Posted on 02/11/2014 2:46:31 PM PST by 12th_Monkey
The results of a workshop to find the best ways to find, track and deflect asteroids headed for Earth were released by NASA on Friday (Feb. 7).
NASA's Asteroid Initiative, started in 2013, includes a mission to capture a small near-Earth asteroid and drag it into a stable orbit around the moon, and a challenge to devise the best ideas for detecting and defending against potentially dangerous asteroids.
The agency put out a request for information to refine the objectives of the Asteroid Initiative, to generate other mission concepts and increase participation in the mission and planetary defense.
NASA received an enthusiastic response, including from the general public. The agency evaluated the ideas it received and chose 96 of them to explore further at a two-part workshop at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, on Sept. 30 and Nov. 20 to 22, 2013.
"We are already acting on the ideas submitted through the [request] process," NASA said in a statement.
For example, the agency reactivated the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft, now known as NEOWISE, in Sept. 2013, to look for near-Earth asteroids that could be targets for the Asteroid Redirect Mission.
The workshop report also recommended holding more forums to get citizens involved in the Asteroid Initiative and create incentives to reach milestones in the asteroid mission and grand challenge.
The Asteroid Redirect Mission aims to capture a 23- to 33-foot (7 to 10 meters) asteroid, or a 1- to 33-foot. (1 to 10 m) boulder on a space rock, then haul it into lunar orbit using an unmanned spacecraft. Astronauts could then visit the asteroid using NASA's Orion crew capsule and Space Launch System rocket, bring samples of the rock down to Earth.
The Grand Challenge seeks to identify all asteroids that could pose a threat to humanity and boost NASA's current planetary defense efforts.
As a whole, the Asteroid Initiative aims to combine NASA's efforts in human space exploration, space technology and space science to achieve the first human mission to rendezvous with asteroid material and to improve our ability to track and prevent potential asteroid impacts.
see link for a short video
I’ve always wondered what they would find on an asteroid that we need, that isn’t already here on earth. And then how the economics work to go there, mine it, and bring it to earth? I mean... It would have to be some EXTRAORDINARY. I know the science geeks all foam at the mouth at the idea of mining asteroids... but there is no way it happens unless our tax dollars pay for it.
Nearly useless. The best we could hope for with the current technology available to us is to somehow interact with it while it's far away, and find a method for driving it off course. Nukes are something to try when every other ideas have been exhausted. So many variables are involved.
If we developed the ability to use asteroids as a weapon... there is no doubt we’d sell the technology to third world countries.....
Can’t we just position PLANET HILLARY out there and move her around so they strike her?? Other than that purpose, what good is she? Or, what difference does it make, to have PLANET HILLARY??
There are so many to choose from! It is hard to name them all.
Doubt they’d land it... drag it above the troposphere and send mining robots up to extract minerals.
They could probably get a big rock to behave and orbit as docilely as a SAT.
Sell? Hell john Brennan and little barry bastard boy would give it to al Qaeda.
What minerals would they find there that we need, that we don’t have on this planet? I don’t get the economic value.
Probably...
If we developed an attack dart swarm that plunged say half a million tiny jet-thrusters into an asteroid, we could move it around at will, if it was a slow-mover.
LOL... How many billions of R&D dollars would that cost? Our government is broke already. That’s all we need is to all pay for that.
All we need to do is figure out how whomever parked Phobos in orbit around Mars.
Same person who parked Earth in orbit around the Sun. Same method.
Mining contractors could pay all the costs.. mind you, this would only work with slow-moving NEOs. Fast-movers, we’re all gone.
Most asteroids are just undocumented space invaders which should be welcomed.
It's a great dream. There are NO economics in it for the private sector.
I’m not defending this. I’m just explaining why we might be reading this article published by NASA.
okay... thanks...
Throw politicians at them.
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