NASA Proposes Manned Asteroid Mission 219
eldavojohn writes "NASA has proposed a manned asteroid mission to a near earth object. They mention this being viewed as a "gap-filler" to keep the public's attention between a lunar exploration & manned mars mission. The article also cites these goals as in line with the Constellation Program. From the article, 'Furthermore, a human venture to a space rock may well accelerate precursor robotic surveys of asteroids, Schweickart observed. "Early unmanned visits to asteroids ... it's the same pattern as we did with the Moon and we're doing right now with Mars. It's all pretty logical," he told SPACE.com.'"
Mining? (Score:5, Interesting)
If NASA's plans go forward, they're going to need a space infrastructure. Eventually, that will mean space-based manufacturing. For manufacturing, you need raw materials. Those raw materials are expensive to lift from Earth's gravity well. Ergo, the best solution is to mine them from much smaller gravity wells where the cost of transport is comparitively minimal.
The key issue that an mission to an asteroid would need to resolve is the actual composition and concentration of valuable ores. Scientists currently have a lot of educated guesses, but we won't know for sure until a geologist makes a proper survey.
Re:A Gap Filler? (Score:5, Interesting)
"The masses" would be the people that pay for what NASA does. I mean, I know I pay a lot of taxes. And the whole purpose of missions like this is to find activities that do benefit their program (more experience in different circumstances) while also stimulating an interest, in the taxpayers, to continuing to fund this stuff. Making sure that some of the testing and learning also happens to be interesting to watch is simply smart. We're a long way from stomping around Mars and looking under rocks, but we can do some very good CEV testing and some other very cool science near one of those interesting big rocks. And it will look great in HD.
Excellent book on why we should go to asteroids (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course the book was written before Luiz Alvarez proposed that asteroids likely were responsible for mass extinctions. However since that justification for travelling to the asteroids has been discussed endlessly I don't think the omission hurts this book.
If you can find this book (I'm sure it's been out of print for decades) and have the time to read it, please do, It will help restore the feeling of endless possibilities that some of us had about space travel when we were young.
"Islands in Space: The Challenge of the Planetoids" Donald Cox and Dandridge Cole
By the way, if you've read this far, you might want to check out my previous musings on asteroids - http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171538&cid=14
Re:Bad idea in lots of ways (Score:2, Interesting)
Compared to whom? Where are the moon landings accomplished by private enterprise?
"We need solutions to fundamental problems. You don't get that from a committee."
Name one private enterprise with the assets to attempt a moon landing that isn't run by committee.
Until you anarcho-capitalists can show me something concrete, I'm not willing to let these things be thrown to the wolves of your illusory free market. Perhaps if you'd accomplished more in space exploration than, say, the communist Soviet Union, your words might have weight.
Re:Mining? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not entirely.
Most refining is reduction of the metal. In space you have no O2 atmosphere to interfere with the redux reaction, so all you add is power. should be a push when all is said and done. Also, in the low G environment I'd think that you could make some pretty awesome alloys that normally would be self-separating due to gravity. Might easily pay for its self back here on earth, getting into the gravity well is cheap.
-nB
Holes in the theory (Score:3, Interesting)
Plus, when was the last time somebody wrapped something that big? It would probably take hundreds of thousands of pounds of plastic, plus some sort of machine that to lay it all down. And you'd need nozzles. If you want to control it, you can't just cut a hole and call it good. And you have to the center of mass precisely, which would change as material is jettisoned, or it tumbles.
Also, you're talking about a lot of momentum change here, from a low impulse thruster. Comets move fast through the inner solar system. It would take a lot of mass and a long time to swing it into a useful orbit.
Probably a better idea is to land a couple solar or nuclear powered mass drivers on the comet that would actively launch material in the opposite direction you wanted to accellerate the main mass. It's still a major leap beyond what we can technically and economically accomplish right now...except perhaps if we found ourselves absolutely needing to and we had enough time.