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#100 by catdlr on 13 Dec, 2013 02:21
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Who is the astronaut in the suit?
I'm going to make this guess, Rex Walheim, based on facial comparison and this linked article:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2277.html
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#101 by Khadgars on 08 Jan, 2014 19:00
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Don't know if anyone caught this yet, but apparently the candidates that will work for this mission are starting to pile up. Some good work being done. Curious to see what comes out of the Small Bodies Assessment Group meeting next two days.
From Space News Article
http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/38964nasa-slowly-amassing-list-of-potential-targets-for-asteroid-retrieval
"The seven free-floating asteroids that could be retrieved using the Caltech concept are: 2007 UN12, 2008 EA9, 2010 UE51, 2013 LE7, 2009 BD, 2013 PZ6, 2011 MD. These asteroids could be be put into NASA’s desired lunar retrograde orbit between 2020 and 2024, Johnson said." -
#102 by muomega0 on 08 Jan, 2014 19:38
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Unfortunately, humanity is in the position where the people with the lawyers, guns, and money, are insisting that we attempt to build the longest, most difficult leg of the stool first.
While the focus is on Mars, it does not require the hardware to be a one legged stool nor the architecture to be a one legged stool. Its a flexible path. If what you said was correct, NASA and its board of directors would be sending a capsule on a round trip to mars is a few years, yet some of them announced plans to extended ISS. IOW: decouple the architecture from the destinations--that is what is meant by a Mars focus, IMHO. Make the architecture sustainable by lowering IMLEO costs and trade mission mass vs costs to reduce this mission mass.Disagree that there are three legs requisite for off-world economy and disagree that EML-1/2 are necessarily requisite either.
An off-world economy centered on GEO using tele-operated mining/refining/manufacturing of dead sats (funded at first by infrastructure servicing revenue) followed by NEO material, requires no human presence with its attendant high cost and risk.
I quite understand, but wtihout a human presence off-planet, that's a very narrow definition of an off-world economy. Obviously, there's no need for a human tended "base camp" at L1 or L2 if there's no humans involved.
As to status updates on the mission of the OP, there are none to speak of, unless "status updates" are narrowly defined as press conferences and slide shows.
There a significant number of reasons to stage at L2. Can you you explain the rationale for L1?
Its L2, not L1!
Most of the rationale for L1 and GEO (low ISP hypergolics, ...) are all based on one legged stool rationale.
Been reading the posts...no rationale provided.
An crew tended gateway can test radiation mitigation hardware concepts, act as a safehaven for lunar ops, stage for asteroids and Mars, has most cost effective deltaV for all the legs of the stool, ..., when positioned at L2. If one optimize for any one leg of course, one can arrive at a different answer.
But if you simply state that you want the most cost effective architecture for any significant amount of mass BLEO, its depot centric. -
#103 by A_M_Swallow on 08 Jan, 2014 20:16
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I quite understand, but wtihout a human presence off-planet, that's a very narrow definition of an off-world economy. Obviously, there's no need for a human tended "base camp" at L1 or L2 if there's no humans involved.
As to status updates on the mission of the OP, there are none to speak of, unless "status updates" are narrowly defined as press conferences and slide shows.
There a significant number of reasons to stage at L2. Can you you explain the rationale for L1?
Its L2, not L1!
Most of the rationale for L1 and GEO (low ISP hypergolics, ...) are all based on one legged stool rationale.
Been reading the posts...no rationale provided.
{snip}
A bit off topic because John Fornaro did not specify L1, just allowed it to be an alternative to L2. -
#104 by darkbluenine on 08 Jan, 2014 20:22
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Don't know if anyone caught this yet, but apparently the candidates that will work for this mission are starting to pile up.
Actually, it's not clear that progress has been made in terms of total candidate encounters for a redirect mission. Over half a year ago, there were already seven candidate encounters for a redirect mission through 2030:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/52251483#.Us2-rq-A1pM
Of course, the six candidate encounters for a boulder retrieval mission are obviously new. (Although two of those are also targets for existing robotic missions.)
FWIW...
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#105 by JohnFornaro on 09 Jan, 2014 13:31
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Unfortunately, humanity is in the position where the people with the lawyers, guns, and money, are insisting that we attempt to build the longest, most difficult leg of the stool first.
While the focus is on Mars, it does not require the hardware to be a one legged stool nor the architecture to be a one legged stool. It's a flexible path. If what you said was correct, NASA and its board of directors would be sending a capsule on a round trip to mars is a few years, yet some of them announced plans to extended ISS. IOW: decouple the architecture from the destinations--that is what is meant by a Mars focus, IMHO. Make the architecture sustainable by lowering IMLEO costs and trade mission mass vs costs to reduce this mission mass.
It sounds like you don't understand that a big part of my complaint above is that our government is insisting only upon building the longest leg of the stool; that is, SLS in the 130-150 ton variant. And nothing else.
So what I said is correct, by a more careful interpretation. They will not be sending any capsule anywhere for a few years, and even then it would be an unmanned one. You know what the announced schedule is, and what the announced missions are.
