NASA's Big PR Bonus – About The Same Asteroids That They Don't Want To Visit
Keith’s note: Apparently the NASA webcast of the asteroid flyby last week may have set some all time records. Funny thing: NASA is supposed to be planning a mission to visit an asteroid (or so the White House says). Did anyone see ANY mention by NASA on the asteroid flyby video webpage of that asteroid mission while all that attention was focused on the flyby? Its so hard to slip a pre-prepared comment in front of the narrator and post those pesky URLs, isn’t it? Oh yes – another object slammed into Russia the same day. Did NASA use that PR opportunity to focus collateral public interest on their human mission to an asteroid? Of course not. That’s because NASA does not want to do that asteroid mission. So why would they want any undue attention focused on that mission?
Bolden: NASA Does Not Have To Actually Go To An Asteroid, Earlier post
“Bolden said that when the President announced that an asteroid would be the next destination for NASA’s human spaceflight program, he did not say NASA had to fly all the way to an asteroid. What matters is the “ability to put humans with an asteroid,” Bolden said.”
NASA Really Doesn’t Want to Do That Whole Asteroid Thing, Earlier post
“A current stated interim goal of NASA’s human spaceflight program is to visit an asteroid by 2025,” said Albert Carnesale, chancellor emeritus and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who chaired the committee that wrote the report. “However, we’ve seen limited evidence that this has been widely accepted as a compelling destination by NASA’s own work force, by the nation as a whole, or by the international community. The lack of national consensus on NASA’s most publicly visible human spaceflight goal along with budget uncertainty has undermined the agency’s ability to guide program planning and allocate funding.”
For once I am impressed with Bolden. He knows, the rest of NASA knows that going to an Asteroid is pointless.
Fair point, with one correction. It’s pretty clear from the report of the NRC Strategic Direction panel that, in fact, rather few people at NASA really want us to go to an asteroid. So, no surprise there. Now there are some people on the 9th floor who SAY we’re going to an asteroid because once upon a time the President mentioned it. Has the White House said anything about it since? Yes, it says in the FY13 budget that an asteroid is the next (rocky) destination, but we can’t obviously afford any rocky destinations.
In fact, I don’t think NASA has any funding to really be “planning” an asteroid mission, does it? I’m not aware of any funded activity to do so, beyond the thumb-in-the-wind pre-phase A concept level, and operational sims. Certainly not for any hardware. So I think you’re pointing at a “planned mission” that frankly doesn’t exist.
I guess NASA could have pointed to some vague intent to send humans to an asteroid, but that might have brought up more questions than they were prepared to answer.
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The simple fact is that the human asteroid mission is as mythical as it is pointless.
The real reason no mission profile has been published is that no NEO has been found that is “reachable” by humans, i.e., one that combines the attributes of accessibility (low total delta-v), total mission duration (and accompanying exposure to galactic cosmic rays and protection from solar particle events), and abort modes (with at least a 50-50 chance of crew survival). The Orion MPCV has yet to have a single test flight let alone document that it can operate in a fault-tolerant mode for periods exceeding several months.
There may well be some 10 meter-sized chondrite that we can get to — so what? What are we going to learn from an Orion “rendezvous” in space with a rock of whose type we already possess several hundred tons? What will we learn from this mission that could possibly mitigate a future terrestrial impact?
It’s not a question of money or technology or even mission planning capability. A human asteroid mission makes very little sense, even if a suitable target is discovered. There’s not much to do there, it takes a long and dangerous trip to get you there, and when you return, you’re not any smarter than you were before you went.
Paul, if you feel sample return from an asteroid (which you appear to argue against, manned or not) is not worthwhile because we already have samples on Earth, can I assume you are equally opposed to a Mars sample return mission, since we have various parts of Mars in hand as well?
The two situations are not comparable. Mars is a complex planetary object, with a protracted evolution. We could return a sample per year from Mars for a century and still not exhaust its geological diversity (the same is true for any planetary sized object, including the Moon). It is context that we seek in planetary sample return — context that allows us to extrapolate the results from study of a few grams of sample to regional and global processes and history.
