Posted on 12/19/2007 5:28:54 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Astronauts, space buffs and an unimpressed public hunger for space exploration that's more dramatic, more heroic, more new. Something like, say, landing astronauts on a distant rock hurtling through space at 15 miles per second. That's exactly the kind of trip NASA has been studying. In fact, scientists at the space agency recently determined that a manned mission to a near-Earth asteroid would be possible using technology being developed today... This wouldn't be our first trip to an asteroid. We've been visiting them by proxy for years now, using unmanned space probes. In 2000 NASA's NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft arrived at 433 Eros, which a century earlier became the first near-Earth asteroid known to man; five years later, the Japanese Hayabusa probe touched down on asteroid 25143 Itokawa... if we're to have any hope of deflecting asteroids, we need to know a lot more about them than we do now... Preliminary observations suggest that some asteroids are rich in useful minerals and, better yet, frozen water -- the most valuable resource a space traveler could hope to find. If water could be extracted from asteroids, it could not only be used for drinking, but also broken down into oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for rocket fuel... Forty-one years ago, a scientist at Northrop (now Northrop Grumman) proposed using moon rockets to go to an asteroid... The biggest logistical hurdle is the sheer distance involved. It takes a few days to travel the 238,855 miles to the moon, but it will take more than a month to cover the distance of up to 4.5 million miles separating us from just about any asteroid of interest.
(Excerpt) Read more at popsci.com ...
Wanted: Man to land on Killer Asteroid and gently nudge it from path to Earth
www.guardian.co.uk | Friday November 17, 2006 | David Adam
Posted on 11/17/2006 8:15:39 AM EST by Esther Ruth
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1740196/posts
regarding reasons to go:
Clandestine comets found in main asteroid belt - Earth oceans origin
newscientist space | 23 March 2006
Posted on 03/24/2006 5:26:05 AM EST by S0122017
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1602203/posts
Did A Giant Impact Create The Two Faces Of Mars?
New Scientist | 3-15-2007 | David Shiga
Posted on 03/15/2007 5:14:24 PM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1801508/posts
Asteroid Breakup May Have Doomed Dinosaurs
Centauri Dreams | 9/5/07
Posted on 09/05/2007 2:55:02 PM EDT by LibWhacker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1891592/posts
other crewed mission ideas:
NASA aims to put man on Mars by 2037
breitbart | Sep 24
Posted on 09/24/2007 1:41:14 PM EDT by Names Ash Housewares
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1901453/posts
and, regarding the DAWN mission to Ceres and Vesta:
NASA Reviews Canceled Asteroid Mission
(”unusual move”, new evidence, ‘Dawn’ lives?)
AP on Yahoo | 3/15/06 | Alicia Chang - ap
Posted on 03/15/2006 11:00:52 PM EST by NormsRevenge
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1597195/posts
NASA Restarts Canceled Asteroid Mission - DAWN
AP on Yahoo | 3/27/06 | Alicia Chang - AP
Posted on 03/27/2006 3:40:16 PM EST by NormsRevenge
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1604151/posts
Dawn spacecraft to blast off Sunday on mission to 2 asteroids
AP on Bakersfield Californian | 7/5/07 | Alicia Chang - AP
Posted on 07/05/2007 3:40:25 PM EDT by NormsRevenge
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1861344/posts
Asteroid mission postponed until July 15
(NASA’s Dawn spacecraft destined for Vesta and Ceres)
AP on Yahoo | 7/6/07 | AP
Posted on 07/06/2007 10:59:06 PM EDT by NormsRevenge
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1862065/posts
NASA delays launch of Dawn spacecraft
(Cape Canaveral: Rescheduled)
Xinhua and Space.com | July 7, 2007
Posted on 07/07/2007 5:22:52 PM EDT by bd476
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1862341/posts
NASA to embark on asteroid-belt mission
(DAWN - launch set for just after sunrise Thursday 9/27/07)
AP on Yahoo | 9/25/07 | Marcia Dunn - ap
Posted on 09/25/2007 9:51:42 PM EDT by NormsRevenge
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1902160/posts
Asteroid mission gets its chance (Ion Propulsion)
BBC News | 27 September 2007 | Staff
Posted on 09/27/2007 8:03:30 AM EDT by Aristotelian
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1902897/posts
NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft Begins Trek to Asteroid Belt
Space.com | 27 September 2007 | Tariq Malik
Posted on 09/27/2007 4:10:44 PM EDT by saganite
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1903165/posts
Dawn Liftoff at Dawn... on mission to Ceres and Vesta
Dawn Mission | 09/28/2007 | NASA
Posted on 09/28/2007 10:17:50 AM EDT by cogitator
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1903546/posts
Whad’da ya’ mean “Far-fetched”?
I already seen the movie!
Bruce Willis, please pick up the white courtesy phone.
Just gotta get to 800 feet...
At this point I’m still more interested in building something permanent on the moon or getting to mars.
Until we can manage a permanent human presence on the Moon, there’s not much point in heading for Mars. But a big booster will be needed regardless of what we’re doing with crewed missions. :’) IMV, we should plant the flag on every solar system body where it’s possible — eventually. IOW, Mars, Mercury, maybe some of the other moons of the gas giants, and (to get ready for the latter), the asteroids. I think what will happen instead is a swarm of USV (unmanned space vehicles, basically probes of high functionality and some autonomy, but small-sized) to assay all the large asteroids, beginning with the Earth-crossers.
Absolutely! To boldly go . . . .
(Hey, we can split the atom, why can't we split infinitives?)
Those infinitives are just askin’ to be split anyway...
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