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Posted on 11/23/2009 5:42:37 PM PST by KevinDavis
BOULDER, Colo. – Call it Operation: Plymouth Rock. A plan to send a crew of astronauts to an asteroid is gaining momentum, both within NASA and industry circles.
Not only would the deep space sojourn shake out hardware, it would also build confidence in long-duration stints at the moon and Mars. At the same time, the trek would sharpen skills to deal with a future space rock found on a collision course with Earth.
In Lockheed Martin briefing charts, the mission has been dubbed "Plymouth Rock – An Early Human Asteroid Mission Using Orion." Lockheed is the builder of NASA's Orion spacecraft, the capsule-based replacement for the space shuttle.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
I wouldn’t want to be on a human mission where the planners are on speed.
2020?
2025?
Maybe the Indians or the Chinese will do it.
The good ole US of A is going to be flat broke. We’ll be lucky if we can afford a manned mission to starbucks.
Probably a good idea for a lot of reasons.
We’re losing the Shuttle and putting our Lunar projects “on hold, just for a little while, honest”.
Someone will get there, I’m sure. Someone will also get the technology to deflect asteroids and smaller rocks, too. For keeping us all safe, you understand, they’d never push a rock AT Earth for geopolitical gain.
Ever!
I guess this will be Hillary’s next mission.
Why would such a mission need to be manned? From LM’s viewpoint I’d guess it means more money.
That could be cool.
Asteroids might end up being a very profitable business for a private company. One asteroid in particular, in a near Earth orbit, about 70 times further from Earth than the Moon, is called 433 Eros. It is about 34km x 11 km x 11km, yet is believed to have more rare metals than the entire crust of the Earth.
On Earth, for example, platinum group metals are so rare that mined ores contain about 2 parts per million of platinum. Were a probe to land on 433 Eros, mine it somewhat, and concentrate its platinum, other platinum group metals, gold, and other valuable elements to just a five percent of the mass of the ore, it could be worth several million dollars.
If it had a nuclear furnace on board, so could melt the rock and produce just a big ball of mixed metal, it could even use the spinning momentum of the asteroid to hurl the ball in the general direction of Earth, for space recovery.
Nothing *needs* to be manned, just as the USA didn't have to go to the Moon. However a manned mission is more challenging, and as such it calls for development of technologies and vehicles that otherwise would be not developed here.
A manned mission is also more flexible. Imagine that you sent a probe to an asteroid that is flying through the system. The probe approaches, takes a photo, and you suddenly see an alien ship on that asteroid. What do you do with your probe? Nothing. You say goodbye to the FTL drive that is on the ship, since the asteroid won't be back until year 2387. But a manned mission most likely includes landing (which is very cheap there) and the crew can explore the object all they want.
But we don't even need to look at such exotic possibilities as an alien ship. You have a deep fissure in the asteroid, and if you can descend (which is again trivial in near zero gravity) you can see what the asteroid is made of, beneath the surface dust. A robot can't do that - they aren't smart enough yet to do such a thing. But an astronaut can easily go into such places, take samples, look around, follow clues and such.
In other words, a robot (as we know them today) can do only a fixed mission, and robots do them just fine. I would never send a human to stay in orbit around Mars for a year and take 12,000,000 photos of the surface. This is something a machine is better suited for. But if you need to investigate something then a robot can spend a year there and still not accomplish what is needed. As another example, the robot on Mars can dig a trench up to 20" deep in hope of finding water ice there. What if the ice is deeper by just 1"? A human would dig as deep as practical, climbing down into the hole as needed or making an extension for the shovel out of spare parts and duct tape. A robot can't dig deeper than its mechanical arm is, end of story. Or another example. A robot can drive for a day to a rock, then grind a stone a bit to see what's under the surface. A human would take a hammer and split the rock in two, and the answer is immediately obvious.
Not only would the deep space sojourn shake out hardware, it would also build confidence in long-duration stints at the moon and Mars. At the same time, the trek would sharpen skills to deal with a future space rock found on a collision course with Earth.Thanks again, KevinDavis.
