U.S. Going To Capture An Asteroid (1 Viewer)

[aRyan]

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/...plan-grab-an-asteroid-then-focus-on-mars?lite

NASA's accelerated vision for exploration calls for moving a near-Earth asteroid even nearer to Earth, sending out astronauts to bring back samples within a decade, and then shifting the focus to Mars, a senior Obama administration official told NBC News on Saturday.

The official said the mission would "accomplish the president's challenge of sending humans to visit an asteroid by 2025 in a more cost-effective and potentially quicker time frame than under other scenarios." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because there was no authorization to discuss the plan publicly.

The source said more than $100 million would be sought for the mission and other asteroid-related activities in its budget request for the coming fiscal year, which is due to be sent to Congress on Wednesday. That confirms comments made on Friday by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a one-time spaceflier who is now chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science and Space. It also confirms a report about the mission that appeared last month in Aviation Week.

The asteroid retrieval mission is based on a scenario set out last year by a study group at the Keck Institute for Space Studies. NASA's revised scenario would launch a robotic probe toward a 500-ton, 7- to 10-meter-wide (25- to 33-foot-wide) asteroid in 2017 or so. The probe would capture the space rock in a bag in 2019, and then pull it to a stable orbit in the vicinity of the moon, using a next-generation solar electric propulsion system. That would reduce the travel time for asteroid-bound astronauts from a matter of months to just a few days.

(More at link)

 

[MajorWhiteBoy]

Good use of what little money we may have....

Retards.

 

[aRyan]

Good use of what little money we may have....

Retards.

I've always been a huge fan of space exploration and technology, and I think we need to do things like this to push our understanding and further our technology to new heights.

I do agree with you that right now we are low on money though and should cut costs. My plan would be to keep funding NASA and other space related programs and slowly but steadily decrease EBT cards, welfare checks, Section 8 Housing, etc. With those programs cut, we'd have plenty of money. Hell, they might even be able to only tax us about 30% of our paychecks instead of 40% where it stands for me right now.

With an ideal, responsible Government we could have triple the money for space related programs, pay off our debt and only tax the citizens 5-10% of their paychecks, and we could live wonderfully. But that will never happen unless the current Government completely collapses and a patriotic one replaces it.

 

[aRyan]

I have a question for someone that might have a better understanding about things like this work than I do.

Okay, so we capture the 500 ton rock in a bag, which won't be hard to do if you really think about it, it is just floating there, but then we start to pull it. Fast. How do we get it to stop? It will be behind our craft, going as fast as our craft, but when our craft stops, it will keep going. Get what I'm saying? I understand they want it to orbit around the moon in a sense, but I just mean how are we going to get out of the way of this thing when we finally release the net and this thing comes flying at our craft? Use like a mile long connector and hope we can maneuver out of the way in time?

Sorry but this is not a field I'm any kind of expert on. I probably sound pretty stupid right now, but I do want to know.

 

[dennis]

I've always been a huge fan of space exploration and technology, and I think we need to do things like this to push our understanding and further our technology to new heights.

How many groids/beaners/other 3rd world offspring types do you think are working on that program? lol

I do agree with you that right now we are low on money though and should cut costs. My plan would be to keep funding NASA and other space related programs and slowly but steadily decrease EBT cards, welfare checks, Section 8 Housing, etc. With those programs cut, we'd have plenty of money. Hell, they might even be able to only tax us about 30% of our paychecks instead of 40% where it stands for me right now.

Better yet, lets start with foreign aid.

With an ideal, responsible Government we could have triple the money for space related programs, pay off our debt and only tax the citizens 5-10% of their paychecks, and we could live wonderfully. But that will never happen unless the current Government completely collapses and a patriotic one replaces it.

That won't happen mostly because we've got a large,colored parasite element that keeps on growing in this country. And our .gov keeps importing more from 3rd world countries,too.

They'll never give more than they recieve.

