[fenter1]

NASA trains astronauts to land on asteroid
by Staff Writers
New Delhi (IANS) May 16, 2012

NASA's artist concept of a manned landing on a nearby passing asteroid.


NASA wants humans to make contact with an asteroid up to three million miles away by the end of the next decade, something far beyond the scope of Earth-Moon space flight in 1969.

Travelling at around 80,000 kmph around the Sun with almost non-existent gravity due to their small size, landing safely on these space rocks will present a significant challenge, the Telegraph reported.

Among the team of astronauts preparing for the mission is Major Tim Peake, former British Army helicopter test pilot, who is now the first official British astronaut with the European Space Agency.

Major Peake said: 'With the technology we have available and are developing today, an asteroid mission of up to a year is definitely achievable.'

A training programme will teach them how to operate vehicles, conduct spacewalks and gather samples on the surface of an asteroid, said Peake.

While the primary goal of a mission to an asteroid will be scientific to learn more about their hostile environments, the skills needed to work on their surface could also prove invaluable should scientists discover one on a collision course with Earth.

NASA is currently monitoring more than 400 objects with potential to hit the Earth, although most are considered to be low risk.







http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NA...eroid_999.html

[zdoppiklonikaa]

So land on them and jump hard?

[Quonuttott]

The most profitable asteroid is...
May 17, 2012 By Nancy Atkinson, Universe Today



With the recent announcement of the asteroid mining company, Planetary Resources, some of the most-asked questions about this enticing but complex endeavor include, what asteroids do we mine? Which are the easiest asteroids to get to? Could it really be profitable?



While Planetary Resources officials said they hope to identify a few promising targets within a decade, the initial answers to those questions are available now on a new website that estimates the costs and rewards of mining rocks in space. Called Asterank, the website uses available data from multiple scientific sources on asteroid mass and composition to try and compute which asteroids would be the best targets for mining operations.

So, which asteroids are most profitable, valuable, easily accessible and cost effective?

The winners are, according to Asterank:

Most Profitable: 253 Mathilde, a 52.8 km-diameter C-type (carbonaceous) asteroid that has an estimated value of over $100 trillion and estimated profit of $9.53 trillion (USD)

Most Cost Effective: 2000 BM19, a very small O-type asteroid (less than 1 km wide) that makes several close approaches to Earth. Its estimated value is $18.50 trillion and an estimated profit of $3.55 trillion.

Most Valuable: 253 Mathilde
Most Accessible: 2009 WY7, another small asteroid with regular close approaches of less than 1 AU. This is an S-type asteroid, a silicaceous or “stony” object that has a high accessibility score on Asterank of 7.6577.

Asterank combines both the economic and scientific features of over 580,000 asteroids in our solar system, looking specifically for platinum-group metals and water. It was created by Ian Webster, a software engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area.




“I’ve always had a strong interest in astronomy and especially space exploration,” Webster said via an email to Universe Today. “The commercialization of space through ventures like asteroid mining really excites me because I believe it’ll open space to the rest of us and improve human quality of life. My day job is at a startup unrelated to space, but my hobbies include building rockets and many side projects like this one. I have a lot of fun applying computer science in different ways and I hope that Asterank will educate and inspire people.”



Webster provides a caveat, however, to the rankings of the top 100 asteroids in each category.

“Scientists know shockingly little about the composition of asteroids,” he writes on the website. “Visit JPL’s Small Body Database and you will notice how sparse information is.”

So, this mean that there aren’t really ‘experts’ in this field, and even those most knowledgeable about asteroids likely don’t have the numbers needed to completely and accurately estimate the true value of an asteroid or the cost of mining it — “which is why Planetary Resources is going to spend years or even decades investing in LEO-telescopes and data-gathering flybys before they ever touch an asteroid,” Webster said.

Webster has used databases, websites, books and other publications to get as much accurate, up-to-date information as possible, but even then, he said everything on the website is a rough estimation.

“The primary purpose of this site is to broadly educate and inspire, rather than provide completely accurate data — which is currently impossible,” he said. “I created the site in response to the announcement of Planetary Resources. “I should point out that nearly all the measurements and hard data come from the scientists at NASA JPL, but I had a lot of fun putting the site together.”

And it is fun to peruse the various categories and see what asteroids make the top of each category.

The ranking takes into account the value of the materials on the asteroids such as metals, volatile compounds, and water; the costs of getting to an asteroid and moving the raw materials: and the comparative savings and potential profit, which at this point are very hypothetical, taking into account processing and moving raw material.

“We really don’t know yet how much it will cost to mine an object millions of miles away,” Webster said.

While this website is a first step, it offers an exciting and enjoyable initial look at the potential commercial viability of space mining.

More information: Check out Asterank

Source: Universe Today




http://phys.org/news/2012-05-profitable-asteroid.html

[oxinsnepe]

As I've always said, the best way to land on an asteroid is to harpoon it, like a whale, with a bungee cord between the craft and the asteroid. Then travel down the rope to the surface. That makes it relatively easy. Otherwise it's easy to fall off the asteroid.

Falling off an asteroid without a tether or power the problem is running out of supplies (food, water). In an asteroid-year your orbit will bring you back, but an asteroid-year is an exceptionally long time for a space walk.

[gluckmeea]

As I've always said, the best way to land on an asteroid is to harpoon it, like a whale, with a bungee cord between the craft and the asteroid. Then travel down the rope to the surface. That makes it relatively easy. Otherwise it's easy to fall off the asteroid.

