Author Topic: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge  (Read 19454 times)

Offline yg1968

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NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« on: 06/18/2013 06:47 pm »
NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/initiative/asteroid_grand_challenge.html

The presentation was broadcasted on NASA TV today and should be available on YouTube in a few hours.
http://www.youtube.com/NASAtelevision

Here is the RFI:
http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/synopsis.cgi?acqid=156731
« Last Edit: 06/18/2013 06:53 pm by yg1968 »

Offline Danderman

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Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #1 on: 06/18/2013 06:55 pm »
Why?

Is this simply funding for Planetary Resources, or are there other potential competitors out there?


Offline MP99

Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #2 on: 06/18/2013 07:47 pm »
Why?

Is this simply funding for Planetary Resources, or are there other potential competitors out there?

http://b612foundation.org/ seems more likely to me to be able to do a comprehensive survey of earth-threatening objects.

cheers, Martin

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #3 on: 06/18/2013 08:23 pm »
Why? Because prizes (if that's the approach chosen) are a very excellent way of getting a high return on investment for the one funding them. The ratio of private to prize money spent is rather high, far better than even just paying a company outright to produce the data. And you are insulated from failure by not even having to pay if no one succeeds (versus the usual of trying to pour more money into it and ending up canceling anyway). And it allows the best plan to succeed.

Great idea. It'll get folks like Planetary resources and B612 to put up or shut up, which I think everyone can get behind... And really, the barriers to entry for characterizing the asteroid threat are probably lower than for anything interplanetary, so this should be able to support other applicants.

I really don't get why people get their hackles up when anything related to asteroids comes up.
« Last Edit: 06/18/2013 08:30 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline Danderman

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Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #4 on: 06/18/2013 08:36 pm »
I was just curious why NASA would make this announcement when there are already groups working the problem.

I agree that money is a great motivator, but in this specific case, finding a killer asteroid may have a greater incentive, ie, staying alive.

Offline catdlr

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Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #5 on: 06/18/2013 09:35 pm »
The presentation was broadcasted on NASA TV today and should be available on YouTube in a few hours.
http://www.youtube.com/NASAtelevision

here it is:

NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge

Published on Jun 18, 2013
NASA announced Tuesday a Grand Challenge focused on finding all asteroid threats to human populations and knowing what to do about them.


The challenge, which was announced at an asteroid initiative industry and partner day at NASA Headquarters in Washington, is a large-scale effort that will use multi-disciplinary collaborations and a variety of partnerships with other government agencies, international partners, industry, academia, and citizen scientists. It complements NASA's recently announced mission to redirect an asteroid and send humans to study it.

 (Just under two hours long)



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Offline QuantumG

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Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #6 on: 06/18/2013 11:32 pm »
I was just curious why NASA would make this announcement when there are already groups working the problem.

That's exactly the right time to fund a prize.

Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline MP99

Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #7 on: 06/19/2013 04:16 pm »
Why? Because prizes (if that's the approach chosen) are a very excellent way of getting a high return on investment for the one funding them. The ratio of private to prize money spent is rather high, far better than even just paying a company outright to produce the data. And you are insulated from failure by not even having to pay if no one succeeds (versus the usual of trying to pour more money into it and ending up canceling anyway). And it allows the best plan to succeed.

Great idea. It'll get folks like Planetary resources and B612 to put up or shut up, which I think everyone can get behind... And really, the barriers to entry for characterizing the asteroid threat are probably lower than for anything interplanetary, so this should be able to support other applicants.

I really don't get why people get their hackles up when anything related to asteroids comes up.

B612 is Venus-like orbit.

Cheers, Martin

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #8 on: 06/19/2013 05:28 pm »
Why? Because prizes (if that's the approach chosen) are a very excellent way of getting a high return on investment for the one funding them. The ratio of private to prize money spent is rather high, far better than even just paying a company outright to produce the data. And you are insulated from failure by not even having to pay if no one succeeds (versus the usual of trying to pour more money into it and ending up canceling anyway). And it allows the best plan to succeed.