True, the President has spoken the words "flexible path", and the words "BTDT", but he has done so only upon the advice of his non-scientific inner circle, and is probably not capable of or willing to discuss US HSF policy in any substantive fashion. "Flexible path" is just two words in the dictionary. Move along, move along.
It is also true, in my mind, that if the government wants to go to Mars and plant F&F's, then it needs to get cracking on building a BFR. At least this approach is logically, albeit not pragmatically, one way to express a "Mars focus".
But I think you're right, in that the way they seem to be "decoupling the architecture" is to build SLS and nothing else.Disagree that there are three legs requisite for off-world economy and disagree that EML-1/2 are necessarily requisite either.
An off-world economy centered on GEO using tele-operated mining/refining/manufacturing of dead sats (funded at first by infrastructure servicing revenue) followed by NEO material, requires no human presence with its attendant high cost and risk.
I quite understand, but without a human presence off-planet, that's a very narrow definition of an off-world economy. Obviously, there's no need for a human tended "base camp" at L1 or L2 if there's no humans involved.
As to status updates on the mission of the OP, there are none to speak of, unless "status updates" are narrowly defined as press conferences and slide shows.Quote from: MuOmegaThere a significant number of reasons to stage at L2. Can you you explain the rationale for L1?
Its L2, not L1!
Most of the rationale for L1 and GEO (low ISP hypergolics, ...) are all based on one legged stool rationale.
Been reading the posts...no rationale provided.
A crew tended gateway can test radiation mitigation hardware concepts, act as a safehaven for lunar ops, stage for asteroids and Mars, has most cost effective deltaV for all the legs of the stool, ..., when positioned at L2. If one optimizes for any one leg of course, one can arrive at a different answer.
Again, from a pragmatic standpoint, any individual post need not include all the previous posts on a topic. On this forum, we're expected to do our own homework.
I have certainly provided my rationale for preferring L1 to L2 on many occasions.
Briefly, first: Proximate destinations are to be preferred to distant destinations at the beginning of a human endeavor to present itself permanently BLEO.
Whatever the design of a ring station/depot/hotel, it will require multiple launches to construct. The round trip, Earth to Earth, for L1 is a week "closer" than L2 for each trip, using the low delta-vee gravity
transfer orbits that are well known.
Second, it cannot be argued that mankind is anywhere but at the beginning of the attempt at creating a permanent BLEO human presence.
All of the fancy schmancy talk about the huge delta-vee benefits for conquering the solar system with a depot centric architecture at L2 not only put the cart before the horse, but pretend to skip horse and cart and move directly to a tesla-mobile. There is no pre-existing economy, or Mars highway, or anything. L1 will do fine at the beginning of this hoped for journey, and will be handy for enabling the future. Assuming that one wants to, well, Win The Future.Quote from: MuOmegaBut if you simply state that you want the most cost effective architecture for any significant amount of mass BLEO, its depot centric.
And I have been saying nothing but that, except not in every post. -
#106 by gbaikie on 13 Jan, 2014 04:09
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http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1312/1312.4452.pdf
From:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4452
Summary:
"The number of ore-bearing asteroids could well be small and remote telescopic techniques are inadequate to identify such asteroids confidently. Finding an asteroid that can be profitably mined requires proximate observations from assay probes. Here we use a simple statistical approach to estimate the number of assay probes, Nassay, needed to find at least one ore-bearing asteroid at a high confidence (90%, 95%, 99%). We present results for a wide range of values of the probability of an asteroid being rich in the resource of interest, Prich....."
linked from:
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/ -
#107 by davey142 on 15 Jan, 2014 02:55
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So has NASA's fy2014 funding bill said anything about this mission?
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#108 by Proponent on 15 Jan, 2014 10:45
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According to Jeff Foust at Jeff Foust's piece at spacepolitics.com, the wording is
“While the ARM is still an emerging concept, NASA has not provided Congress with satisfactory justification materials such as detailed cost estimates or impacts to ongoing missions. The completion of significant preliminary activities is needed to appropriately lay the groundwork for the ARM prior to NASA and Congress making a long-term commitment to this mission concept.”
So, ARM seems to be proceeding provisionally.
My prediction for some time has been that, despite their loud complaints about ARM and despite their big talk of going back to the moon, the Republicans on the House space subcommittee would eventually accept ARM simply because any better use of Orion/SLS would require much more money.
EDIT: Added missing "the." -
#109 by Khadgars on 22 Jan, 2014 05:13
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According to Jeff Foust at Jeff Foust's piece at spacepolitics.com, the wording is
“While the ARM is still an emerging concept, NASA has not provided Congress with satisfactory justification materials such as detailed cost estimates or impacts to ongoing missions. The completion of significant preliminary activities is needed to appropriately lay the groundwork for the ARM prior to NASA and Congress making a long-term commitment to this mission concept.”
So, ARM seems to be proceeding provisionally.
My prediction for some time has been that, despite their loud complaints about ARM and despite their big talk of going back to the moon, the Republicans on the House space subcommittee would eventually accept ARM simply because any better use of Orion/SLS would require much more money.
EDIT: Added missing "the."