 

[dennis]

I have a question for someone that might have a better understanding about things like this work than I do.

Okay, so we capture the 500 ton rock in a bag, which won't be hard to do if you really think about it, it is just floating there, but then we start to pull it. Fast. How do we get it to stop? It will be behind our craft, going as fast as our craft, but when our craft stops, it will keep going. Get what I'm saying? I understand they want it to orbit around the moon in a sense, but I just mean how are we going to get out of the way of this thing when we finally release the net and this thing comes flying at our craft? Use like a mile long connector and hope we can maneuver out of the way in time?

Sorry but this is not a field I'm any kind of expert on. I probably sound pretty stupid right now, but I do want to know.

Fuck, I bet Blaine knows the answer. That guy knows everything.

 

[aRyan]

Oh I agree with all you've said Dennis. I can't believe I forgot to include foreign aid. That would be a def. as well.

The space program would be probably completely White except for non-White spokesmen & woman. And maybe a couple of gays fondling each other in the background.

I'm all for cutting the welfare checks and free everything to the urban rabble and having patriotic soldiers stationed around the cities and on rooftops, waiting for some live target practice of anyone who wants to try to burn the city down. The urban rabble can eat each other for all I care, but we should give them hell if they try to riot ever again.

 

[aRyan]

Fuck, I bet Blaine knows the answer. That guy knows everything.

I know you and Blaine don't get along with each other, but I actually had him in mind when I asked the question. I'll give credit when it is due.

 

[MajorWhiteBoy]

Oh, I agree. We as humans can and should expand our boundaries...but if you can't make your house payment don't buy a vette

 

[Blaine]

I have a question for someone that might have a better understanding about things like this work than I do.

Okay, so we capture the 500 ton rock in a bag, which won't be hard to do if you really think about it, it is just floating there, but then we start to pull it. Fast. How do we get it to stop? It will be behind our craft, going as fast as our craft, but when our craft stops, it will keep going. Get what I'm saying? I understand they want it to orbit around the moon in a sense, but I just mean how are we going to get out of the way of this thing when we finally release the net and this thing comes flying at our craft? Use like a mile long connector and hope we can maneuver out of the way in time?

Sorry but this is not a field I'm any kind of expert on. I probably sound pretty stupid right now, but I do want to know.

First, let's get this out of the way: The asteroid isn't "just floating there"—all asteroids are in motion, because the entire asteroid belt is orbiting the Sun. Even extrasolar bodies (such as comets that enter our solar system from deep space) are subject to the gravitational fields of the Sun and gas giants, as well as rocky planets, if close enough. However, the probe will be able to maneuver in such a way that its trajectory and velocity are the same as the asteroid's, and so from the probe's perspective, the asteroid will be floating motionless. A real-life comparison would be two kids sitting in the backseat of a car driving down the highway at 70 mph.

As for what the probe would do with the bagged asteroid once it reaches the Earth's moon, the answer's actually right there in the text: The probe will guide itself and the asteroid into a stable orbit around the moon. An "orbit" is really just a very complicated controlled fall. In simple terms, a stable orbit means that the gravitational force pulling an object towards a heavenly body (directly "down") is in balance with the tangential velocity and inertia (circular "sideways" motion) of the object. In even simpler terms, in a stable orbit, the downward force is balanced with what you might think of as the centrifugal force.

This can be done without the probe/asteroid having to "brake", by the way. The probe can simply approach the Moon at a certain angle, making use of maneuvering thrusters as needed, and allow itself and the bagged asteroid to be captured by the Moon's gravity—essentially "sliding" smoothly into orbit. Kind of like merging into traffic, to continue with the automobile comparison.

Once the probe has placed itself and the asteroid into a stable orbit around the Moon (determined using calculations made by the scientists controlling the probe on the ground), the probe can detach itself from the bag and asteroid. Remember, at this point they're both still moving at the same speed and along the same trajectory, like the kids in the back of that car I mentioned earlier. Then the probe can simply fire its maneuvering thrusters to escape the Moon's gravity, ahead of/above the asteroid—like a car in front of you on the highway speeding up and then taking an exit into the city.

