Visiting Plymouth Rock Via Dual Orions
‘Plymouth Rock’ Human Asteroid Trek Proposed for 2019, Ken Kremer
“‘Plymouth Rock’ is the name of an ambitious new concept for an early human mission to explore a Near Earth Asteroid using dual Orion manned spacecraft. Two astronauts would embark on a six month round trip Asteroid Trek as soon as 2019 – before the end of this decade. The recent discovery of a new class of many small asteroids – 5 to 75 meters wide – has enabled the formulation of this potential new destination for deep space human exploration in the near term. Favorable orbital alignments occur only a few times per decade.”
Keith’s note: a white paper describing this Lockheed Martin mission concept is online here.