Animation Of Proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission

[czokletmuss]

Two weeks beyond LEO is certainly something, just like a manned Moon fly-by. However I still have a bad feeling about this idea and I fear it may be cancelled very easily. If they do this, it may inspire the new generation - imagine, live stream from the low Moon orbit. Together with Curiosity and its successor and Chinese rover landing in this year it may stir things up a bit.

[Diche Bach]

If they get lucky and that asteroid is pack full of metallic hydrogen you can believe the stuff will hit the fan. Two things I dont' get though: if you are going to all that trouble to capture it and get humans up to it, why not actually move it someplace useful like a LaGrange point or into a closer orbit of Earth? Are humans even necessary? Couldn't robots achieve the same thing?

I can see how prototyping human crew rendezvous with an asteroid is an important first step, along with making a quite long journey remote from Earth, but I just can't shake the feeling that a robot could accomplish the primary mission objectives just as effectively as humans, more cheaply and obviously with less risk.

[NovaSilisko]

I'd much rather see us visit an asteroid in-situ, myself. The budget as it currently stands though means that this asteroid capture mission would probably be the sole result of all post-shuttle efforts... And, there's lots of extra money that has to go into building this one-time use spacecraft to bring the asteroid back. I suppose you could justify that by saying it would help us redirect asteroids in the future but it's not the sort of thing that would scale up very well... the objects it's designed to capture are mostly harmless.

In terms of the mission plan, it seems like it would be a far better idea to plant it at L4 or L5, as those points are stable long-term (millions of years, I believe)

Edited August 23, 2013 by NovaSilisko

[czokletmuss]

I can see how prototyping human crew rendezvous with an asteroid is an important first step, along with making a quite long journey remote from Earth, but I just can't shake the feeling that a robot could accomplish the primary mission objectives just as effectively as humans, more cheaply and obviously with less risk.

You are right, unfortunately. It seems that it works more or less like this in NASA: build SLS and Orion -> building -> Orion and SLS completed -> looking for anything to justify building them in the first place. There are only two missons - SLS-1/EM-1 and SLS-2/EM2 - scheduled. Orion is useless in LEO, because there are other vehicles (ATV, Dragon, Soyuz) which can transport cargo and people. That's why they are jumping back and forward: Moon? Maybe Mars? Or maybe asteroid? I can't stop thinking that this whole thing is more about jobs and votes back on Earth than exploring space.

I suppose you could justify that by saying it would help us redirect asteroids in the future but it's not the sort of thing that would scale up very well... the objects it's designed to capture are mostly harmless.

In terms of the mission plan, it seems like it would be a far better idea to plant it at L4 or L5, as those points are stable long-term (millions of years, I believe)

Yes, this little tug won't stop dinosaur killer, but still it would be a big step forward, something like a test field. And about L4 and L5 I agree - sooner or later this little rock influenced by Moon's and Earth's gravity will leave its orbit. And then what?

Edited August 23, 2013 by czokletmuss

[NovaSilisko]

It'd burn up in the atmosphere harmlessly. Would put on a good show and might rattle some windows, but it's no Chelyabinsk meteor. Still...

[czokletmuss]

Speaking about Chelyabinsk - it's a pity it didn't happen in a bigger, more important city. I bet that having some national monument blowed up or a lot of people killed would multiply the amount of funding for the "space defense" several times. At the moment we are completely powerless to stop asteroids. And we need some protection, even though it's a low probability-high impact event (no pun intended).

[dharak1]

or into a closer orbit of Earth?

Bad news, idiots exist.

Some crazy people think if NASA screws up this thing will fall to earth and kill everyone. Even if they don't they think this will mess up and break natural cosmic balance and, once again kill us all. It's funny because the asteroid is smaller than most satellites we have up here and is only around 10 meters across its longest face.

[Mr Shifty]

Bad news, idiots exist.

Some crazy people think if NASA screws up this thing will fall to earth and kill everyone. Even if they don't they think this will mess up and break natural cosmic balance and, once again kill us all. It's funny because the asteroid is smaller than most satellites we have up here and is only around 10 meters across its longest face.

The heaviest satellite in orbit is about 7 (metric) tons. This thing will have about 500 tons of mass, more on the order of the entire International Space Station packed into a 7 meter ball. Still, there's probably no way it could cause any damage to anything on Earth's surface.

[Diche Bach]

Well, humans rendezvousing with an asteroid and taking samples from it is an historic first, no matter which way you slice it . . . get it! _slice!_ . . . as in slide the asteroid!

. . . what is it about asteroids and bad puns?

[Scotius]

It got me thinking. Are we sure there is not a single asteroid already orbiting Earth? Even a rock couple of meters in diameter on a eccentric, translunar orbit captured by Earth eons ago? It would be much easier to reach such body than hunt for NEO of sufficiently small mass.

[deadshot462]

There are a few asteroids that temporarily remain in Earth's SOI, but no permanent "moon" asteroids. I am pretty sure NASA plans to capture a NEO asteroid for the low dV cost.

I guess this is cheaper than landing on the Moon?

[dharak1]

I meant in terms of dimensions, these people don't care how dense the thing is it's size that they care about for all they care it could be a hollow tin sphere and it would kill us. Their only purpose is to stop science at the smallest sign of any type of danger to anything.

[Longsok]

I meant in terms of dimensions, these people don't care how dense the thing is it's size that they care about for all they care it could be a hollow tin sphere and it would kill us. Their only purpose is to stop science at the smallest sign of any type of danger to anything.

More like this seems so over their heads, what with the whole forum topic about gross misunderstandings about basic physics laws, that they view it as techno-magic. So they hear "asteroid" and think "boom", then immediately assume that is what would happen, because in their minds, Asteroids are rocks in space that fly about unpredictably.

[King Arthur]

I can't stop thinking that this whole thing is more about jobs and votes back on Earth than exploring space.

You've essentially hit the nail in the head, sadly. One of Constellation/SLS's primary purposes is to keep some STS-related jobs and contracts open following the termination of STS (this is one reason why Constellation/SLS reuses so much stuff from STS). If we were even half-serious about SLS we would have a clear destination in mind and a clear plan on how to do it by now instead of randomly changing objectives so damned much.

[metaphor]

The original plan for the EM-2 mission was for the astronauts to go into lunar orbit and then return. This proposed replacement mission does pretty much the same thing, except there would be an asteroid there for the astronauts to examine.

The main extra cost of the mission is the big solar electric propulsion (SEP) stage that goes to the asteroid and brings it back. The technological development of this SEP tug would enable much more efficient cargo transfer for crewed missions to Mars.

The estimated cost of the asteroid redirect mission is about $2-3 billion over 10 years. That's several times less than the estimated cost of a human Moon landing. Unfortunately, NASA can't do much else beyond LEO anytime soon with the budget it has now.

I think the best way forward after this mission would be to send humans to an actual "in the wild" asteroid that would be much bigger, more than 1 km in diameter. That would be an intermediate mission with less delta-v and less duration than a trip to Mars orbit, and no lander needed. And it would test out a deep-space habitat that could be identical to the one used for Mars missions, and also mission operations with significant light-speed delay. After that a mission to Phobos or Deimos would be the next harder step. A robotic sample-return mission to Mars would test entry, descent, and landing of heavy payloads, an ascent vehicle, and maybe In-Situ Resource Utilization. Then we would have all the ingredients for a crewed Mars landing. A lunar outpost might help test a surface habitat, but the gravity and surface environment on Mars is very different than the one on the Moon so it wouldn't have much value. A lunar outpost would also be very costly since so much delta-v is needed to land stuff on the Moon.