[meteorite-list] Orion Hardware Reviewed For Human Asteroid Flight

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 09:26:37 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <200612271726.JAA22662_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/061227_asteroid_orion.html

Orion Hardware Reviewed For Human Asteroid Flight
By Leonard David
space.com
27 December 2006

Progress is being made on defining a human mission to an asteroid.
Experts at several NASA centers are sketching out a prospective piloted
stopover at an asteroid - a trek that could return samples from a
targeted space rock as well as honing astronaut proficiency and test
needed equipment for other space destinations.

At the heart of such a mission is drawing upon the technology of NASA's
Constellation initiative - the overarching program that is gearing up to
extend human presence at the Moon, on Mars and beyond. One key ingredient
is the Orion spacecraft - a post-Space Shuttle vehicle now under design
to thrust crews further than low Earth orbit.

Meanwhile, NASA is wrapping up a report required by the U.S. Congress on
how best to search for, catalog and even deal with the hazard of
Earth-bruising rocks from space. That space agency report is to be
turned over to Congress by year's end.

If lawmakers give the green light to a next generation Near Earth Object
(NEO) search program, there could be 40 times the current discovery rate
of these celestial bodies. By the time a human mission to an asteroid is
ready, there's likely to be a healthy list of suitable targets.

Match made in heaven

A feasibility study to stage a human mission to an asteroid is underway,
said Carlton Allen, Astromaterials Curator and Manager of the
Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office at NASA's Johnson Space
Center (JSC). "It would involve flying people to one of the NEOs and,
among other things, collect samples and bring them back," Allen told
SPACE.com.

Edward Lu, veteran shuttle and International Space Station astronaut, is
a member of the JSC study team. They are looking into use of Orion
technology earlier than 2020, as well as utilizing Delta or Atlas
Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles to enable non-low Earth orbit missions.

"There are many asteroids that have very low relative velocities with
respect to Earth," Lu observed. Identifying an "ideal" NEO is one that's
both slow moving and comes close to Earth - sort of a match made in heaven.

"Those are easy targets," Lu said. They wouldn't require a lot of rocket
oomph to rendezvous with, he said.

Lu told SPACE.com that NEO exploration study members are posing the
following question: How can already existing or currently planned
hardware be used or minimally changed to permit other exploration agendas?

Constellation boosters and spacecraft hardware are now geared to support
NASA's return to the Moon and onward to Mars plans. "The whole point of
Constellation is that it is an exploration system," Lu noted. "So what
else can you do?"

Lu said that their report will be completed by the end of this coming
January. "We're in the midst of it right now - and it's looking interesting."

Lag time

A human voyage to an asteroid would not only trial run Orion equipment -
particularly putting high-speed heat shield technology through its
paces - but also could become part of the test program for lunar landings,
Lu said.

Moreover, NASA needs to wean itself off from Earth orbiting
missions - round and round our planet with the space shuttle and
International Space Station. Ground controllers are set up for
essentially zero light-time, instantaneous communications with space crews.

There will be some lag time keeping in touch with future Moon explorers,
and more so when expeditionary adventurers travel to faraway Mars, Lu
advised. A NEO mission could help in the readiness of ground teams to
work issues beyond low Earth orbit, he said - stepping stone conditioning
for robust lunar and Mars operations.

No handholds

Once you pull up to some asteroid - what's an astronaut to do?

"There are no handholds on the surface," Lu said. "It may not be a solid
surface anyway."

Lu said that an Orion spaceship would hover in close proximity to the
NEO. 'We're talking about an object that's more than likely just 330
feet (100 meters) across, or less. We're talking a big rock or probably
a big rubble pile, and likely rotating."

>From their spot in space, a crew could deploy a remotely-piloted
vehicle. Looking out spacecraft windows, an astronaut might fly a
robotic probe via a joy stick, Lu envisioned, dropping off packages on
the NEO or scooping up select samples for return to Earth.

"A human flying something remote-controlled is way smarter than anything
you can program. You could look for interesting spots on the asteroid
and make real-time decisions," Lu added.

