I would recommend reading Paul Gilster's recent blog on the topic of asteroids in our future.
He has many other interesting blogs as well.
This quote from his Charter - "In Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster looks at peer-reviewed research on deep space exploration, with an eye toward interstellar possibilities."
Paul should help your looking up experience.
- LRK -
Asteroids in our Future
by PAUL GILSTER on JUNE 27, 2013
NASA has released an Asteroid Initiative Request for Information on the issue of asteroid retrieval. It’s an interesting document both in its audience — the agency is making a point about soliciting comments not only from academics, scientists and engineers but the general public — but also because of the issues it explores. Being sought are ideas on how best to capture an asteroid, land an astronaut on one, and change its orbit, not necessarily in that order. The Los Angeles Times quotes NASA associate director Robert Lightfoot on the public component of NASA’s initiative:
“Too often, by the time we present a mission to the public, it has already been baked, and there’s not much we can change. This is your chance to present your ideas to us before the mission is baked.”
If you’re interested in contributing, move quickly, for the deadline for responses is July 18, with a workshop to follow in September.
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After you read Paul Gilster's blog you may want to be entertained by listening to Phil Plait, if you haven't already done so.
- LRK -
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How Can We Defend Earth From Asteroids?
"When I go outside and it's clear? Yeah, I look up. It's a habit. It's something I wish more people did. You may seem something that will profoundly affect you."— Phil Plait
Gazing up at the night sky is simultaneously humbling and utterly thrilling. This hour, we'll hear from TED speakers who share an infectious sense of wonder and curiosity about our place in the universe and what lies beyond our skies.
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Will continue to watch along with you.
Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -
The unlikely plan, announced in April by Fla. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and said to be included in a $100 million appropriation in President Obama’s 2014 budget, is for an unmanned spaecraft to be launched by 2017 to capture a 25-ft., 500-ton asteroid with, yes, a giant drawstring bag. The rock would then be towed back to the vicinity of the moon where it would be safely parked in space. In 2021, astronauts would travel out to the asteroid in a brand new Apollo-like spacecraft lofted by a brand-new heavy-lift rocket. Once there, they would land, prospect for metals and learn more about both living off the cosmic land and deflecting rogue asteroids that might threaten Earth.
Read more: http://science.time.com/
Redirecting an asteroid mission
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- LRK -
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NASA’s Proposed Asteroid Capture Mission
Animation By Jeffrey Kluger June 27, 2013
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The best two things you can say about this video NASA just posted of its proposed asteroid capture mission is that it’s insanely cool to watch and it will cost you only 4 minutes and 42 seconds of your life. The worst you can say is that it will cost taxpayers billions of dollars in development costs before it is ultimately discarded as unworkable, impractical and—not to put too fine a point on it—ridiculous.
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The unlikely plan, announced in April by Fla. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and said to be included in a $100 million appropriation in President Obama’s 2014 budget, is for an unmanned spaecraft to be launched by 2017 to capture a 25-ft., 500-ton asteroid with, yes, a giant drawstring bag. The rock would then be towed back to the vicinity of the moon where it would be safely parked in space. In 2021, astronauts would travel out to the asteroid in a brand new Apollo-like spacecraft lofted by a brand-new heavy-lift rocket. Once there, they would land, prospect for metals and learn more about both living off the cosmic land and deflecting rogue asteroids that might threaten Earth.
Read more: http://science.time.com/
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Redirecting an asteroid mission
by Jeff Foust
Monday, June 24, 2013
Monday, June 24, 2013
When NASA released its fiscal year 2014 budget proposal two and a half months ago, a key element of it was a new “asteroid initiative” that called for $105 million for various asteroid search and technology development efforts. The centerpiece of that plan was a robotic mission to capture a small near Earth asteroid, no more than about ten meters across, and move it into cislunar space, where it could potentially be visited by astronauts on the first crewed Orion mission, slated for 2021 (see “To catch a planetoid”, The Space Review, April 22, 2013).
That proposed mission—called at the time the Asteroid Retrieval Mission, or ARM—raised more than a few eyebrows when NASA announced it in April. Some questioned the technical feasibility of the concept (which is based on a 2012 study by the Keck Institute for Space Studies at Caltech) while others wondered how useful it would be for science or human exploration. Now, with some members of Congress making moves to block the effort, NASA is showing signs of subtly shifting the focus of the proposed mission, and the overall initiative, more towards the less controversial role planetary defense.
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NASA's proposed asteroid-snaring mission would ride on Glenn ion engines (video)
Inside cavernous "Tank 5," a vacuum chamber as big as a subway tunnel at Cleveland's NASA Glenn Research Center, a soft sapphire glow spilled from the nozzle of an odd-looking spacecraft engine earlier this month.
The turquoise plume was a familiar sight to the engineers running the test. Ion engines, which spout bluish jets of electrically excited atoms rather than chemical flames like a traditional rocket, have been a Glenn specialty for more than 40 years. Their gentle, continuous push produces astounding speeds, using only tiny sips of xenon fuel.
The turquoise plume was a familiar sight to the engineers running the test. Ion engines, which spout bluish jets of electrically excited atoms rather than chemical flames like a traditional rocket, have been a Glenn specialty for more than 40 years. Their gentle, continuous push produces astounding speeds, using only tiny sips of xenon fuel.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -
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