space rock using the agency's Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule,
perhaps as early as 2021.
"This mission represents an unprecedented technological feat that will lead to
new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities and help protect our
home planet," NASA chief Charles Bolden said in a statement.
The space agency is still working out how exactly to pull off the mission,
which officials are calling the "Asteroid Initiative" or "Asteroid Retrieval
and Utilization Mission" at the moment. But a few things are already clear.
For starters, the probe that will chase down and capture the 25-foot (8 meters)
or so asteroid will be unmanned. And it will be powered by solar electric
propulsion, which generates thrust by accelerating charged particles called
ions.
Ion thrusters have been used on other NASA probes, including Dawn, which
recently spent a year orbiting the huge asteroid Vesta before departing for the
dwarf planet Ceres. But engineers will need to develop an advanced version for
the Asteroid Initiative craft, since it will be towing a 500-ton space rock
over millions of miles.
"This mission accelerates our technology development activities in high-powered
solar electric propulsion," Michael Gazarik, NASA Associate Administrator for
Space Technology, said in a statement.
Still, it may take several years for the probe to meet up with the asteroid.
The spacecraft will then envelop the space rock with a bag of sorts, as a new
video animation of NASA's Asteroid Initiative mission depicts, and de-spin the
rock, likely using thrusters.
The asteroid will then be towed to a "stable orbit in the Earth-moon system
where astronauts can visit and explore it," NASA officials wrote in a mission
description Wednesday.
These visits will be made possible by Orion and the Space Launch System, which
are slated to begin flying crews together by 2021. The NASA animation shows
astronauts aboard Orion meeting up with the space rock, which the retrieval
probe is still holding onto.
In the video, the astronauts spacewalk their way over to the asteroid,
accessing it by unwrapping a small section of the bag. They grab some pieces
using a hammer and other tools, then come home with the samples in an ocean
splashdown.
The overall asteroid-retrieval idea is similar to one proposed by researchers
based at Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies in Pasadena. In a
feasibility study published last year, the Keck team estimated the total cost
of robotic capture and return at $2.6 billion.
NASA hasn't released its own cost estimates yet, but agency officials think
they can get it done for less than that.
"The Keck study didn't take into account all the activities we already have
going on in our base, so we wouldn't need $2.6 billion in new money,"
NASA chief financial officer Elizabeth Robinson said during a press conference
Wednesday.
The Keck team also focused on grabbing a carbonaceous chondrite, she added.
These asteroids are compositionally diverse, full of complex organic molecules,
metals and volatile materials like water.
But carbonaceous chondrites also tend to be found farther away than other types
of near-Earth asteroids, Robinson said, making their retrieval more
time-consuming and expensive. At this point, NASA isn't so particular about the
space rock it hopes to target.
"For those two reasons, we think that the price is likely to come in - of new
money, new investment - at below that [$2.6 billion]," Robinson said.
__
Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com
Meteorite-list mailing list
Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
__
Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com
Meteorite-list mailing list
Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
