Author Topic: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid  (Read 121756 times)

Offline docmordrid

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Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #1 on: 03/29/2013 09:21 am »
Quote
President Obama’s goal of sending astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025 can’t be done with foreseeable civil-space spending, the thinking goes. But by moving an asteroid to cislunar space — a high lunar orbit or the second Earth-Moon Lagrangian Point (EML2), above the Moon’s far side — it is conceivable that technically the deadline could be met.

Not sure if that's AvWeek's commentary / assumption, but that's completely missing the point.

The whole point of the flexible path is to make stepping stones (steadily increasing distance and duration) on the way to a Mars mission.

Unless they have plans to drag Mars closer so it's easier to visit, this plan doesn't advance that goal at all!

cheers, Martin

Offline AJA

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Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #2 on: 03/29/2013 11:17 am »
Quote
President Obama’s goal of sending astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025 can’t be done with foreseeable civil-space spending, the thinking goes. But by moving an asteroid to cislunar space — a high lunar orbit or the second Earth-Moon Lagrangian Point (EML2), above the Moon’s far side — it is conceivable that technically the deadline could be met.

Not sure if that's AvWeek's commentary / assumption, but that's completely missing the point.

The whole point of the flexible path is to make stepping stones (steadily increasing distance and duration) on the way to a Mars mission.

Unless they have plans to drag Mars closer so it's easier to visit, this plan doesn't advance that goal at all!

cheers, Martin

Unless, they put a sufficiently massive one in an Aldrin cycler. That would LITERALLY become a stepping stone.

Offline Ben the Space Brit

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Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #3 on: 03/29/2013 11:57 am »
Sounds like an ASR mission to me - pick up a small rock and return it to EML-2.  It's also sort of work-generation for the EML-2 gateway station concept other than acting as a rendezvous point for other missions.  Move a sample to EML-2 so the crew at the station can space-walk over to take samples and then carry back to a lab without having to travel several months and billions of miles through deep space.

How real is this proposal? Is it just a small study by a small group or is this something that NASA really wants to do?
« Last Edit: 03/29/2013 11:58 am by Ben the Space Brit »
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Offline ChileVerde

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Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #4 on: 03/29/2013 12:12 pm »
Sounds like an ASR mission to me - pick up a small rock and return it to EML-2.  It's also sort of work-generation for the EML-2 gateway station concept other than acting as a rendezvous point for other missions.  Move a sample to EML-2 so the crew at the station can space-walk over to take samples and then carry back to a lab without having to travel several months and billions of miles through deep space.

How real is this proposal? Is it just a small study by a small group or is this something that NASA really wants to do?

Thinking positively for a moment, this could be made into a flexible path component if it were to involve ever-longer stays at the pet asteroid leading up to a long-duration (read DSH) station there.  If all that's planned is a series of three-week jaunts in Orion to nibble pieces off the rock, not so much.
"I can’t tell you which asteroid, but there will be one in 2025," Bolden asserted.

Offline Proponent

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Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #5 on: 03/29/2013 04:07 pm »
Sounds like an ASR mission to me - pick up a small rock and return it to EML-2.  It's also sort of work-generation for the EML-2 gateway station concept other than acting as a rendezvous point for other missions.  Move a sample to EML-2 so the crew at the station can space-walk over to take samples and then carry back to a lab without having to travel several months and billions of miles through deep space.

How real is this proposal? Is it just a small study by a small group or is this something that NASA really wants to do?

I think it's more likely instead of an L2 station, which is budgetarily implausible anytime soon.  Haul the asteroid back to L2 for $3 billion, if the Keck study is correct, then send a crew up to visit it and say that you've been to an asteroid.  No $10-billion hab needed.  Maybe, as ChileVerde suggests, a station comes later.
« Last Edit: 03/29/2013 05:24 pm by Proponent »

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #6 on: 03/29/2013 04:41 pm »
Quote
President Obama’s goal of sending astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025 can’t be done with foreseeable civil-space spending, the thinking goes. But by moving an asteroid to cislunar space — a high lunar orbit or the second Earth-Moon Lagrangian Point (EML2), above the Moon’s far side — it is conceivable that technically the deadline could be met.

...

Unless they have plans to drag Mars closer so it's easier to visit, this plan doesn't advance that goal at all!

I suppose that's "technically" " conceivable" too?
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline Solman

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Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #7 on: 03/29/2013 05:20 pm »
 AJA wrote:
Quote
Unless, they put a sufficiently massive one in an Aldrin cycler. That would LITERALLY become a stepping stone.

 That's actually a pretty good idea. The 7 m asteroid might not be big enough but one only two or three times that diameter might be. Park it at EML-1 and use it to test ISRU by constructing a habitat and other equip. for a cycler by tele-robotic means. Send up provisions and equip. and then send it into a cycling heliocentric orbit.
 Then send a manned Orion to meet it for an interplanetary cruise and return to Earth and later a stop at Mars orbit and eventually surface. The astronauts could fill their time building out the cycler and perfecting turning rock into products.

Offline psloss

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Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #8 on: 04/05/2013 10:03 pm »
This is starting to leak out a little bit ahead of the budget proposal release next Wednesday...saw an AP wire story quoting Senator Bill Nelson (search for "Senator: NASA to lasso asteroid, bring it closer" if that doesn't work and you're interested).  Or this short.

Offline RocketmanUS

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Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #9 on: 04/05/2013 10:38 pm »
Smart if they work with the commercial NEA companies.

However it looks like they are trying to avoid any real crew missions.
This would not help with Mars crew landing.
We could use robotics to send samples back for less cost and unneeded risk with so little gain.

