Let’s Fix the Asteroid Redirect Mission, Marcia Smith Aviation Week
“Fundamentally, ARM is two good ideas kluged together into one bewildering idea that NASA itself seems unable to explain effectively. NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden’s hand-picked advisers on the NASA Advisory Council have debated the problem in recent meetings. The council’s question basically is — how does moving a rock from one place in the solar system to another get us to Mars? ARM involves developing high-power solar electric propulsion (SEP). Good idea. It has many uses in Earth orbit and deep space, including support of human exploration of Mars. ARM involves sending astronauts to cis-lunar space (between the Earth and the Moon) for up to three weeks at a time. Good idea. Breaking the umbilical cord to Earth is a necessary step to Mars. ARM involves moving an asteroid to lunar orbit. Huh?”
Unless we have actual missions that need SEP soon, wouldn’t it make sense to wait to develop the SEP system? Technology in that area is likely going to keep improving substantially between now and the 2030s when Mars mission are even remotely possible for NASA. Why lock in the technology now?
Making a high-powered SEP now might make sense if you actually had a near-term mission like ARM that would use it in the near-future. But if it’s just for Mars missions in 2-3 decades, it seems like a great way to spend a lot of limited near-term cash to make something that will be technically obsolete before it actually gets used for anything.
~Jon
SEP can also be used to send heavy object to the Moon.
NASA has little or no experience of remote controlled docking of SEP vehicles to spacestations, cargo and propellant depots.
SEP technology will only improve if resources are made available to improve it. This could be done more effectively if it is associated with a technology development program rather than a mission per se. As soon as the technology is operational it could be utilized for almost any mission requiring substantial changes in momentum.
I have one very basic problem with SEP. If we can get an asteroid into orbit around the moon, why not just bring it to LEO and call it a day? We need something harder. Oh I don’t know. Maybe something like landing on the moon?
Or how about something really friggin tough like just putting people in orbit around Venus. Now that would get people’s attention. It would be easier than traveling to Mars. It would produce equipment that can be used for Mars as well.
a) it is much easier to get into a high lunar orbit than into low Earth orbit from deep space
b) when it eventually deorbits, it will land on the moon instead of on Earth
An earlier version of the asteroid retrieval project, planned in some detail, saw the final destination as being the ISS, where the asteroid could be placed in a BEM or similar pressurized expansion module and examined in shirtsleeve conditions over months or years by scientists who are already present. Following examination in zero-G the boulder could be returned to the ground in sections for further study as down mass became available. This would avoid the problem of abandoning it in orbit.
How large of a mass would you want to anchor a tether?
The addition of the asteroid to the ISS mass means that it accelerates more slowly with a given propulsive thrust but also decelerates more slowly with a given drag force. Fuel required for maintaining orbital altitude is a function of drag rather than mass. If the asteroid is inside a module drag will be unaffected.
Part of the idea with this Asteroid-to-moon orbit is to give our Astronauts BEO experience, which is… lacking.
Sooner or later NASA’s just going to have to acknowledge that Orion makes no sense and has no real purpose without a lunar lander to go with it.
Cancel SLS, Build a moon lander, put Orion on a falcon heavy, hire Bigelow and let’s get started.
PS don’t let the same porkers that built Orion build the lander. Cots only
Yes!
No! Lander costs will eat us all faster than hell’s snowflakes ….that is if we want decent down mass. Boot’s n’ Flags? Pshaw..as the boss said been there! COT’s = Project managers dream…. unrealizable. Better to bite on that early and get on with it. Pursuing COT’s then having to go bespoke just wastes CTC budget. Go bespoke early and better! Get your requirements bloat under control fast. Extend the phase 0 and hammer the requirements to an absolute minimum. We never do… lip service paid, we rush to realization. 3 year managers.. gotta hit those career milestones.
“Go bespoke early and better”. I don’t understand that sentence? Bespoke?
Bespoke = custom.
A simple google search of that word would also give you the same answer.
http://www.google.com
No matter how many times I see it, that is still a really strange word to me.
I imagine if we were from the UK, we’d be more accustomed to hearing it.
None of this makes any sense at the current cost levels. Until NASA and their commercial partners get cost of missions under control and at a level that can be sustained, nothing is going to happen – worthwhile that is.
Cheers
Yes, good idea. Start with dropping SLS and quite likely Orion too.
If they were of any other use but to impress certain politicians, they wouldn’t need to move asteroid.
