NASA Sees Enthusiastic Response to Asteroid Call for Ideas, NASA
“NASA has received more than 400 responses to its request for information (RFI) on the agency’s asteroid initiative, Deputy Administrator Lori Garver announced Friday.
“Under our plan, we’re increasing the identification, tracking and exploration of asteroids, and the response to this initiative has been gratifying,” said Garver, speaking at the Space Frontier Foundation’s NewSpace 2013 conference in San Jose, Calif. “The aerospace industry, innovative small businesses and citizen scientists have many creative ideas and strategies for carrying out our asteroid exploration mission and helping us to protect our home planet from dangerous near-Earth objects.”
Marc’s updated note: Members of Congress have been very vocal about their desire that NASA should NOT proceed with the Asteroid Initiative, specifically the Asteroid Redirect Mission. Until Congress is reassured about the merits of the mission, it will be difficult for NASA to proceed.

22 replies on “Asteroid Initiative RFI Gets Good Response But Does it Matter?”

  1. It would be useful if NASAWatch would distinguish between the two parts of the asteroid initiative: the grand challenge on planetary defense and the asteroid retrieval (or redirect) mission ARM. Some people who are skeptical of the ARM mission are supporters of expanding our surveys to identify future potential asteroid impactors. The RFI asked for ideas on both topics.

  2. Perhaps it’s time for NASA and the White House to employ a little reverse psychology. If they proposed a program to do exactly the opposite of what they actually wanted, then when Congress inevitably criticized it and counter-proposed something diametrically opposed to it (which would be what we really wanted in the first place), then NASA could be a good little federal agency and say, OK, we’ll do what you say. I realize that sounds completely ridiculous, but it can’t be any less effective than what’s been going on since 2008.

    I genuinely believe that the merits and drawbacks of this program (and several other NASA programs) are being completely lost in the shadow of exceedingly partisan politics.

    1. Are you sure that isn’t already happening? Perhaps Obama was always pro-Moon and hence the only thing he disliked about Constellation was the distraction of Ares I from his beloved “Big Rocket”, Ares V. And the scattered focus of the lunar program, due to the program justification coming from VSE’s “push” instead of Moon-science’s “pull”. “Been there, done that” to make Republicans more receptive to ideas of where we haven’t been, haven’t done.

      Suddenly it all makes sense! And he almost got away with it too.

      1. Paul, now you’ve got me wondering. It’s all starting to look more and more like a bad made-for-TV movie.

          1. You may well be right George, but ideally I think we should keep hoping for other possibilities as well, not keeeping all of our eggs in one basket. I’ve often wondered if SpaceX would carry on in the same way if something happened to Elon himself.

  3. One of the biggest drivers on NASA’s end for this mission is to fulfill the desire of having a Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) Technology Demonstration Mission (TDM). Science merits aside, the practical use of high-power SEP will usher in a host of other applications, many of which are entirely commercial. The science aspects of this mission are intriguing, and it does check the box of visiting a small planetary body. However, the most important goal of this mission is to demonstrate a technology, which when used with chemical propulsion, can provide a more effective means of accomplishing crewed transportation to and from Mars orbit.

    1. While I don’t dispute your facts or your logic, I would have to say that “the most important goal of this mission” is different to different people and to different groups within NASA. There’s a lot that will be going on in this mission that’s new, and we’ll each be watching most closely the part(s) relating to where our individual interests lie.

      As for SEP specifically, I think NASA would have made it happen one way or another, even without an asteroid mission, because it’s just too useful and effective a capability to ignore any longer. A proven SEP system that performs as hoped will likely completely change the face of solar system exploration missions. With SEP the future will finally really be right around the corner.

  4. In the original Keck study, page 47 at the top, they said that the first stage would be conduct a much more comprehensive observation campaign. There are very few “known” possible targets and even they are poorly characterized. We are probably never going to build this but it would be scandalous to keep spending money to go when we do not even have an actual destination.

    1. We will not have an actual target until the vehicle has been built. The normal delays on a project will rule out our initial choices.

    2. Most missions work that way. Apollo’s destinations were chosen ongoing; chopped and changed as mission numbers, equipment and funding shifted. Most of the Mars landing sites are chosen well after a lander program is under way; much closer to launch than to conception.

      1. Gee I have worked in this industry since 1978 and have never noticed that. There was a long study on Lunar destinations and the only question was: in what order. You are suggesting that we design and build an exploration craft without knowing what the target will be – a solid object? a loose collection of objects? etc?? Was Hyabusa done that way? Etc.

        1. Paul was talking about the an actual destination of a known type, i.e., where on a large body, or which small body, whereas you’ve implied that he was saying that the destination type wasn’t chosen until later on, which is not the same thing at all. For example, Apollo landing sites were obviously on the Moon, but exactly where on the Moon each mission was to land wasn’t decided until well after mission start. In part, the reason for this was the analysis of data from previous missions.

          The target asteroid for the asteroid mission probably won’t be chosen until it has to be, so that as much accumulated data as possible can be factored into the decision. This makes sense.

          1. Actually I was reacting to his apparent casual approach to designing a mission. Asteroids apparently come in a far greater spectrum of “configurations” for instance some are solid and some are collections of loosely grouped objects.

            We cannot skip over the Keck report and its first conclusion – that we gotta do a more complete job of knowing the target. We cannot use the Keck report as a justification for a mission without using all of it. For lunar missions we knew if the surface was solid or if it was deep dust, etc. An observation campaign is NOT sexy and exciting and that is why people skip over it. We have been to deep space already but need to know what to do when we encounter an asteroid of this poorly understood size, type, etc. That is what the Keck report says.

          2. I agree. Since asteroids are of different types and in different orbits, the more accessible areas can be searched first. However there is no assurance that any asteroid meeting particular requirements wil be found in an accessible orbit for a retrieval mission. For planetary defense, observation is also critical as without detection many years in advance it is unlikely a deflection mission can be launched.
            Human spaceflight does not appear to be necessary for retrieval or science and (Armageddon notwithstanding) seems completely inappropriate for planetary defense.

          3. Point taken, but at the same time, we do have some methods for determining asteroid make-up and characteristics (laser hits plus spectometry) that work best, from what I’ve read, when used close up, so the mission may well include a first stage of cruising a neighborhood testing encountered asteroids looking for one of a specific make-up, as well as within a certain size range, to select as the mission target. As some of us have noted in other threads, NASA has so far released very little in the way of mission detail. I have to wonder if they’ve even worked it all out yet themelves.

  5. I’m wondering, how will a spacecraft utilizing Solar Electric Propulsion (ion) engines, have the umph! needed to wrestle around an asteroid of 10M diameter? Weighing as much as 10 million pounds! Remember that the SATURN V rocket weighed in at about 6.5 million pounds. and needed 5, F-1 engines to get going. can someone tell me how that would work? I realize this is a little off topic- just wondering

    1. Slowly, very slowly. But that’s probably a very good idea anyhow. The more slowly they proceed, the more time they’ll have to correct over/under-thrust actions and deal with the unexpected. And perhaps it will allow them to begin the observation portion of the mission with instruments and cameras while still en route. Finally, if they should learn something bad — like this rock has a huge crack down its middle or is ready to break up — then they may have time to abort the mission and safely remove the asteroid before bringing it into the local neighborhood where it would be more of a danger.

  6. It would certainly take years to catalog all the possible asteroids and design missions to them, but there are potential missions mapped out to several targets already.

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