NASA unveils plan to catch asteroid as step to Mars flight
Source: Agencies |
April 12, 2013, Friday
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Print Edition
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PRESIDENT Barack Obama wants NASA to start work on finding a small asteroid that could be shifted into an orbit near the moon and used by astronauts as a stepping-stone for an eventual mission to Mars.
The project, envisioning that astronauts could visit such an asteroid as early as 2021, is included in Obama's US$17.7 billion spending plan for the US space agency for 2014. It would be an expansion of existing initiatives to find asteroids that may be on a collision course with Earth, and plans for a human expedition to Mars in the 2030s.
"This mission allows us to better develop our technology and systems to explore farther than we've ever been before - to an asteroid and to Mars - places that humanity has dreamed about, but has had no hope of ever attaining," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said. "We're on the threshold of being able to tell my kids and my grandkids that we're almost there."
In 2010, Obama proposed that NASA follow the International Space Station program with a human mission to an asteroid by 2025. The agency has been developing a heavy-lift rocket and deep-space capsule capable of carrying astronauts beyond the station's 400km high orbit.
The system would be capable of traveling to the moon, asteroids and eventually to Mars, the long-term goal of the US human space program.
Obama's 2014 spending plan proposes US$105 million to start work on the mission, which entails finding a 7-to-10-meter-wide asteroid and robotically towing or pushing it toward Earth so it ends up in a stable orbit near the moon. Astronauts aboard an Orion capsule would then blast off, land on the asteroid and bring back samples.
The project, envisioning that astronauts could visit such an asteroid as early as 2021, is included in Obama's US$17.7 billion spending plan for the US space agency for 2014. It would be an expansion of existing initiatives to find asteroids that may be on a collision course with Earth, and plans for a human expedition to Mars in the 2030s.
"This mission allows us to better develop our technology and systems to explore farther than we've ever been before - to an asteroid and to Mars - places that humanity has dreamed about, but has had no hope of ever attaining," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said. "We're on the threshold of being able to tell my kids and my grandkids that we're almost there."
In 2010, Obama proposed that NASA follow the International Space Station program with a human mission to an asteroid by 2025. The agency has been developing a heavy-lift rocket and deep-space capsule capable of carrying astronauts beyond the station's 400km high orbit.
The system would be capable of traveling to the moon, asteroids and eventually to Mars, the long-term goal of the US human space program.
Obama's 2014 spending plan proposes US$105 million to start work on the mission, which entails finding a 7-to-10-meter-wide asteroid and robotically towing or pushing it toward Earth so it ends up in a stable orbit near the moon. Astronauts aboard an Orion capsule would then blast off, land on the asteroid and bring back samples.
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