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NASA wants to catch, return asteroid
by
docmordrid
on 28 Mar, 2013 20:20
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#1
by
MP99
on 29 Mar, 2013 09:21
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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
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#2
by
AJA
on 29 Mar, 2013 11:17
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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.
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#3
by
Ben the Space Brit
on 29 Mar, 2013 11:57
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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?
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#4
by
ChileVerde
on 29 Mar, 2013 12:12
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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.
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#5
by
Proponent
on 29 Mar, 2013 16:07
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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.
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#6
by
JohnFornaro
on 29 Mar, 2013 16:41
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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?
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#7
by
Solman
on 29 Mar, 2013 17:20
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AJA wrote:
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.
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#8
by
psloss
on 05 Apr, 2013 22:03
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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.
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#9
by
RocketmanUS
on 05 Apr, 2013 22:38
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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.
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#10
by
Warren Platts
on 06 Apr, 2013 00:27
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#11
by
Chris Bergin
on 06 Apr, 2013 00:40
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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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#12
by
majormajor42
on 06 Apr, 2013 00:56
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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?
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#13
by
RocketmanUS
on 06 Apr, 2013 01:32
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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.
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#14
by
QuantumG
on 06 Apr, 2013 01:40
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What previous threads are relevant here? I remember seeing some NASA slides, but it might have been on NTRS
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#15
by
HappyMartian
on 06 Apr, 2013 05:47
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#16
by
MP99
on 06 Apr, 2013 09:13
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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.
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
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#17
by
yg1968
on 06 Apr, 2013 11:36
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#18
by
MP99
on 06 Apr, 2013 11:55
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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=DEFAULTSen. 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.
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#19
by
Ben the Space Brit
on 06 Apr, 2013 13:12
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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.