Agreed. For Block I SLS/Orion its hard to come up with a better mission imo. That and the bill included funds for formulating the ARM mission its self. Baby step. -
#110 by CNYMike on 31 Jan, 2014 03:49
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On a personal note, although I initially thought ARM grew out of a process of elimination type thinking (what do you do if you can't send a crew farther than the one place you're not going to land on?), the idea has begun to grow on me, especially after NASA posted a video of them testing shuttle orange suits in the neutral buoyancy tank for modification for EVA use. And let's be honest: Most people aren't following NASA's every move every day. And when footage comes back from astronauts a few thousand klicks past the Moon, it's be all over the place and floor the world. This could be spectacular if we pull it off.
At the moment, I'm willing to give it a chance.
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#111 by davey142 on 02 Feb, 2014 17:17
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On a personal note, although I initially thought ARM grew out of a process of elimination type thinking (what do you do if you can't send a crew farther than the one place you're not going to land on?), the idea has begun to grow on me, especially after NASA posted a video of them testing shuttle orange suits in the neutral buoyancy tank for modification for EVA use. And let's be honest: Most people aren't following NASA's every move every day. And when footage comes back from astronauts a few thousand klicks past the Moon, it's be all over the place and floor the world. This could be spectacular if we pull it off.
And if it can generate good publicity/support for NASA Human spaceflight, than congress might be more willing to fund the bigger, grander deep space missions.
At the moment, I'm willing to give it a chance. -
#112 by CNYMike on 02 Feb, 2014 19:23
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On a personal note, although I initially thought ARM grew out of a process of elimination type thinking (what do you do if you can't send a crew farther than the one place you're not going to land on?), the idea has begun to grow on me, especially after NASA posted a video of them testing shuttle orange suits in the neutral buoyancy tank for modification for EVA use. And let's be honest: Most people aren't following NASA's every move every day. And when footage comes back from astronauts a few thousand klicks past the Moon, it's be all over the place and floor the world. This could be spectacular if we pull it off.
And if it can generate good publicity/support for NASA Human spaceflight, than congress might be more willing to fund the bigger, grander deep space missions.
At the moment, I'm willing to give it a chance.
Right now, I think the US is plodding along by process of elimination: We don't want to stop doing HSF, but we don't want to make it priority. I support both SLS/Orion and Commercial crew, and I worry about either parts of the program being cancelled. What's needed, short of a policy, is stability for the foreseeable future. Whether or not they get it is another matter. -
#113 by woods170 on 24 Apr, 2014 11:29
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Bolden: Don't like asteroid mission? Get over it!
http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/40315bolden-don%E2%80%99t-like-asteroid-mission-get-over-itQuoteAnyone harboring doubt about whether NASA’s proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission puts the agency on the road to Mars needs to “get over it,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said here in an April 22 keynote speech at the annual Humans to Mars summit.
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#114 by kenny008 on 24 Apr, 2014 11:51
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Maybe if Mr. Bolden could lay out what his vision of the pathway to Mars really is, in a little more detailed tactical plan, it would make it easier to "get over it."
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#115 by clongton on 24 Apr, 2014 11:58
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Bolden: Don't like asteroid mission? Get over it!
http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/40315bolden-don%E2%80%99t-like-asteroid-mission-get-over-itQuoteAnyone harboring doubt about whether NASA’s proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission puts the agency on the road to Mars needs to “get over it,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said here in an April 22 keynote speech at the annual Humans to Mars summit.
It's the Congress that doesn't like the asteroid retrieval mission. So basically he's telling Congress to "shut up, get over it and give me the money". Add another line to my very long list as to why I don't like that man. -
#116 by JohnFornaro on 25 Apr, 2014 14:39
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Bolden: Don't like asteroid mission? Get over it!
http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/40315bolden-don%E2%80%99t-like-asteroid-mission-get-over-itQuoteAnyone harboring doubt about whether NASA’s proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission puts the agency on the road to Mars needs to “get over it,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said here in an April 22 keynote speech at the annual Humans to Mars summit.
See the lecture notes from my fictitious online class: "Propaganda 101". -
#117 by KelvinZero on 25 Apr, 2014 16:05
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I think "Get over it or actually explain what your alternative is and provide some basic costing and evidence that there is political support to pay for it" probably just does not roll off the tongue as well.
To me the propaganda is very clear. Certain people are using repetition, disinformation and intentional vagueness to imply that a lunar mission is a comparable alternative or that there is any intention of finding the 3-4 billion per year additional funding it would require. I would love a lunar goal, this is why they make me so angry.
Actually, "Put up or shut up" would be pretty appropriate. -
#118 by newpylong on 25 Apr, 2014 19:59
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Love it!
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#119 by TrevorMonty on 12 Jun, 2014 09:15
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Tethers unlimited Asteriod Wrangler.
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/06/10/tethers-unlimited-2/
This is one of those up and coming space companies. Check out their SpiderFab and HYDROS.
I didn't think to much of HYDROS until I found out most launch providers don't like propellants in their secondary payloads. The HYDROS gives cubesats and nanosats a harmless method of propulsion.