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
Maybe the NASA nerds can make it happen by the end of this millenia!!!
sark off!
Stand aside spend the money on social programs and hope if we’re hit by an asteroid that it will be where the least loss of intelligent life will occur like say Washington DC.
LOL!!
Thanks KoRn.
|
“How to Defend Planet From Asteroids”
It’s simple. Pass a law against them landing on Earth. It’s working so well for guns and drugs.
Might want to check that, FRiend.
>”Ive always wondered what they would find on an asteroid that we need, that isnt already here on earth”<
Obama’s real Birth Certificate?
“Ive always wondered what they would find on an asteroid that we need, that isnt already here on earth.”
The meteorites we’ve examined here, and analyses made of asteroids, suggests that there are much higher concentrations of heavy metals in space rocks than here (think “iridium anomaly” or “iridium layer” with respect to asteroid impact craters”.
So a cubic mile of asteroid will have much more platinum, iridium, halfnium, rhodium, palladium, tantalum, gold, and such than a cubic mile of typical Earth crust. A 500 meter asteroid contains about 150 times the annual global production of platinum on Earth.
And lots of nickel and iron, too, but that’s not worth near as much.
solution: beat your wife, bend over facing east and pray to the pedophile’s moon god allah.
the solution came from nasa’s muslim outreach exchgange.
Maybe NASA could research why so many federal agencies are developing their own SWAT teams and buying millions of bullets...
Amen to that.
ride’em cowboy
What could oprah, Biden, Schummer and the gang of 8 really do.
For a small one, but a larger one???
HA!
Would there be enough value to offset the cost?
not enough diversity...
” you also have to trust whoever else gets this capability.”
very good point.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.