 

[dennis]

I know you and Blaine don't get along with each other, but I actually had him in mind when I asked the question. I'll give credit when it is due.

What? Fuck you. Blaine loves me. As a friend. Only.

 

[aRyan]

First, let's get this out of the way: The asteroid isn't "just floating there"—all asteroids are in motion, because the entire asteroid belt is orbiting the Sun. Even extrasolar bodies (such as comets that enter our solar system from deep space) are subject to the gravitational fields of the Sun and gas giants, as well as rocky planets, if close enough. However, the probe will be able to maneuver in such a way that its trajectory and velocity are the same as the asteroid's, and so from the probe's perspective, the asteroid will be floating motionless. A real-life comparison would be two kids sitting in the backseat of a car driving down the highway at 70 mph.

As for what the probe would do with the bagged asteroid once it reaches the Earth's moon, the answer's actually right there in the text: The probe will guide itself and the asteroid into a stable orbit around the moon. An "orbit" is really just a very complicated controlled fall. In simple terms, a stable orbit means that the gravitational force pulling an object towards a heavenly body (directly "down") is in balance with the tangential velocity and inertia (circular "sideways" motion) of the object. In even simpler terms, in a stable orbit, the downward force is balanced with what you might think of as the centrifugal force.

This can be done without the probe/asteroid having to "brake", by the way. The probe can simply approach the Moon at a certain angle, making use of maneuvering thrusters as needed, and allow itself and the bagged asteroid to be captured by the Moon's gravity—essentially "sliding" smoothly into orbit. Kind of like merging into traffic, to continue with the automobile comparison.

Once the probe has placed itself and the asteroid into a stable orbit around the Moon (determined using calculations made by the scientists controlling the probe on the ground), the probe can detach itself from the bag and asteroid. Remember, at this point they're both still moving at the same speed and along the same trajectory, like the kids in the back of that car I mentioned earlier. Then the probe can simply fire its maneuvering thrusters to escape the Moon's gravity, ahead of/above the asteroid—like a car in front of you on the highway speeding up and then taking an exit into the city.

Thanks for this.

I do try to educate myself on all matters I find interesting and perhaps someday this sort of thing will be one of them.

That was a very good answer and I appreciate the comparison.

Another question for you, if you don't mind. You seem very well educated in subjects like this one. I know you were in the Air Force but did you learn it there, or was it just something you were interested in and read books on like I do with subjects I'm interested in?

 

[Blaine]

Another question for you, if you don't mind. You seem very well educated in subjects like this one. I know you were in the Air Force but did you learn it there, or was it just something you were interested in and read books on like I do with subjects I'm interested in?

I've had a layman's interest in outer space since childhood. I was given a telescope, star charts, a "science encyclopedia" (they arrived quarterly by mail), science-related magazines, age-appropriate books about space science, and so on by my parents. I'd stay up all night reading those books. I've also always enjoyed reading science fiction novels, which, despite being entertaining rather than educational, can still serve as inspirations and motivators to the curious layman.

Nowadays, I still read books about astrophysics, astronomy, cosmology and so on, not to mention reading articles and scientific journals on the Internet, and even watching the educational shows on the Science Channel and so on.

The main reason I'm not a scientist today is that space sciences involve lots and lots of advanced mathematics. I'm not bad at math, but I have absolutely no interest in doing it for a living. I'm only interested in know the "superficial" workings of the universe, not in understanding all the formulae behind those processes.

 

[aRyan]

I've had a layman's interest in outer space since childhood. I was given a telescope, star charts, a "science encyclopedia" (they arrived quarterly by mail), science-related magazines, age-appropriate books about space science, and so on by my parents. I'd stay up all night reading those books. I've also always enjoyed reading science fiction novels, which, despite being entertaining rather than educational, can still serve as inspirations and motivators to the curious layman.

