NASA Plans on Using Speeding 28,000 mph Asteroid for Deep Space Research
“Once we reach our goal for 2008, we plan to focus our attention more on finding and tracking smaller objects which are more abundant, but harder to find,” said Dr. Donald Yeomans, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where much of the tracking is done. “If those smaller objects managed to impact Earth, the damage would be regional, not global.
The International Spaceguard Foundation, of which NASA is a member of, consists of an effort is to discover and track about 90% of the large near-Earth objects, with approximately 68% completed at this time. Formed in 1996, the foundation involves countries such as Europe, Asia, Australia, and the United States. With as many budget cuts as our government is throwing NASA’s way, it is a good thing this is in the hands of the International Spaceguard Foundation, or it could be eventually going under like several other missions.
Yet an “almost” presumed financially-strapped NASA is now stating they may be using a 28,000 mph 2000SG344 asteroid as a landing for research into deep space. Previously thought it may hit earth with “an explosive power of 84 Hiroshimas” which has been changed somewhat in theory, NASA is planning on using the 1.1 million ton asteroid as a potential landing site for their astronauts. The first mission for the NEO, or Near Earth Object, is now considered a crucial step to future space exploration—once labeled for Mars and the Moon.
The NEO mission is planning on sending astronauts to space for a period of 3-months, toward the speeding asteroid, hoping to learn the psychological effects of long-term missions and working in deep space. This would allow astronauts to test out certain things like testing kits for converting subsurface ice into drinking water, breathable oxygen and hydrogen to top up rocket fuel—all in preparation for Mars human colonization that NASA has been told to place on its back burner in order to get financial funding from Congress. Makes sense to me ?!?
Right in the middle of NASA’s retiring space shuttles which involves huge amounts of money to be paid to Russia for transporting our astronauts to the International Space Station after 2010, their Orion and the Ares series are being prepared for using as the shuttle’s replacements. This now involves a three to six month round-trip on Orion to the asteroid 2000SG344, with the asteroids spending a couple of weeks on its surface.
Testing of the asteroid will involved defending ourself against future asteroids heading toward Earth, in addition to helping our scientists learn about the birth of the solar system.
“An asteroid will one day be on a collision course with Earth. Doesn’t it make sense, after going to the moon, to start learning more about them? Our study shows it makes perfect sense to do this soon after going back to the moon,” said Rob Landis, an engineer at Johnson Space Centre and co-author of the report, which is due to be published in the journal Acta Astronautica.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 6:04 pm and is filed under Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