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Haven't we already developed the technologies for manned missions?
But we don't even need to look at such exotic possibilities as an alien ship.
Then why did you mention it?
You have a deep fissure in the asteroid,
Do asteroids have deep fissures, and if they do would NASA risk sending an astronaut into it?
A human would dig as deep as practical, climbing down into the hole as needed or making an extension for the shovel out of spare parts and duct tape. A robot can't dig deeper than its mechanical arm is, end of story.
How deep did the astronauts dig on the Moon?
A human would take a hammer and split the rock in two, and the answer is immediately obvious.
Why can't the machine return the rocks to Earth to be studied?
No. I went outside and looked up, and I couldn't see any interplanetary spaceship in orbit, ready for a mission.
But we don't even need to look at such exotic possibilities as an alien ship. -- Then why did you mention it?
Because it's fun, of course. And because it may happen. Many SciFi writers speculate that humanity will get the next scientific breakthrough from an alien civilization. Or we can build our own FTL drive, it will take only a few thousand years; our knowledge of this Universe is very spotty at the moment. As an example, we don't know what causes such a mundane thing as mass.
Do asteroids have deep fissures, and if they do would NASA risk sending an astronaut into it?
They may have them. If they do it's up to the astronauts to decide if the descent would be safe enough. For example, you can descend into the Grand Canyon without fear that it will close upon you. And you can't fall on an asteroid.
How deep did the astronauts dig on the Moon?
"The Apollo moon rocks were collected using a variety of tools, including hammers, rakes, scoops, tongs, and core tubes." (link).
Why can't the machine return the rocks to Earth to be studied?
It would be a shame to return a wrong rock. A geologist at the site would instantly decide what should and what shouldn't be returned. Most interesting rocks are not on surface anyway, that's why I mentioned fissures.
“Asteroids might end up being a very profitable business for a private company.”
Except the UN Treaty On Space specificaly forbids any private space ventures for profit like mining.
Mining astroids in the Treaty is only permitted for governments, and only for the benefit of all countries.
Tell me another one. Seriously, that treaty is so unenforceable that they might have well tried to make one that in case anybody catches some real life leprechauns, that they have to share their pot o’ gold.
Governments do some impressively inane stuff at times. One of my favorites is that by US law, if somebody meets or has contact with a space alien, they can be imprisoned indefinitely by the NASA Administrator. It was passed on the spur of the moment during the first Moon landing mission, and is still on the books. The text can be found with the THOMAS system.
Nuclear weapons in space is another ha-ha treaty, because nobody is going to admit to doing so, or they don’t have the technology to do so.
Perhaps, but how's you like to be the CEO of a company which contravened the treaty with Federal prosecutors coming after you? They might lose, but you'd be out millions in legal fees.
Further, the US Supreme Court would likely uphold the Fed's contentions against you and you now bankrupt company - based on prior decisions of signed US treaties.
Remember as a non-Indian, you have only privileges which can be revoked at any given time - which basically means any case you bring to the US Supreme Court concerning signed US treaties will result in you losing.
That assumes you take off and land in the US. If you take off and land off a launch pad in international waters, you not only don’t need permission, but you don’t have to tell anyone what you are doing, other than “commercial launch, we are not an ICBM”, which they can remotely verify.
Returning back to Earth with a ball of mostly platinum, rhodium, and gold, would be worth about $50M a ton at today’s prices. So you’d want to park your mining operation on 433 Eros, have it mine and refine such balls of metal, then use the asteroids own spin to hurl them in the direction of Earth, to be recovered in space and brought back down.
And given the lack of prospect for future mining on Earth of platinum group metals, and their incredible value as catalysts, that price could double or triple.
Don’t like this because it is replacement for lunar return and Mars landings.
We kick around an asteroid or bounce around Phobos while China mines lunar helium 3?
No thanks. But under Obama this is as good as it may get.
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