As to why asteroid, Phobos is satellite asteroid, probably the best place to start a base with tele-operating robots on Mars’ surface, to solve plenty of logistic problems introduced by Mars landing and most likely enable both way missions where before it would be only one way.
Agreed IMHO the best thing about the ARM mission is that it let’s us learn HOW to operate on Phobos: only in Moon Orbit! As we have discovered with the Philae Lander: operating in near weightless conditions on uncertain terrain has its “unknown unknowns.” By far the simplest _and safest_ solution is to learn how to handle asteroid operations using the real thing a lot closer to home. And its a long way to Phobos or even a convenient low dV asteroid. Although I would love a mission to 2010 TK7 in my lifetime.
More here: https://brobof.wordpress.co…
ha!
Also note the Vikings and Columbus already been to the Americas, no need to go back there.
NASA should face the simple fact that after the successful landings of humans on the moon, there isn’t really much NASA can do in human space missions that can be both aspiring or useful without breaking the bank. Missions such as landing humans on Mars or beyond is in reality way beyond the means of a single nation and the necessity of such capability must be determined by the governments of the world and the costs be shared. There is no wonder that ARM is so awkward to justify because it is just a way to keep government funded human space program from dying. I think if the very successful NASA pace science programs cannot fulfill NASA’s mission, NASA should be closed for good. Any commercial use of space as well as human adventures into space should be funded privately by real enthusiasts, just like what happened to aeronautics a century ago. Tax payers should have no role in that.
Mars is not beyond the budget of the U.S.A.
If Congress doubled the size of the NASA budget for the next 10 to 20 years, scrapped SLS and used a COTS/CRS/CCDEV approach to getting to Mars, EDL, habitation modules, and ascent and return to Earth could be done within 20 years by private enterprise. I would suspect that with about 3-5 billion dollars per year, Elon Musk/SpaceX would greatly exceed the wildest expectations of everyone! NASA should buy seats on BFR/MCT just like CCDEV!
Give NASA a simple LONG TERM directive without political meddling and NASA could make it so!
Get the politicians fingers out of the pie and the baker can make a fine pie!
Yes it is beyond the budget. Congress has no interest other than in jobs programs ’cause that’s where the votes are, not NASA HSF missions.
Cheers
This is not entirely true. Congress will display an interest in funding a mission if the Chinese or the Russians make credible progress toward a manned BEO mission, be it to the Moon or Mars. That fits with their typical reactionary–as opposed to proactive–behavior.
Unlikely to be anytime soon as Russia is centralising to a gov’t only conglomerate and we all know how well they work whilst China is content to move slowly with stealth and sustainable budgets.
Meantime Congress will just do what they’ve been doing which is funnelling as much pork to certain states and companies as possible whilst maintaining a pretence that SLS and Orion are real programs that will enable NASA to get to Mars within the next century whoops, ah 10, 20 or is it 30 years or so. Oh and cutting CC budget while they’re at it.
Cheers.
“just like what happened to aeronautics a century ago. Tax payers should have no role in that.”
100 years ago N.A.C.A. was created to perform R&D for airplane companies in this country. While the Great War was into its second year, many other countries had thousands of airplanes but US had something on order of 23?
Though everyone says private industry can do it better but there is always some kind of attachment to guvmint money.
Laughed for at least 5 minutes 😀
PS reread make that 10 minutes
PSS looked at picture again busted me up 😀
Oh – “fixed” as in what you do to a dog or a cat.
Earth-Mars crosser = Excellent rad shield, hundreds of candidates, CIS lunar asteroid = Low Delta V play pen, Commercial exploitation pathfinder and Planet Killer interceptor. Worth doing. Bonus: Starts re-orienting the behemoth from mission ops to infrastructure development: Strategic, not tactical. Interesting test case in space law too. Kicks the irredeemable lander costs down the road. Slow burner.. starting to like this one. Anyone for the last of those Spirals then…?
“there is nothing left to learn about Antarctica”
Yikes!
Attach a large metal square-bucket-shaped “asteroid-holder” on two pivoting arms in front of the cab, and you’ll have an operational marvel, worthy of the Biga-Bucks NASA will invest in.
“ARM involves moving an asteroid to lunar orbit. Huh?”
There’s gold in them thar hills…
At some point we need to make stuff on orbit. This will involve finding natural resources and re-learning how to turn rocks into sheets of metal. Or we could just blast everything up from earth. The old fashioned way.
The point isn’t Mars, in my view. It’s SPACE. Learning to live in all of the nooks and crannies, one crannie at a time.
Superb post! Bookmarked:)