Falling off an asteroid without a tether or power the problem is running out of supplies (food, water). In an asteroid-year your orbit will bring you back, but an asteroid-year is an exceptionally long time for a space walk.

> So, which asteroids are most profitable, valuable, easily accessible and cost effective?

I wonder how they would rate a cubic kilometre of Earth's crust?

[Controller]

NASA's undersea mission submerges in the Atlantic
June 12, 2012



An international crew of aquanauts is settling into its home on the ocean floor, where the team will spend 12 days testing concepts for a potential asteroid mission. The expedition is the 16th excursion of the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO). The crew of four began its mission in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Aquarius Reef Base undersea research habitat off the coast of Key Largo, Fla., at 11:04 a.m. EDT Monday.




NEEMO sends groups of astronauts, engineers and scientists to live in the Aquarius lab, 63 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. The laboratory is located in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. For NASA, Aquarius provides a convincing simulation to space exploration, and NEEMO crew members experience some of the same tasks and challenges under water that they would in space.

The NEEMO 16 mission will focus on three areas related to asteroid missions. The crew of aquanauts will investigate communication delays, restraint and translation techniques, and optimum crew size.

The isolation and microgravity environment of the ocean floor allows the NEEMO 16 crew to study and test concepts for how future exploration of asteroids might be conducted. NASA's Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System rocket, which currently are in development, will allow people to begin exploring beyond the boundaries of Earth's orbit. The first human mission to an asteroid is planned for 2025.

NEEMO 16 Commander Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger of NASA will be joined by European Space Agency astronaut Timothy Peake; Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Kimiya Yui; and Steven W. Squyres, Goldwin Smith professor of astronomy at Cornell University and chairman of the NASA Advisory Council. Squyres also was a member of NEEMO 15.


The NEEMO crew members will be chronicling their mission using several social media outlets, blogs and live video streams from the crews' helmets, the air lock and outside the habitat. For additional information on the mission and links to the various ways to connect with NEEMO, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/neemo


Provided by JPL/NASA




http://phys.org/news/2012-06-nasa-un...-atlantic.html

[BJEugene]

> An international crew of aquanauts is settling into its home on the ocean floor, where the team will spend 12 days testing concepts for a potential asteroid mission. The expedition is the 16th excursion of the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO)

Good news. The accuracy of the analogy between underwater and outer space has been known since Buzz Aldrin first pointed it out. I suppse they need a bigger test rig here than NASA's indoor pool can provide.

[praboobolbode]

Good news. The accuracy of the analogy between underwater and outer space has been known since Buzz Aldrin first pointed it out. I suppse they need a bigger test rig here than NASA's indoor pool can provide.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>


Yep, Buzz did far more for Space exploration then putting bully conspiracy nutters in their place with that famous right hook.
He also was among the first to solve the EVA problems early on in the Gemini program.

[Siliespiriulk]

Desert RATS Begin Simulated Asteroid Mission Today
by JENNY WINDER on AUGUST 20, 2012


Conspiracy theories abound that the Apollo landings all took place on a film set in California, but today NASA’s Desert RATS team begins a mission to asteroid Itokawa. They will land, rove and even undertake spacewalks, without ever stepping foot out of their home base at Johnson Space Center in Texas. This is no hoax however, but a simulated mission to test out NASA’s audacious plan to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025.



The Desert RATS have been testing robots and other tools that could be used on future exploration missions since 1997, (this is their 15th mission) usually doing analog missions out in the field. “Desert” refers to the Arizona desert, where a lot of the team’s activities take place and “RATS” stands for “Research and Technology Studies.”


However, since they are now testing out a zero-G visit to an asteroid, the team will use mockups inside JSC’s Space Vehicle Mockup Facility, which offers a medley of tools and simulators that would be difficult to transport to a field test location.


For example, the Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle (MMSEV) is designed to both rove across a planetary surface on a wheeled chassis or fly in space using advanced propulsion systems. Four crew members will take it in turns to live in and operate the simulator to explore the asteroid.
The MMSEV can be put on a sled on an air-bearing floor to simulate the moves that the crew might feel during a real mission. There will also be a 50-second delay in voice transmission, going each way to simulate the light-speed travel time between Earth and the asteroid.




The crew can also undertake spacewalks using ARGOS (Active Response Gravity Offload System) an overhead gantry crane system that simulates the reduced gravity environment. In reality nothing would stop astronauts from just floating off the surface but NASA is thinking about using jetpacks, tethers, bungees, nets or spiderwebs to allow them to float just above the surface attached to a smaller mini-spaceship.
A team of scientists from the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate will ensure proper scientific methods are applied to asteroid sample collection techniques throughout the 10 day mission.
The mission is slated to run until August 30th or 31st. Find out more here or follow the NASA Desert RATS team on Twitter






http://www.universetoday.com/96908/d...ay/#more-96908

[excholza]

Is this their Tobruk?

[SOgLak]

This is no hoax however, but a simulated mission to test out NASA’s audacious plan to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025.

Step 2: Sending the Astronauts

Step 3: Mining the Asteroids.

[gusunsuth]

NASA/JPL seem to have a full work load at present.
Besides monitoring Curiosity and Opportunity and Cassini, and New Horizons and "Dawn", they are looking at sending men to an Asteroid, and another probe to Mars called "Insight" to gather data on the internal activities of the Red planet...