But Mark Sykes, president of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and chair of NASA’s Small Bodies Assessment Group, remains a big fan of asteroids. He notes that human explorers could search for resources such as water. Scientists could seek to understand the subtle pressure of light that causes asteroids to change their spin, and could retrieve samples for dating and chemical analysis that would offer a clearer picture of Solar System material than do meteorites, which, although they are pieces of asteroids, are altered during their fall through Earth’s atmosphere.
But all this could be done more cheaply with a robotic mission, says Sykes. Without a sustained drive towards something bigger — such as a human presence on Mars — even Sykes isn’t terribly excited. “You go to an asteroid, then what?” he says. “If it’s all performance art, that’s not much of a mission.”
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on December 12, 2012.
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23 Comments
Add CommentI'm confused. Forget where we should or shouldn't put priorities but isn't NASA a federal agency? How can it be spending its BILLIONS willy nilly? It can just do as it likes? It sets its own goals?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNASA's manned flight has gone from the jewell in the crown to a friggin embarrassment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe first problem is letting politics and politicians have any input at all here. The moon should be first and colonized, not just visited. An asteroid is ridiculous. Unless it is made of iron, diamonds or some other useful stubstance and the plan is to mine it or tow it back and mine it, there is no purpose to an asteroid visit at least in the first decades as we learn about space travel and living. Mars is a better second choice, big target to hit, variables like spin and other dangers are mitigated but before any of that happens we need a place to start and that is the moon. Once a true colony is establish and functional, space ships can be built in space where it would be easier. Many raw materials can likely come from the moon and it is also likely safer and easier to ship payloads of raw material up than it is finished products.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only time politicians come into play is to look at the various plans and choose the best one to get the job done.
Though in reality, we should not have the government do any of it, let some private entity foot the bill and build ships and habitation. There is a lot more money in private accounts than even the US government, they just wont spend it on something like space travel because of all the uncertainty politicians tend to generate.
I don't understand how others fail to recognize the value of asteroids as a stepping-stone for greater exploration of the solar system.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismanned space travel is not cost effective vs robots by an order of magnitude. We will learn much more from unmanned expeditions -- even our military understands that now. Time to reign in the human egos and work smart.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOk, first the original space program cost something like 1% of the military spending for the same time period and returned billions to companies in innovative technology. Second, Lamar must be on crack since his post made no sense. Third, Fossilnut is correct. It is an embarrassing that the U.S. has to hitch rides to space from the Russians. Fifth (I will come back to fourth in a minute),asteroids are a great stepping stone to exploring the solar system but the moon is the first stepping stone. You have to crawl before you leap. Fourth, going to the asteroids for diamonds would be folly as diamond prices are controlled by DeBeers and a few other countries. Iron is little better reason but gold and other core metals is a far better reason, if they could be targeted for mining. Also it is impossible to eliminate politics from space travel at the moment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow key points: 1.A space station would be a better launch point than the moon for travel to the solar system but the moon is perfect for mining materials (and possibly H3 for the drive eventually). 2. The moon is still important for planetary study as we still do not know all of it's secrets. 3.Building a base on the moon would be invaluable in getting the practice for building a sustainable a colony on Mars and other harsh environments. 4. The moon is a better place to ship resources from to a Mars colony. 5. The moon has an enormously important strategic position that absolutely cannot be ceded to the Russians or the Chinese. These are but a few of the reasons that Obama needs to recognize and prioritize a return to the moon forthwith.
If diamonds are created deep within a planet's interior, where heat and pressure can crush carbon, then why would we expect to find them on an asteroid?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLikewise gold. Sure it likely came to our planet in a meteoric bombardment period after the basic core and mantle structure was formed (thus not all sinking into the core), but it still took our planet's melting and churning convection processes to concentrate it into economically useful amounts. Same with most of the other precious metals.