Asteroids are cosmic rubble piles. They are not only mostly chemically homogeneous, but they have been shattered and re-assembled multiple times over the course of Solar System history. A sample from an asteroid has no geological context, because of the physical nature and history of the asteroid itself. A sample return from an asteroid only gives you another meteorite to study (and we’ve already studied thousands); a sample return from Mars (or any other large body) begins the study of a complex story of planetary evolution.
What I do not understand is why you need humans to do a sample return from an asteroid since, as Paul said, you just want a “piece”. Going to an asteroid as part of a demonstration of deep station life support systems and other technology, sure, why not. But this is a case where robotics might just be better. Focus humans where they have the greatest value on the Moon or on Mars.
“A sample from an asteroid has no geological context“
Paul,
I would say this is a fair assessment, but by the same token, the lunar surface is the result of endless bombardment by non-lunar-origin material and therefore likewise without context. Getting planetary evolution data would require considerable excavation. Having been geologically quiet for so long, I don’t think the Moon is not going to offer any uplifts or fissures showing time-distributed strata. And the lunar far side will be an even bigger challenge with its relatively recent top layer deposits.
Steve
The Moon DOES have geological context (regional units emplaced by an identifiable process) and you don’t have to “excavate” anything — nature has already provided such via the exposure of bedrock by impact cratering, faulting and even erosion (e.g., lava erosion in sinuous rilles). Among these, the only process that operates on asteroids is impact — but there is no context to reveal on those objects.
Paul,
Leaving aside the question of whether a human asteroid mission has any value for planetary protection… are you saying there is no pure exploration and operational learning value from sending a human crew to a NEA for the first time, say one temporarily in Earth orbit in cislunar space? (I get that it doesn’t interest you geologically.)
– Jim
Yes, I am saying exactly that. There’s nothing about long-duration spaceflight on a human NEO mission that you cannot learn aboard the ISS. Moreover, on such a mission, you needlessly expose the crew to a hard radiation environment for months, with little hope for a successful abort in case things go bad. The only possible justification for such risk is if the scientific or economic payoff is correspondingly valuable. And in the case of a human NEO mission, it isn’t.
You can get back to me on the “temporarily cislunar NEO” once you’ve lassoed that asteroid and parked it at L-1.
Paul,
With all due respect, and recognizing your extensive contributions to the lunar cause, I have to be honest and say that, to me, your arguments tend to be driven by how well any situation relates to, or supports, going back to the Moon. This shows that even career professionals can unconsciously get caught in the trap of “If it’s not interesting to me, it’s not important.” I offer this only as an objective observation, not a criticism. And, of course, we all do it, professionals and amateurs alike (I’m in the latter group).
For those, like myself, who have different primary goals from yourself, an asteroid mission seems like a possibly very worthwhile opportunity in several different respects. However, since we have not been given any details about a specific proposed asteroid mission, I don’t see how any of us can offer a meaningful evaluation, for or against, at this time.
If it were to be a simple “flags and footprints” mission, or any mission that did not return significant amounts of data and knowledge, then I think sending people would be pointless and dangerous, relative to any possible gains. The same logic, I believe, applies to a purely robotic asteroid mission. On the other hand, if one of the mission objectives was to “wire” the asteroid, making it into a long-term science measurement platform, then the setup would almost certainly require human participation if it is to be reliable over time, or if any on-site problems occur during or after setup.
If one of the mission objectives is to test any hardware, software and/or processes relating to future asteroid resource extraction and processing, then that, too, would be worthwhile (lunar ISRU is not the only viable solution and let’s leave that argument for another day).
Because so much of what we think we know is in fact still only theoretical, I firmly believe that a lot of future space activities will evolve in the form of humans setting up and testing on site, and then each process transitioning to automation once proven. There is also the issue of human eyes and brain being better senors and processors than electronic systems, but the two camps in that debate are probably never going to reach even a compromise, let alone agreement.
The bottom line: there are no (meaningful) generic, generalized answers to the asteroid mission debate; we require specific mission details to even start an evaluation.