Nowadays, I still read books about astrophysics, astronomy, cosmology and so on, not to mention reading articles and scientific journals on the Internet, and even watching the educational shows on the Science Channel and so on.

The main reason I'm not a scientist today is that space sciences involve lots and lots of advanced mathematics. I'm not bad at math, but I have absolutely no interest in doing it for a living. I'm only interested in know the "superficial" workings of the universe, not in understanding all the formulae behind those processes.

Thanks for this answer to my question. It makes things clearer now. I knew you weren't a b2ux, just copy/pasting stuff from wiki or whatever the first link that comes up on a search engine is, but I have wondered a couple times about your posts on subjects like this. I've always been impressed.

Good for you. I've always had respect for people that research thoroughly a subject or subjects that interest them, reading books, coming to your own conclusions, not pulling an utley and saying "Hey, this is the truth, I learned it in High School & in College!".

Back on topic...

What do you think of this particular NASA mission?

 

[mrln]

so the govt never did away with the space programme after all.

 

[Blaine]

What do you think of this particular NASA mission?

I think the mission can and probably will succeed. Scientists already have a fairly thorough understanding of the composition of asteroids, thanks to spectroscopy and deductive analysis; all of the rocky planets and moons, as well as the unseen-but-guessed-at rocky cores of gas giants, were essentially formed from asteroids during the infancy of our solar system. Also, small asteroids and pieces of asteroids fall to Earth and become meteorites, which can be retrieved and studied.

Even so, I'm sure they'd like to send astronauts up to study asteroid topology in detail, conduct experiments on the regolith (the loose, "dusty" surface of an asteroid), drill down to the solid rock if possible, and bring back "pure", non-meteorite samples of asteroid material.

That said, I think the ultimate goal is to learn to harvest materials from asteroids for use on Earth, because asteroids are motherlodes of valuable minerals. A medium-size nickel-iron asteroid likely contains more precious metal than humans have mined in our entire history. That includes gold. Gold is actually present in every square inch of every planet, moon, and asteroid in the solar system—including Earth. It's just present in minuscule amounts. It takes active geological processes millions, if not billions of years to concentrate these trace amounts of gold into mineable veins and deposits.

Of course, mining gold from asteroids would probably be no more efficient than mining it from random spots on Earth without any veins or concentrations, but the point is that it's there. Other metals are present in asteroids in much more efficiently-mined quantities.

 

[b2ux]

By now, you may have heard the news: NASA will get $100 million in the White House budget to start looking into a mission to tow a small asteroid near the Earth, with the eventual plan to send people up to study it. There are a lot of sites talking about this, and it does look like the basics of this story are true.
My first reaction to that was “Holy wow, that is so cool!”
After a moment, though, my second reaction was a lot more skeptical. Mind you, we don’t have a lot of details yet. What info we do have is mostly from comments made by Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) at a press conference. We won’t have solid facts until the NASA budget is announced sometime this coming week (probably Wednesday).
But even then, I have some concerns about this. Mind, you I love the idea! I’m just not exactly sure how they plan to actually do it. You can’t just build a rocket, go to an asteroid, throw a rope around it, and bring it back.
Let me give you an overview of the idea as we know it, and then I can explain why I have reservations. I’ll note that all my doubts can be overcome, but I’ll need some very solid details before I make up my mind about this.
The Plan
Much of what I will write about here is based on my own knowledge of asteroids, as well as on a study done in 2012 by the Keck Institute for Space Studies (what I’ll call the KISS report) to investigate the feasibility of an asteroid rendezvous and return mission. The report is fascinating, if a bit technical, and I highly recommend reading it. I’ll note that the total cost of the mission is estimated by the KISS report at $2.6 billion, and that’s just for getting the asteroid here. That does not include sending people up to investigate it.
The idea here is to be able to study a small asteroid up close. This is important for a lot of reasons. For one, these things sometimes hit us, in case you’ve forgotten. The more we know about them, the better. And while we know quite a bit about asteroids, there’s a lot we don’t. Some are metallic, some stony, some literally loose collections of rubble held together by their own gravity. Each of these behaves differently, so getting a nice, long look at one up close is a good idea. Also, asteroids are pretty interesting scientifically, and well worth our attention.
Overall, the steps for this mission would be 1) find a good asteroid target, 2) send an uncrewed probe to it, 3) capture it in some way, 4) tow it back home, and 5) study it.
Sounds easy, right? Yeah, not so much. I'll be clear: According to the KISS report, it's feasible. But it'll take a lot of work, it'll be hard, and it'll have to be done according to plan. I'll get back to that last part at the end.
Step 1: Find ‘em
An asteroid small enough to move around can’t be more than about 5-7 meters across—roughly the size of a nice living room (with a high vaulted ceiling). At that size, and made of rock, it would have a mass of a few hundred tons, give or take. Volume (and therefore mass) increases with the cube of the diameter, so a rock 10 meters across would have eight times the mass of one five meters in size! So the upper size limit is a pretty firm one.

