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SLS / Orion / Beyond-LEO HSF - Constellation => Missions To The Near Earth Asteroids (HSF) => Topic started by: Chris Bergin on 02/16/2013 03:26 am

Title: Asteroid close pass highlights need to investigate NEAs via NASA missions
Post by: Chris Bergin on 02/16/2013 03:26 am
Slightly leftfield, but rather than repeating what's already out there with these Friday events, focused on the future missions:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/02/asteroid-highlights-investigate-neos-nasa-missions/

(I'll set up a NEA section when I get time - hosting in Orion for now).
Title: Re: Asteroid close pass highlights need to investigate NEAs via NASA missions
Post by: jimvela on 02/16/2013 03:39 am
Slightly leftfield, but rather than repeating what's already out there with these Friday events, focused on the future missions:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/02/asteroid-highlights-investigate-neos-nasa-missions/

(I'll set up a NEA section when I get time - hosting in Orion for now).

Nice article, as always. 
You could mention that there's a private alternative awaiting funding:
http://b612foundation.org/sentinelmission/

Disclaimer:  If sufficiently funded to production, I'll be working on supporting this derivative of the Kepler spacecraft...
Title: Re: Asteroid close pass highlights need to investigate NEAs via NASA missions
Post by: Chris Bergin on 02/16/2013 03:52 am
Great article Chris.  Exciting day yesterday.  I wonder if you wanted to substitute the first photo with this I found on the net today.

http://i.imgur.com/SnVvLv8.gif

Thanks!

And blimey! Nice, but it's be really hard to resize for 350x250 ish, as I don't know how to resize gifs....but if someone's up for that, I can sub it!

Slightly leftfield, but rather than repeating what's already out there with these Friday events, focused on the future missions:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/02/asteroid-highlights-investigate-neos-nasa-missions/

(I'll set up a NEA section when I get time - hosting in Orion for now).

Nice article, as always. 
You could mention that there's a private alternative awaiting funding:
http://b612foundation.org/sentinelmission/

Disclaimer:  If sufficiently funded to production, I'll be working on supporting this derivative of the Kepler spacecraft...

Thanks to you too Jim. Yeah, I was thinking of adding them and DSI into that, but then I'd probably have to enter JAXA's missions and such. So to avoid getting too wordy, I made it more centric to NASA.
Title: Re: Asteroid close pass highlights need to investigate NEAs via NASA missions
Post by: peter-b on 02/16/2013 08:33 am
I actually think that the money would be better spent on building an array of deep space ultra-wide-field survey platforms. If you spaced them out around the plane of the ecliptic you could get amazing coverage.
Title: Re: Asteroid close pass highlights need to investigate NEAs via NASA missions
Post by: Proponent on 02/16/2013 09:00 am
I agree that the first priority with regard to NEAs should be deeper surveys to find more of them (this would help crewed missions too).  Then visit NEAs with robotic probes -- they're faster, cheaper and perfectly adequate.

I'm not necessarily opposed to sending a crew to an NEA, the benefits of such a mission have little to do with either defending Earth or science, but rather with developing technology and demonstrating deep-space operations.
Title: Re: Asteroid close pass highlights need to investigate NEAs via NASA missions
Post by: Chris Bergin on 02/16/2013 05:48 pm
Chris,

I used an on-line tool to reduce it to 320x92, see if this will work.


Yeah, that doesn't work, per the requirement, but thanks for attempting.
Title: Re: Asteroid close pass highlights need to investigate NEAs via NASA missions
Post by: Jason1701 on 02/16/2013 06:22 pm
Is anyone else amazed that so many Russians happened to have cameras recording on their dashboards?
Title: Re: Asteroid close pass highlights need to investigate NEAs via NASA missions
Post by: Stephan on 02/16/2013 06:34 pm
Is anyone else amazed that so many Russians happened to have cameras recording on their dashboards?
It's to avoid insurance scams.
Title: Re: Asteroid close pass highlights need to investigate NEAs via NASA missions
Post by: JohnFornaro on 02/17/2013 01:58 pm
I agree that the first priority with regard to NEAs should be deeper surveys to find more of them ...

Totally agree with this part of your comment.
Title: Re: Asteroid close pass highlights need to investigate NEAs via NASA missions
Post by: Moe Grills on 02/18/2013 06:39 pm
  There were/are plans by ESA to send an asteroid impactor mission
on its way to deep space. The project I believe is/was called
Quijote.
You would think recent events would encourage ESA officials to give it high priority.
 That project appears dead in the water. Are ESA officials
changing their minds about striking a NEO asteroid with a hypersonic
projectile?
Title: Re: Asteroid close pass highlights need to investigate NEAs via NASA missions
Post by: Oli on 02/18/2013 09:56 pm
^

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Technology/NEO/Asteroid_Impact_Deflection_Assessment_AIDA_study
Title: Re: Asteroid close pass highlights need to investigate NEAs via NASA missions
Post by: Robotbeat on 02/18/2013 10:01 pm
I seriously wonder about the possibility of demonstrating gravity tractoring of an asteroid during a HSF mission. Even though the mission is likely to be short (a couple weeks on target?), the large mass of the transfer vehicle should move the asteroid enough to push it out of an imaginary gravitational keyhole (a keyhole may often be less than 1km in size). In order to do this, you'd need to make some modifications to the SEP transfer vehicle's propulsion, but it shouldn't be terrible. It would go a long way in both providing a needed capability and building support for human exploration.
Title: Re: Asteroid close pass highlights need to investigate NEAs via NASA missions
Post by: spectre9 on 02/18/2013 10:45 pm
"drive need" ?

"illusive" plan? As in it's an illusion or did you mean elusive?  :P

C'mon Chris, you have maintain your high standards. If you need a proofreader just let me know.  ;)

The rest of it was top notch. Outlining target NEOs and the planning NASA is doing towards visiting them.

Hopefully we hear more news of that exploration plan soon.
Title: Re: Asteroid close pass highlights need to investigate NEAs via NASA missions
Post by: Robotbeat on 02/18/2013 11:32 pm
"drive need" ?

"illusive" plan? As in it's an illusion or did you mean elusive?  :P

C'mon Chris, you have maintain your high standards. If you need a proofreader just let me know.  ;)

The rest of it was top notch. Outlining target NEOs and the planning NASA is doing towards visiting them.

Hopefully we hear more news of that exploration plan soon.
Indeed, if sequestration is avoided somehow (which has a less than 50% chance, unfortunately), then it'd be a good time to unveil the details of a HSF exploration plan that includes NEO visits (and possible mitigation strategies).
Title: Re: Asteroid close pass highlights need to investigate NEAs via NASA missions
Post by: truth is life on 02/24/2013 01:45 am
"drive need" ?

"illusive" plan? As in it's an illusion or did you mean elusive?  :P

C'mon Chris, you have maintain your high standards. If you need a proofreader just let me know.  ;)

The rest of it was top notch. Outlining target NEOs and the planning NASA is doing towards visiting them.

Hopefully we hear more news of that exploration plan soon.

Have not read the article yet, but illusive (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/illusive) is a perfectly fine word with a similar (though not identical) meaning to elusive. It's pretty appropriate for describing any HSF plan at the moment, unfortunately...