Great idea. It'll get folks like Planetary resources and B612 to put up or shut up, which I think everyone can get behind... And really, the barriers to entry for characterizing the asteroid threat are probably lower than for anything interplanetary, so this should be able to support other applicants.

I really don't get why people get their hackles up when anything related to asteroids comes up.

B612 is Venus-like orbit.

Cheers, Martin
Sure, but that's not the only possible way of approaching the problem.
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Online AnalogMan

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Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #9 on: 07/26/2013 07:56 pm »
NASA Sees Enthusiastic Response to Asteroid Call for Ideas
RELEASE 13-238  July 26, 2013

WASHINGTON -- NASA has received more than 400 responses to its request for information (RFI) on the agency's asteroid initiative, Deputy Administrator Lori Garver announced Friday.

"Under our plan, we're increasing the identification, tracking and exploration of asteroids, and the response to this initiative has been gratifying," said Garver, speaking at the Space Frontier Foundation's NewSpace 2013 conference in San Jose, Calif. "The aerospace industry, innovative small businesses and citizen scientists have many creative ideas and strategies for carrying out our asteroid exploration mission and helping us to protect our home planet from dangerous near-Earth objects."

Released June 18, the RFI was the first opportunity for industry and other potential partners, including private individuals, to offer ideas on planning for NASA's mission to redirect an asteroid for exploration by astronauts and the agency's asteroid grand challenge.

Garver noted  about a third of the responses were in areas relevant to the asteroid grand challenge, which is to identify all asteroid threats to human population and know what to do about them. All other responses were related to the five mission components.

All the responses are being evaluated and rated. NASA will explore the highly rated responses for inclusion in future planning during a public workshop in September.

Grand challenges are ambitious goals on a national or global scale that capture the imagination and demand advances in innovation and breakthroughs in science and technology. NASA's asteroid grand challenge will support planetary defense by use of multi-disciplinary collaborations and a variety of partnerships with other government agencies, international partners, industry, academia, and citizen scientists.

The asteroid grand challenge complements NASA's mission to find and capture a near-Earth asteroid, redirect it to a stable lunar orbit and send humans to study it. The asteroid redirect mission is included in President Obama's fiscal year 2014 budget request for NASA, and leverages the agency's progress on its Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft and cutting-edge technology development. The mission is one step in NASA's plan to send humans to Mars in the 2030s.

For more information about NASA's asteroid initiative, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/asteroidinitiative

Online AnalogMan

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Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #10 on: 08/22/2013 01:19 am »
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
[Notice: 13–096] August 21, 2013

NASA Asteroid Initiative Idea Synthesis Workshop

ACTION: Notice of Public Conference to examine ideas in response to the recent RFI for the agency’s Asteroid Initiative.

SUMMARY: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration announces a public conference to provide a status on the Agency’s Asteroid Initiative planning and to enable feedback and discussion from the global community and the public.

DATES: (12 p.m. CDT) Monday, September 30, 2013 – (5 p.m. CDT) Wednesday October 2, 2013

ADDRESSES: Lunar and Planetary Institute, 3600 Bay Area Boulevard, Houston, TX 77058.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Michele Gates, Senior Technical Advisor NASA Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate: 202–358–1048.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

• The purpose of this conference is to publicly examine and synthesize highly rated responses to the NASA’s Asteroid Initiative RFI. Findings will be developed and provided as inputs to NASA’s planning activities.

• This conference will be streamed live online. Viewing and interactive participation options will be posted at http://www.nasa.gov/content/asteroid-initiative-idea-synthesis-workshop prior to the event.

• Due to limited seating capacity, onsite attendance is by invitation only. Invitations will be sent starting Monday, August 19.

Registration

• NASA will invite many of the RFI submitters to attend the workshop to share their ideas. Invited presenters will have the option to attend onsite, or present their ideas remotely via online virtual meeting capabilities. Presenters must R.S.V.P. through the registration form provided to them in the invitation email.