What a near Earth asteroid encounter might look like.
Image credits: Earth: ESA/Rosetta; asteroid Mathilde: NASA/NEAR​

But a rock that small is faint. We’ve been scanning the skies for years, but only a handful of asteroids that size have been found (while the list at that link is not complete, it shows only a few dozen asteroids even close to the right size have been found). Even then, we’re not really sure about their size; only an estimate can be made given current techniques. Knowing the size beforehand is absolutely critical to this mission: You can’t think the rock is five meters across, then get there and find out it’s actually 10! As I describe in the next section, if it’s too big then you can’t bring it home, and your mission fails.
So first things first, we need to find these things. And not just any five-meter asteroid will do. It has to be on a pretty specific orbit; if it approaches too quickly then you’d have to carry too much fuel to put it into orbit. It also has to approach the Earth at the right time, so we don’t have to delay a launch for ten years, or have it take too long to tow it back. Heck, even just finding them isn’t enough; we have to be able to observe them long enough to get a good orbit determination. All of these cull the list of potential objects pretty savagely.
Rocks that size are incredibly difficult to find from the ground; the ones we have so far were found only when they were very close to Earth. According to the KISS study, ground-based observatories might be able to find about 5 such targets per year that can make that cut. That’s not bad, but I suspect realistically we’ll need a much larger sample to choose from given all those caveats above.
A better method is to have a dedicated space-based mission that looks in the infrared (where, due to the physics of the way asteroid sizes are measured, the sizes of the rocks are far more accurately found). [UPDATE (Apr. 7, 2013, 17:15 UTC): Coincidentally, I found a great description of this on Google+ just hours after posting this article.] There are two missions currently in the works to do just this: Sentinel and NEOCam. Both are excellent, but at best neither will be ready for launch for some time; Sentinel has a target date of 2018, and NEOCam would be a couple of years later.
Both missions should immediately yield a pretty nice list of small asteroids on the right orbits for this mission. But that’s only the first step.
Steps 2-4: Snag It, Tag It, and Bag It
These steps aren’t exactly a walk in the park either. The technology to build a space probe like this exists, more or less. But we’ve never actually done this before, and problems are legion. Most small asteroids in this size range are rapid rotators: they spin quickly. You can’t just float up and grab one! You have to de-spin it. Making things more fun, most of them tumble, flipping around rather chaotically.