A NEO mission would deepen NASA's quest for deep space experience, Lu
said. There's interest in asteroids for a range of reasons, he
continued, for exploration, for pure science, resource utilization, as
well as learning how to mitigate the threat from a sniping space rock
that has its crosshairs on Earth.

"It brings it all together," Lu concluded, "which is nice."

Priority list: save the planet

"We're looking seriously at this," said Chris McKay, deputy scientist in
the Constellation science office at JSC. He is stationed at NASA's Ames
Research Center located in California's Silicon Valley, part of a study
team there delving into the scientific output from a piloted asteroid
flight.

NASA Ames officials are looking at how the Orion exploration vehicle
could be used for a human mission to an NEO, McKay explained. The study
is only about halfway complete but initial results look to be positive,
he said.

McKay said that the main question seems to be finding a NEO that allows
for missions that are not too long.

Once on station at an asteroid, crewmembers might release a probe to
crash onto the asteroid as they watch from a distance, McKay added.

"A human mission to a NEO, and the associated robotic probes, will
return a lot of science and this will be valuable. But as a lifelong
resident of Earth - I think that being prepared to save the planet ranks
higher on the priority list than insights into the formation of the
solar system. But we can do both."

Asteroids: ready for them or not?

NASA attraction to asteroids comes from the top.

Space agency head, Mike Griffin, told an audience recently at NASA's
Langley Research Center that "our species hasn't been around long enough
to have experienced a cataclysmic extinction event. But they will occur
again, whether we are ready for them or not."

So, in the end, Griffin said, "human expansion into our solar system is
fundamentally about the survival of the species, about ensuring better
odds for our survival through the promulgation of our species."

"But one assumption that I know will be justified is that the Moon, the
near-Earth asteroids, and the rest of the solar system contain the
resources that will take mankind to the next level of civilization and
prosperity. I don't know when it will occur or who will do it, but it
will happen. I hope that it will be soon, and that we will be the agents
of this great endeavor," Griffin explained.

Spread the human seed

NASA's upswing in asteroid interest is good news, reported William
Burrows, author of 'The Survival Imperative - Using Space to Protect
Earth' (Forge, 2006). He's also a professor of journalism at New York
University.

"The cliche that we should land on one or more asteroids 'because they
are there' certainly applies, since the need to explore is an ancient
and deeply-held human trait," Burrows explained. "But more
pragmatically, knowledge is never wasted, so there will be things to
learn from being on asteroids that we cannot anticipate but that can
only be beneficial," he said.

Burrows said that resource mining in the distant future is part of that
learning process.

"But far more important, it will teach us valuable things about them and
the need to spread the human seed, not only for adventure, but as a
hedge against a civilization-threatening catastrophe on the home
planet," Burrows said.

Planetary Defense

In a few months time, NASA is set to co-sponsor the 2007 Planetary
Defense Conference to be convened in Washington, D.C.

The March meeting is organized to capture the state-of-the-art in terms
of protecting Earth from NEOs, said William Ailor of The Aerospace
Corporation in El Segundo, California and general chair of meeting.

"There are a lot of unknowns relative to asteroids," Ailor said, like
how they are put together - a key piece of information required in order
to deflect any Earth-threatening space rock. "One of the issues that you
have is that there's probably some variability asteroid to asteroid."

Ailor said that piloted flight to an asteroid would yield additional
detail on dealing with a future hostile object. However, the real
challenge, he said, is that no one country is going to have the
wherewithal to cover every aspect of the problem.

So the question is, Ailor added, just how does the world community get
together to incrementally add information about these objects and offer
mitigation ideas?

"I think it's becoming more of a credible issue now. People recognize
that these kinds of events can happen - and we actually have the
capability now to do something about it," Ailor suggested. "The [space]
community - and I would include the political community - is beginning to
take this more seriously. We've progressed a long way over the last few
years - but we still have a long way to go," he said.
Received on Wed 27 Dec 2006 12:26:37 PM PST