I don't believe that asteroids do that.
pridisseren: "The first problem is letting politics and politicians have any input at all here. The moon should be first and colonized, not just visited"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSays who? you? I disagree. Going to the Moon is expensive and accomplishes zip. Your assumption is that if we get democracy out of it then YOUR vision prevails. Why not MY vision...unmanned only. Way more cost productive, efficient.
NASA is not the personal fiefdom of NASA's director or of any one decision maker. We all get a say...it's called democracy (we had your vision under colonialism, it was called taxation without representation)
If manned travel around the solar system IS in our future, then I'd rather spend our resources developing the means of doing so quickly and safely, rather then sending people places for it's own sake and kind of making it up as we go along.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA year long round trip to an asteroid creates all kinds problems, from the supplies necessary to the exposure to cosmic radiation. We need to come up with a propulsion system commensurate to the requirement rather than send the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria.
There's little advantage to manned 'anywhere' in the solar system rather being in orbit. It's much easier to maintain a space station than any surface base. Multiple less technology and multiple less expensive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnmanned missions will usually be the cheapest way to do science, politics will always be involved in government programs, and if asteroids are worth mining the private sector will mine them once it becomes feasible. The government's role there is to enhance feasibility.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, lamar is not on crack; lamar is spam. Please join me in clicking the Report Abuse button under lamar's post. Do not worry about lamar's human rights. Lamar is an unmanned mission.
The election is over, rationality prevailed, and the nation's compost heap is filled with bitter, used-up old TEABAGS.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt should not be seen as an "either asteroid or Moon or Mars" choice, but all of the above. Asteroids are floating supply depots if we learn to use them. They are typically 40% by mass Oxygen, which is 70-100% of propellant needs for both chemical and electric thrusters. Certain asteroids can also supply Hydrogen or hydrocarbons for the remainder of the propellants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe best Near-Earth asteroids require 1/6 the fuel to reach as the Lunar surface, and can return up to 500 times your initial mining craft mass, assuming you extract enough propellant to make the next trip.
Therefore asteroid mining can make it easier to reach the Moon and Mars, by supplying the propellants to get there. Once you start mining, you can learn to make other useful products, but propellants are the largest item by mass, so the first you should attempt.
Once on the Moon, you should also extract propellants to get *back*, and similarly on Phobos around Mars, and the Martian surface. You won't ever be able to sustain large scale programs beyond Earth if you need huge rockets just to supply fuel for every trip. You need to be able get your supplies wherever you are, and reduce the Earth launch requirement to instruments and humans, and the occasional new vehicle that you use multiple trips back and forth.
What are the costs and what equipment would be necessary to efficiently crush the rock, cook the slurry, extract the raw oxygen, compress it, and store it for future use?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd are asteroids stable enough to support those kinds mining operations in the first place? Some of them have precious little gravity, tremendous spin, and wildly fluctuating temperatures based on sun side/shadow side.
jahtez, that's absolutely right! We have the means to produce a space ship capable of quite a lot faster flight than we're used to seeing, but the budget and the vision are the only things holding it back. If it took only a 1-2 week round trip at the same cost as a moon trip, it would've happened already. So the question is how to drop the costs drastically without cutting back on safety or performance. Russia and China competed originallly based on cheap labor, lower safety standards and command economies. Now, Russia has commercialized a fairly consistent launch service, while our government is wallowing in debts that exceed our wildest nightmares. Commercial interests could do it, but only if they really cooperated to make a united effort.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCompetition is good for innovation, but the commercial developments haven't surprised us with a disruptive techological leap in propulsion yet and they're still jostling with the safety and range issues.
Unless my past 18 months of abstinance from scientific journals has left me far behind on the news, commercial efforts are still far short of achieving lunar landings, much less an asteroid or Mars landing.
Where is the hyperwarp runway launched orbiter we've seen advertised already for over a decade? If this was the space race of the 60's, you can bet it would've gotten full backing from congress & the president. By now, it could've been commercialized.