• Anyone who is not invited to present at the workshop will be able to participate virtually through live streaming forums dedicated to the workshop plenary sessions and focused track sessions.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-08-21/pdf/2013-20353.pdf

[Note: Virtual participation options will also be available to the general public]

Offline pberrett

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Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #11 on: 09/05/2013 11:09 am »
Hi all from downunder

I was one of the 400 groups/entities that submitted a response to the RFI and now am 1 of the 100 or so asked to do a presentation.

I will be doing this as a 10 minute video so keep an eye out for my contribution. It is aimed predominantly at a new asteroid hunting initiative along the lines of the Soho comet hunting site. I will try and make the video a bit entertaining as well.

regards

Peter Berrett

Online AnalogMan

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Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #12 on: 09/11/2013 11:27 pm »
Asteroid Initiative Idea Synthesis Workshop

Selected Abstracts • Sept. 30 to Oct. 2, 2013

After receiving more than 400 responses to the Asteroid Initiative RFI, a team of NASA scientists, engineers, and mission planners evaluated the proposed ideas. The evaluation team rated the responses for relevance to the RFI objectives, innovativeness of the idea, maturity of the development approach, and potential to improve mission affordability.

Nearly 100 respondents have been invited to present their ideas and concepts during the Asteroid Initiative Idea Synthesis Workshop alongside NASA personnel and members of the larger community, including virtual participants. The purpose of this workshop is to further examine and foster a broad discussion on these newest ideas and help inform NASA's planning activities.

Enclosed here is a compendium of the abstracts that were selected for presentation and discussion during the workshop. The abstracts are organized into the following topic areas:

• Asteroid Observation
• Asteroid Redirection Systems
• Asteroid Deflection Demonstrations
• Asteroid Capture Systems
• Crew Systems For Asteroid Exploration
• Partnership & Participatory Engagement
• Crowd Sourcing & Citizen Science
• Next Generation Engagement

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/Asteroid-Idea-Workshop-Abstracts.pdf

[copy of abstracts also attached - 56 pages]

Offline pberrett

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Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #13 on: 09/24/2013 11:37 am »
Hi again

My 10 minute video (actually its 10 minutes and about 10 seconds) is finished and has been made available to NASA to download.

The session concerning citizen science involvement is on Tuesday October 1 Texas time


DAY 2 – Tuesday, October 1
 
Synthesis Sessions 8 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Asteroid Deflection Demonstrations
Crowd Sourcing & Citizen Science
Synthesis Sessions 1:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Partnerships & Public Engagement
Asteroid Capture Systems
Crew Systems for Asteroid Exploration

Apparently there will be about 1.5 hours of presentations in my category and my 10 minute video is part of that. I decided to go with a video rather than present personally because i thought I could project my ideas better that way. It also gave me a chance to use some cool video presentation software. Everyone who has seen my video has said good things about it.

After that there will be 20 minutes Q&A and I hope to participate in that via a Google Hangout or Skype video. After that will be a group discussion and I probably will participate in that as well.

It will be a very very late night for me as all this will occur during the early hours of my morning. Lots of black coffee will be required. But it is a unique opportunity and a bit of an honour to be selected with a range of very highly qualified people (much more qualified than me!).

cheers Peter



« Last Edit: 09/24/2013 11:38 am by pberrett »

Offline pberrett

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Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #14 on: 09/28/2013 03:49 am »
I've just received a message from NASA to say that the possible Government shutdown could affect next week's asteroid initiative workshop.

The first day would go ahead as per usual (30 September) but the 1 October and 2 October days would need to be delayed to a later date.

Needless to say this could severely inconvenience those participants wh have made travel plans to come to the workshop.
 
This is a real shame as Government instability and disagreement could derail what was shaping up as a very interesting conference.

cheers Peter   

Offline pberrett

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Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #15 on: 10/26/2013 01:05 am »

I just received an email to advise of the rescheduled dates for the Asteroid Workshop.




