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Lets Catch an Asteroid!
Basically, NASA is planning to catch an asteroid and place the asteroid in orbit around the moon. They will do this by using a robotic spacecraft, similar to the picture shown, and drag it back towards earth. A 2012 study estimates that it would take 6-10 years in order to move the asteroid to the earth. It will then be placed in a "stable orbit" around the moon. After the asteroid is placed in orbit around the moon, astronauts will travel to the asteroid and begin mining, research ways of deflecting an asteroid, and begin developing technology in order to possibly travel to Mars.
Obama supports NASA's plan and is including 100 million dollars in his budget plan in order to start the project off. It is expected that astronauts would began visiting the asteroid by 2021. The estimated cost for the whole project is around 2.6 billion dollars.
Former NASA astronaut Rusty Schweickart, mentions that "One big issue is how do you
hold on? Frankly, nobody knows how to attach to an asteroid. It’s a
blank spot in our knowledge.”
So what do you think? Is it worth to spend 2.6 billion dollars to catch an asteroid?
More information can be found here, here and here
5 comments:
My first reaction is that this seems like a silly project considering they don't even know how it will work. Learning to deflect an asteroid is certainly important though.
I'm also curious about asteroid mining. According to this article (http://news.discovery.com/space/asteroids-meteors-meteorites/could-asteroid-mining-drive-21st-century-space-industry-130204.html), a private company has already started based on space mining. It is cool that we live in an age where space mining is actually a thing and not just something out of science fiction. I do wonder though how useful asteroid mining really is.
I would be surprised to see results from such a project. I agree that asteroid mining is somewhat "silly." However, I think that outer space is very ambiguous. Any new information about the origin of planet earth or outer space in general is very interesting and could prove to be vital someday many centuries from now. I think there are people who devote their lives to learning about outer space and educating the public about their findings. Such intelligent and devoted people should be rewarded with the ability to "Catch an asteroid." The United States lets intelligent people create new high-tech weapons that may or may not be useful, why not let these intelligent people try to catch an asteroid? I will admit that this is probably not the appropriate time to be wasting over $2 billion on a project that may prove to not useless, though I think this project is worth a shot.
Frankly, given the current state of the world economy and multitudes of problems we already experience on Earth, space seems to me to be the last thing we should be worrying about. The probability of an asteroid hitting our planet is so ridiculously small that expending billions of dollars on trying to find a way to deflect an astroid seems an unnecessary waste of government money that could be much better spent in some other project. I don't disagree that some findings could come out of such a project, but the benefits are almost certainly not worth the enormous cost.
While space exploration is interesting and in some ways important, it should not be a priority. I agree with Garrett that what is happening on Earth is significantly more important than what is happening in space. The United States could definitely but 2.6 billion dollars to better use. 2.6 billion dollars can go towards education, to, homeless veterans, struggling families, etc. I also believe that people shouldn't even be in space, trying to find a way to one day live on Mars once the Earth is no longer able to support us.. Instead of focusing so much on the far future, we need to focus on the present day, and work to fix the problems on Earth so that we will never have to resort to having to change planets.. It is embarrassing that the U.S. is wasting 2.6 billion on a giant rock.
Contrary to Wyatt, my initial reaction was that this seemed like a really interesting venture. And granted, we could find a lot of useful information by studying an asteroid and it would be easier to do so if one orbited around the moon, it really isn't very feasible. As Garrett said, in our economy's current state, it is not practical to throw 2.6 billion at a project which, frankly, may not work or just may not yield any profound discoveries. Maybe in the future, if the US economy skyrockets, we could afford this project, but now is not the time.
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