The 1st US lunar base could've been achieved 25-30 years ago. The shuttle program & LEO station(s) would've been developed into orbital fuel depots for pitstops on the way to and from the moon. Next, they would've been expanded or superceded by orbital shipyards for building and supplying craft for long-haul voyages to Mars and the outer planets.
In-orbit refueling would enable longer high-propulsion bursts to achieve higher initial velocities. The final stages would have solar sails, nuclear and/or electromagnetic propulsion.
Spin-offs would still be increasing and innovation would be rampant.
International flights would be 1/2 hour jumps, not all-day affairs.
We'd probably also see a US base on the back side of the moon and polar bases. Production of interplanetary craft would've started up in the '80s. A Mars base could've been build as early as the '90s or early '00s.
We've shifted out of gear for too long and are coasting to a stop due to introspection, meditating on our navel, or arguing over mixed signals, rather than getting on the bandwagon with our butts out there on the line, making it happen. We've all become too soft.
In short, once the USSR collapsed, the wind went out of our sails and we forgot about all the benefits that a space program generates. Politicians started thinking more about the economy and cutting back on military and space programs, without realizing that the economic health of the country is intricately connected with the space program. Now, other powers can outpace our launch capacity with larger equipment and our government doesn't look at that with the same gravity of concern as back then. They believe we live in a safer world, just because the USSR collapsed and we could spend more time contemplating our navels than on making any serious effort to increase our space program's technological and/or launch capacity lead or building up our orbital and extraplanetary infrastructure.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey've been ignoring China's military buildup and ongoing space program as a viable threat, yet focus on pipsqueak N. Korea's recent satelite/missile launch with great concern, but are left with no way to rattle their cages, because the US already has enough nukes to erase that country in a hearbeat, but NK still beligerently flaunts it's audacity and will not take much longer to prove itself to be a real threat to the USA.
We can only hope the Star Wars program initiated at President Reagan's behest has been brought to full fruition, since the political reality is that the US would not make a nuclear strike nowadays, even in a retaliatory way, due to the risk to Japan, South Korea and the Philippines from the fall-out.
In order to ensure the solar system remains as an accessible, unpolluted and peaceful place, we freedom loving people need to be out there pushing the envelope, developing a sustainable and growing orbital and extraplanetary infrastructure and presence, using the highest technology available.
This is essential in working out how to apply good governance in such an environment and in ensuring we make the needed discoveries before those with hostile motives do.
If we don't lead the way with our highest ideals, space will become just one more place for pirates, tyrants and anarchists to flourish and eventually overrun us. Even now, a wealthy backer might be able to help terrorists obtain and launch a sub-orbital or even orbital dispatched strike against any target and get away with it because we've almost completely dismantle our means of advancing in space.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt was good to make commercial space flight a possibility, but it was a humungous mistake to drop NASA's own lunar and Mars programs, because those are the only ones that truly have the ability at this time to establish a lasting foothold beyond Earth orbit.
Sending up drones and robots is relatively like kid's play, not serious development for making human endevours to ensure humanity's long-term survival. We've known about radiation and bone loss for decades, but we've also known that planets have far better chances of reducing those effects than a freakin' asteroid. Not to mention the asteroid is more likely to destroy your ship and your chances of returning home safely.
We've already sent robot ships out past the edge of the solar system. We achieve so little with each rover and each space probe because those are limited to the same instruments they were launched with, for the full duration of their missions and beyond. Humans, though frail compared to well-built machines, are far more adaptive and can and must learn in order to survive and to educate the rest of humanity about living off-world. They can learn new techniques and keep equipment operational. They can improvise far more freely and immediately than waiting several minutes or more for a response from a remote-controlled machine.
Machines, on the other hand have limited or no learning ability, provide limited views, limited sensory gear and no common sense analysis capabilty.
Rovers get stuck for months because of a light coating of dust on their solar panels or because their wheel gets cockeyed.
A human could get out of the rover and continue on foot, or repair that wheel and dust off the solar panel. They could rapel down the cliff instead of just giving up or falling off it.