"New Dates to Resume Asteroid Workshop: Nov. 20-22, 2013

Dear Colleague,

NASA has selected new dates to resume the Asteroid Initiative Idea Synthesis Workshop, which was postponed due to the recent government shutdown. We look forward to resuming the workshop and continuing to examine the many good ideas that were submitted in response to the Asteroid Initiative Request for Information in June.

As before, the workshop will be conducted at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. Seating capacity is limited, so the invitation list to attend onsite will remain restricted. Virtual participation options will again be available, and we will provide those options on the workshop web page as the event nears: www.nasa.gov/asteroidworkshop.

Invitations to the same invited RFI responders and presenters will be issued starting Monday, Oct. 28.

The new workshop dates are November 20-22, 2013. The program outline follows (all times CST):

Wednesday, November 20

7:00 – 8:30 p.m.

Workshop Kickoff & Recap of Day 1 (Sept. 30)

Thursday, November 21

8 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Partnerships & Participatory Engagement

Asteroid Capture Systems

1:30 – 5:30 p.m.

Crew Systems for Asteroid Exploration

Grand Challenge — Crowd Sourcing & Citizen Science

Asteroid Deflection Demonstrations

7:30 p.m.

Public Event: The Lunar and Planetary Institute Cosmic Exploration Speaker Series with Dr. David Kring: The 2013 Chelyabinsk Air Burst and the Hazards of Near-Earth Asteroid Impacts


Friday, November 22

8 – 10 a.m.

Open discussions on synthesis sessions

Grand Challenge — Next Generation Engagement

10 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Plenary — Summary of Synthesis Sessions"

Online AnalogMan

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Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #16 on: 02/22/2014 02:29 pm »
After a period of quiet, a forthcoming public update has just been announced, and will be streamed live online.

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
[Notice: (14–021)]
NASA Asteroid Initiative Opportunities Forum

AGENCY: National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

ACTION: Notice of public forum.

SUMMARY: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration announces a public forum to provide a status on the agency’s asteroid initiative planning, including ongoing studies and opportunities for engagement following the request for information last summer. NASA experts will provide an overview of an Asteroid Initiative Announcement of Opportunities (scheduled to release on or before the date of the forum) and announce new engagement opportunities related to the Asteroid Grand Challenge.

DATES: Wednesday, March 26, 2014, 12:30–4:30 p.m. EDT.
  Location: James E. Webb Auditorium.

ADDRESSES: NASA Headquarters, 300 E Street SW., Washington, DC 20546.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Chris Moore, 202.358.4650.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

• This forum will be open to the public up to the seating capacity of the room.
• This meeting will be streamed live online. Viewing options will be posted at www.nasa.gov/asteroidinitiative prior to the event.
• The agenda for this meeting includes the following topics:

    ○ Update on Asteroid Redirect Mission studies
    ○ Technology needs related to the Asteroid Redirect Mission
    ○ Mission capabilities extension to commercial applications and human class Mars missions
    ○ Broad Agency Announcement for alternate capture systems concepts, rendezvous sensor systems,
       secondary payloads, and commercial and international partnership opportunities
    ○ Asteroid Grand Challenge engagement opportunities

[…]

William Gerstenmaier,
Associate Administrator, Human Exploration & Operations Mission Directorate.

---------------
Full announcement with registration/attendance details:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-02-21/pdf/2014-03657.pdf

Offline yg1968

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Re: NASA Announces Asteroid Grand Challenge
« Reply #17 on: 02/26/2014 03:03 pm »
Quote from: NASA Notice
Broad Agency Announcement for alternate capture systems concepts, rendezvous sensor systems, secondary payloads, and commercial and international partnership opportunities

I wonder what kind of commercial partnerships would be possible for this misssion. NASA wants to use SEP, so a Bigelow-type tug is out of the question. Perhaps the capture mechanism as the notice says. What kind of secondary payload would be necessary for this mission?
« Last Edit: 02/26/2014 03:04 pm by yg1968 »

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