Image: Rick Sternbach/Keck Institute for Space Studies
Capturing a near-Earth asteroid and dragging it into orbit around the moon could help humanity put boots on Mars someday, proponents of the idea say.
NASA is considering a $2.6 billion asteroid-retrieval mission that could deliver a space rock to high lunar orbit by 2025 or so, New Scientist reported last week. The plan could help jump-start manned exploration of deep space, carving out a path to the Red Planet and perhaps even more far-flung destinations, its developers maintain.
"Experience gained via human expeditions to the small returned NEA would transfer directly to follow-on international expeditions beyond the Earth-moon system: to other near-Earth asteroids, [the Mars moons] Phobos and Deimos, Mars and potentially someday to the main asteroid belt," the mission concept team, which is based at the Keck Institute for Space Studies in California, wrote in a feasibility study of the plan last year.
Space agency officials confirm that NASA is indeed looking at the Keck proposal as a way to help extend humanity's footprint out into the solar system. But the assessment is still in its early stages, with nothing decided yet.
"There are many options — and many routes — being discussed on our way to the Red Planet," Bob Jacobs, deputy associate administrator for the Office of Communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., told SPACE.com via email. "NASA and the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are giving the study further review to determine its feasibility." [NASA's Spacecraft for Asteroid Missions Revealed (Photos)]
Enabling manned exploration of deep space
In the Keck plan, an unmanned probe would snag a 25-foot-wide (7 meters) near-Earth asteroid, then haul it back to lunar orbit for future study and exploration.
Its developers see the mission as a way for humanity to get a toehold beyond low-Earth orbit, allowing our species to hone techniques and acquire skills that manned missions to more distant destinations will require.
For example, the robotic mission would help develop the precision flying techniques demanded by a manned mission to a near-Earth asteroid. Further, study of the captured space rock could teach researchers how to efficiently extract water from asteroids — a resource that could be an off-Earth source of radiation shielding and rocket fuel for journeying spacecraft.
"Extraction of propellants, bulk shielding and life support fluids from this first captured asteroid could jump-start an entire space-based industry," the Keck team writes. "Our space capabilities would finally have caught up with the speculative attractions of using space resources in situ."
Up-close examination of a captured asteroid would also yield insights into the economic value of space rock resources and shed light on the best ways to deflect potentially dangerous asteroids away from Earth.
Overall, the potential benefits of the mission are huge, the Keck team says.
"Placing a NEA in lunar orbit would provide a new capability for human exploration not seen since Apollo," the report reads. "Such an achievement has the potential to inspire a nation. It would be mankind’s first attempt at modifying the heavens to enable the permanent settlement of humans in space."
NASA's new spaceships
Human exploration of deep space beyond the moon is a NASA priority. In 2010, President Barack Obama directed the agency to get astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of the Red Planet by the mid-2030s.
To make all of this happen, NASA is developing a crew capsule called Orion and a huge rocket known as the Space Launch System. The Orion-SLS combo is slated to begin flying crews by 2021. The first unmanned Orion test flight is expected in 2017.
The space agency is also developing a new Space Exploration Vehicle for astronauts bound to explore a near-Earth asteroid. A prototype of the new vehicle, which could feature a rocket sled and "pogo stick" device for docking with an asteroid, coul dbe tested at the International Space Station in 2017, project officials have said.
- Asteroid Basics: A Space Rock Quiz
- Photos: NASA's Space Exploration Vehicle for Asteroids & Beyond
- Bootprints on Asteroids: Deep Space Astronauts
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12 Comments
Add CommentWell, I am not sure about how applicable this mission is to a future bid for Mars. But its about time we start practicing the sorts of maneuvers we would need to use to protect our planet from the very real danger of an incoming asteroid or comet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHello SciAm, Your getting SPAMMED again. Same spiel another fake name.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientific American really needs to do something about spam. I've sent them an email but not got a reply yet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey better make sure what they are doing, they mess with the orbit of the moon and we could be in trouble
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey wouldn't be messing with the orbit of the Moon. They would be messing with the orbit of an NEA. This would be a SMALL NEA though. Something this size probably wouldn't reach the ground if it hit the Earth, though if it happened to hit the right spot the results could be unfortunate. Obviously the whole operation would need careful supervision.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy guess would be the maneuvers would be designed so that at NO point would the rock actually be aimed at the Earth. That way if the towing spacecraft failed at any point the asteroid would just go merrily on its way in a new non-hazardous orbit. This should be quite feasible. The Earth is actually a pretty small target after all, and even if an object is physically close to us that doesn't make it necessarily all that close in terms of orbital mechanics (though obviously the two are related in some degree).
The only question I have about this whole thing is if from either a scientific or business perspective a manned mission is necessary at all. Teleoperation seems more feasible IMHO.
"OK Houston, we are approaching the lunar insertion point and are GO to release the asteroid into lunar orbit."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Houston, we have a problem. The capsule door will not open and we cannot release the asteroid".
"Oops! Houston, the capsule door opened 45 seconds late and the asteroid has been ejected. We are calculating its orbital path now".
"Ummm, Houston, it seems that the asteroid had failed to enter a lunar orbit. Instead it is on a trajectory toward Earth. We are attempting to predict its exact path.
"Ahh, Houston, could you please advise the people of NY City to bend over and kiss their rear ends good by?"
That was the point of my earlier statement, you're NEVER on a course for Earth, ever, not even transitionally, never ever. In that case such an accident simply cannot happen. It should be quite feasible to develop such a flight plan. You cannot literally prevent the possibility of some rocket having a mind of its own and going off in some random direction, but the cure for that is simply very careful step-by-step operations. You never fire it up until it is verified to be pointed in the safe direction, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd of course again the rock they're talking about capturing is tiny, stuff like this hits the Earth on a fairly regular basis (such as that fireball over California last year). It is conceivable a several meter diameter asteroid could do some damage if you aimed it at downtown Manhatten, but even then not much. Most likely it would just break up.
Now, if we start slinging around big rocks like 100 meter ones, then we'll have to be very careful, but we're far from being able to do that, and the sorts of precautions you would take are fairly obvious (multiple redundant guidance and propulsion systems, etc).
Um... and the DOWNSIDE -- like accidentally sending the asteroid plummeting to Earth? I would like to know about the risks along with the benefits. This story reads like a NASA press release. Ask some questions!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease note my two proposals to NASA on http://www.ghdaiii.co.uk/announcent.php.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe older 1950's incarnations was called a "space castle" and it was a station in perpetual orbit between near-earth space and Mars for transferring colonists regularly... an asteroid will be... even better! Go mankind - Go!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo move an asteroid seems easy, perhaps, but there may be lines of force, or magnetism, which tend to regulate a bodies in space, and to disturb them, might have unpleasant, even deadly consequences. When I look at The Precambrian Shield, on Google, there appear to be a great many lakes, which would seem to be asteroid or meteor collisions. To hit the crust, they would have to be larger and more solid than the Tungusta? hit in Northern Russia, early last century.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf NASA wants to manipulate, they should start with ship-sized rocks first.
cccampbell38, Traveler 007, scrivener: If you think NASA would do something that could damage the Earth, you are paranoid. There is no down side greater than this rock hitting the moon. "Down" is toward the sun. The Earth is "up."
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