Artwork depicting one configuration of the probe snagging an asteroid.
Image credit: Rick Sternbach/KISS​

This doesn’t make things impossible, just really hard. One idea (which I love) is literally a big can-shaped bag on one end of a probe. The probe then approaches the rock, matches the motion and spin rate of the rock as best it can, then approaches it until the rock is in the can. What are essentially draw strings then pull the bag closed. The asteroid will bump and grind a bit in there but the spacecraft can compensate for that using thrusters until everyone comes to a rest.
At this point, the probe with its prize will come home. But what’s “home”? Putting it into a low-Earth orbit is out of the question; besides needing way too much fuel to be feasible, it’s not a great idea politically to tell people we’re bringing an asteroid into an orbit 500 kilometers above their heads, no matter how carefully you phrase it!
Two other options would be in orbit around the Moon, or in a special orbit about 1.5 million kilometers (930,000 miles) from the Earth called the Sun-Earth-L2 point. Either of these is doable given the mission requirements, though again it’s not exactly simple. It will also take several years to nudge it back to Earth.

Artwork of the proposed SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

Image credit: SpaceX​

Step 5: Poke it with a stick
Once safely in orbit around the Moon or at the L2 point, we need to get people there to take a look. That was outside the scope of the KISS study, but essentially it means a crewed mission. It’ll take a few days or weeks to get the astronauts where they’re going, then they’ll need time to study the asteroid, and then they’ll need to come back (with samples!). That means supplies for several weeks, equipment to study the asteroid, and so on.
And that means big bucks, on top of the $2.6 billion already spent just to bring the asteroid here. The idea is to get the rock in place around 2025, and by then we should have several options for launching people into space; for example SpaceX should have the Falcon Heavy going well before then. NASA has its own plans for a launch system as well (though I’m more skeptical of that at this point; SpaceX has a pretty good track record so far). Other companies are working on this, too.
Reservation, please
A concern, of course, is that none of it has ever been done before. We can build probes and send them to asteroids (we’ve done that several times), but the type of rendezvous, the capture, the towing…those are new. Mind you as well, right now no nation or company has the capability to send humans to the Moon or to the L2 point, either. Hopefully in ten years (or sooner) we will, but it’s worth pointing out where we stand at this exact time.
This is a fantastically complex detail-oriented mission, with lots of steps along the way, many of which depend on technologies and missions we don’t yet have. Given the price tag—realistically, substantially more than $2.6 billion—this is an Apollo-scale idea. That’s fine by me, and an apt analogy: we hadn’t done any of the steps needed to get to the Moon before Apollo either. I’d love to see NASA taking on big ideas again!
But—and this is my biggest, my true concern—this has to be done right. That doesn’t always happen. Without a clear plan, and I mean a really clear plan, I get nervous. I love NASA, but historically when they start up a project without a clear plan, a lot of time and money can get wasted.
So I worry. We need to do a lot of work before we can even begin to build the space probe, including some way of finding lots of target asteroids. The promised $100 million is a nice start, but realistically it’s only a couple of percent of what’s needed to get this done.
And, of course, NASA is funded by the government, which would charitably be called dysfunctional right now. Congress is currently so contrary and so tight with money I’d have a hard time believing they’d fund a stick of gum for the White House.
So for now I’m taking this asteroid mission news with a five-meter diameter grain of salt. We’ll have more info in a few days, and hopefully it will include a sensible plan for undertaking a mission of this scale. If there is, I’ll happily and enthusiastically cheer it on. If not, well, you’ll be hearing more from me about it.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astr...to_bring_a_space_rock_to_earth_for_study.html
hope this helps ya aryan

 

[MajorWhiteBoy]

I could be way off on this, but what exactly do they think is on that rock we need so bad? I get that it has minerals and shit we could use, but part of me thinks they wouldn't go to this extreme unless they knew something we didnt, and whatever it is that is there is either something we can't get here or something we are running low on. Maybe im over thinking it, but i think we are only getting half the story.

Or....it's a front. That 100 mil is gonna get funneled elsewhere and then in a few years after nobody cares, the govt will say "nope, didnt work!"

 

[MajorWhiteBoy]

Snip

What are the chances there's something on that asteroid we shouldn't fuck with or might be dangerous to us?

 

[Blaine]

What are the chances there's something on that asteroid we shouldn't fuck with or might be dangerous to us?

Such as?