The geeks back at control centers must be satisfied with their role-playing VR games or they must think they are gods, to believe they could replace human presence with machines and not wind up short-changing the whole world in a very large way.
I guess they're just missing that sense of adventure and of taking their life in their hands for the cause of pioneering a new way of life and a new future of hope for mankind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoctors, engineers, geologists, commercial enterprises, national interests and many others would all be served well by having a hands-on experience, to stimulate further development and that won't happen by virtual reality. Back in the '60s, test pilots were the real pioneers, and we all know the risks they were willing to accept to be allowed the honor of being the first to fly a given craft, but even with that buckaroo mentality, those guys were highly educated and highly capable people.
Now, the ruling order of the day is to not risk any human life whatsoever, in spite of the potential rewards. One has to ask, given a person's drive to be the first to go somewhere, why are we holding them on leashes now?
Here's my idea, using known technolgy of today, albeit some of it is bleeding edge:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConstruct an orbital depot for fuel, supplies and outfitting.
Launch-to-orbit by scram jet.
Assemble massive thruster stages, craft, landing & takeoff vehicles and rover in orbit.
Fuel it in orbit.
Use manouvering thrusters to distance it from the depot, orient it for orbital escape and fire main thrusters.
Spent stages to be sent on slow return trajectory for refuel and reuse, with enough reserve fuel for course corrections and gravity assited deceleration to matching orbit. It costs a lot of time, money and effort to put it into space, so don't waste it.
Interplanetary combined solar sail & ion propulsion. Use solar sail and thrusters to decelarate to orbital velocity. Follow the known interplanetary fast-lane paths to shorten the trip.
Orbit/Escape stage provide deceleration to destination orbit and escape acceleration for return trip.
Lander/Return/Habitat module to carry fuel for deorbit, manouvering, landing and take-off to return to orbit and re-dock with the orbiter.
Is there a way to harness a solar sail and ion drive in combination? Could the solar sail remain taught reducing the load on the ion drive, or do we use it on the outbound leg and stow it for the return leg, in favor of the ion drive?
If the sail without the ion drive would work better than the combination, keep the ion drive on reserve for the return trip and/or in case the sail is tangled or lost. The solar sail could assist deorbiting for the return trip, buy opening it while going towards the leeward side of the planet, but would need to be stowed or at least turned edge-on before exiting the umbra of the planet.
Using this combination on both legs of the round-trip, what would the round-trip time would be, not counting surface time? Of course, you'd need real figures to answer that.
Try a scenario of increasing velocity to 50 X existing launch vehicle limits, by orbiting several fueled tanks and thrusters & clustering them at the assembly depot.
They could use their full contents for escape, rather than dumping the bulk of it for reachign orbit, this should be achievable with existing rocket types.
That would shorten a year to a little over a week; about the same as a lunar landing mission of the '70s.
This should reduce the risks considerably. Add extra thick radiation shielding & compensate with more fuel tanks and thrusters.
We'll see if your bam-bam can pay for the space program without yet again raising the debt ceiling and the taxes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLest you forget, it's not just up to Obama.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm still into asteroids as a stepping-stone: a base, a low-gravity construction platform for deeper-space missions.
But in the end, it's the fault of the American space establishment as a whole that it can't just pick some destination (any one will do) and GO FOR IT. If you keep on switching from one thing to another, you'll never end up anywhere. That's why I would hope that, at this point, we can just stick with the latest plan: asteroid.
I think the main goal should be to establish a self sustaining off world human settlement. The reason for that is that there is a non-zero probability of a life ending asteroid/comet event collision with earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe spin-off of such a venture will be all kinds of science. Any and all means need to be used including private investment in all kinds of space travel as well as international co-operation.
The amount that would need to be invested is dwarfed by the military spending currently going on.
Such a new space endeavour could also have the advantage of refocussing national security issues into the "new venue" of off world locations.
"Such a new space endeavour could also have the advantage of refocussing national security issues into the "new venue" of off world locations."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat does that mean?