There is another qualifier to all of this, and it’s something that I’m not at all clear on: Is the White House-proposed asteroid mission specifically to a NEO, or just to “an asteroid”? Catching a NEO is a very different mission than going out to the asteroid belt and rendezvousing with an asteroid in a relatively circular orbit with minimal inclination. People in general (in these comments) seem to be assuming a NEO, and assuming also that a NEO mission is the simpler of the two. Both mission types have major challenges to overcome, and solving some or all of those challenges alone may well teach us enough, and/or result in the development of enough capability, to make an asteroid mission worthwhile. But, as things stand, we’re basically debating an issue in the absence of the facts, which is good exercise, I suppose, but can have no meaningful outcome.
Steve
Steve,
With all due respect, I have to be honest and say that, to me, your arguments tend to be
driven by complete and utter ignorance of any relevant fact. I offer this only as an objective observation, not a criticism.
My point at the beginning of this “discussion” is that we don’t have a specific asteroid mission profile because a suitable target does not exist. I have offered specific facts about the issues and problems of such a mission and your response is that all those facts are irrelevant because I’m in the bag for lunar missions.
An all-too-common tactic of the newly minted battalions of Internet space policy experts is the ad hominem attack followed by a truly ridiculous suggestion. Your comment that perhaps the White House really intended to propose a mission to a main belt asteroid instead of a NEO is priceless. Sure – that must be it: we can’t send a crew to a NEAR-Earth asteroid, so let’s send them beyond the orbit of Mars, into the main belt, where a mission would last years, not months and require hardware and technology that hasn’t even been fully imagined yet, let alone developed.
Let me close by saying that you are half right in one respect: We are debating the issue in the absence of facts. And I know which half of the debate to which that descriptor applies.
Cordially,
Paul
“we don’t have a specific asteroid mission profile because a suitable target does not exist.“
“Suitable” for what goals? “Suitable” to whom? You needn’t bother to answer that. I’m sure I wouldn’t understand.
Paul Spudis: “The real reason no mission profile has been published is that no NEO has been found that is “reachable” by humans” Err… 2000 SG344, 2008 EV5, Apophis, 2007 XB23… all reachable by Humans either in 6 months or in a year including radiation shielding mass (if you use electric propulsion). And if we can figure out how to harvest asteroid regolith, we could use it for radiation shielding to get to Mars. We could also use it for impactor mass for deflecting other, potentially dangerous asteroids…. Bocce ball style.
The asteroid mission was selected by President Obama because it was the only destination on the Augustine Commission’s long list of alternatives that did not require development of landers, which were not funded by Congress. The logic was straightforward but flawed, since the Augustine Commission list of alternatives was itself flawed by the assumption that the next NASA goal had to be a destination for human spaceflight beyond earth orbit.
Assuming the goal of a mission to an asteroid is actually to explore the asteroid, given duration, radiation exposure, and the relatively simple nature of the tasks to be accomplished at the asteroid, such a mission can clearly best be accomplished by robotics (in fact several have been flown including one sample return). Ideally the Obama administration should have consulted NASA before assigning this goal for human spaceflight and NASA should have advised that it wasn’t appropriate. SFAIK this didn’t occur.
The real problem isn’t figuring out how to explore an asteroid, it is re-examining the current goal for human spaceflight. This requires admitting that the SLS/Orion is not the answer and that for the moment HSF should focus on developing multiple low-cost competing paths of access to LEO while leaving BEO exploration to robotics until costs can be reduced.
Whether we go to an asteroid or not, it would seem that we should be researching effective radiation shielding, simulated gravity, and long-duration life support for human spaceflight. These would have value for many or most missions beyond LEO yet they seem to have a very low profile and/or limited support.
The imagery released today of last week’s asteroid flyby shows the asteroid appears to be rotating at a pretty good clip. Probably the best anyone could do would be to get within a hundred meters or so.
Boeing has complete mission plans to specific asteroids. 6 & 12 months long. L-M also has one with 2 Orions. Since NASA is turning most ever thing over to private,then maybe another partnership deal.
NASA has started a Mars mission with SLS and Orion in my opinion.