It would be better for NASA to work with Boeing and Golden Spike for a future Orion crew to land on the moon to gain what could help in a future crew Mars landing.

It looks if we are to ever see Lunar and Mars crew landings it will have to be private and not government.

Offline Warren Platts

Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #10 on: 04/06/2013 12:27 am »
Paul Spudis's take:

http://www.spudislunarresources.com/blog/lets-haul-asteroids/

I agree with him. It's a waste of money at this point.
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Online Chris Bergin

Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #11 on: 04/06/2013 12:40 am »
The AP:

"The government document describing the mission said it would inspire because it "will send humans farther than they have ever been before.""

So this would be a replacement for EM-2.
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Offline majormajor42

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Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #12 on: 04/06/2013 12:56 am »
 Wouldn't the search for a good candidate, also contribute to what Scott Pace is asking for in the WP article?  To increase our knowledge of possible asteroid that's to Earth?

 What do we know about this engine?  Is it similar to anything that has flown before? Is it something that may be used for an HSF BEO mission in the future?

 How big/heavy will the robotic mission be?  Probably hard to answer at this point.

 How long will Orion be able to spend at the asteroid?  Would the SEV necessary for the mission?

...water is life and it is out there, where we intend to go. I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man or machine on a body such as the Moon and harvest a cup of water for a human to drink or process into fuel for their craft.

Offline RocketmanUS

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Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #13 on: 04/06/2013 01:32 am »
SEV would be for suit port EVA.
Added and back up life support if needed.
If it has the right robotic arm it could be used to attach to the NEA.

Offline QuantumG

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Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #14 on: 04/06/2013 01:40 am »
What previous threads are relevant here? I remember seeing some NASA slides, but it might have been on NTRS :(
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline HappyMartian

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Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #15 on: 04/06/2013 05:47 am »
Paul Spudis's take:

http://www.spudislunarresources.com/blog/lets-haul-asteroids/

I agree with him. It's a waste of money at this point.


Yep. He nails it.

"In the current wilderness of unattainable space policy ideas, this one certainly stakes out new territory.  Since we can’t get to an NEA, let’s bring one to a place to which we can get, thus successfully avoiding the place that we should be exploiting in order to attain true space faring capability – the lunar poles."

Let’s Haul Asteroids!  By Paul Spudis    April 5, 2013    
At: http://www.spudislunarresources.com/blog/lets-haul-asteroids/
 
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Online MP99

Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #16 on: 04/06/2013 09:13 am »
The AP:

"The government document describing the mission said it would inspire because it "will send humans farther than they have ever been before.""

So this would be a replacement for EM-2.

I could see this working if they stick to the 2021 deadline - the four year wait becomes a bit easier to take if there'll be an asteroid there to investigate when they get there.


Quote
President Obama’s goal of sending astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025 can’t be done with foreseeable civil-space spending, the thinking goes. But by moving an asteroid to cislunar space — a high lunar orbit or the second Earth-Moon Lagrangian Point (EML2), above the Moon’s far side — it is conceivable that technically the deadline could be met.
(My highlight)

This can't be replacement for EM-2 because that would be an EIGHT YEAR WAIT!!

Would be EM-4 or EM-5, even with missions every-two-years after EM-2.

cheers, Martin


Offline yg1968

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Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #17 on: 04/06/2013 11:36 am »
Here is the study of such a mission by the Keck Institute for Space Studies:

http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/asteroid_final_report.pdf

See page 41 for the breakdown of the cost of the mission of $2.6B. Half of the cost is the spacecraft itself. The cost of the spacecraft includes some R&D on SEP.
« Last Edit: 04/06/2013 12:01 pm by yg1968 »

Online MP99

Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #18 on: 04/06/2013 11:55 am »
This can't be replacement for EM-2 because that would be an EIGHT YEAR WAIT!!

OK, this is better, capture in 2019, so does fit with EM-1 timelines:-
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_CAPTURING_ASTEROID?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Quote
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said the plan would speed up by four years the existing mission to land astronauts on an asteroid by bringing the space rock closer to Earth.

Nelson, who is chairman of the Senate science and space subcommittee, said Friday that President Barack Obama is putting $100 million in planning money for the accelerated asteroid mission in the 2014 budget that comes out next week. The money would be used to find the right small asteroid.

cheers, Martin

Edit: certainly does give a worthwhile target for the EM-2 crew to visit, but I wonder how much the lasso will corrupt the surface that they want to investigate.
« Last Edit: 04/06/2013 12:00 pm by MP99 »

Offline Ben the Space Brit

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Re: NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
« Reply #19 on: 04/06/2013 01:12 pm »
I might get some negative response to this post but...

Okay, there is no reason why this isn't hypothetically doable and I think it should be executable in practice.  My real objection is that this represents an abandonment of deep space flight.  It's a tacit admission that it is too difficult and costly to build DSH and fly it to any target, so they've got to fly the target to the Earth/Moon system.

Those who have supported the NEA and Phobos missions have done so on the grounds that "we have already been there" (to the Moon).  Their argument is often that NASA needs to push on to further boundaries and leave the Moon to others now that the technical issues of getting there are more-or-less resolved.  What this new plan really amounts to is an abandonment of Flexible Path and, IMHO at least, any illusion of Mars being the goal of SLS.  It's now boiled down to a desperate attempt to find some justification, any justification, for SLS in the near term (before 2030) without having to appropriate billions for payloads that the cost of the rocket development simply won't allow.

To me, this project (no matter how plausible in engineering terms and potentially useful in scientific terms) represents a surrender of the future of HSF.  There will be no BEO, probably not in any of our lifetimes, unless Inspiration Mars somehow hits their target launch date.
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