This artist’s illustration is of a contraption that NASA is planning to use to capture an asteroid – – and place it into orbit around the moon.
The mission would entail an unmanned “probe” capturing a 25ft wide asteroid whose journey through our solar system swings it by Earth. The robotic ship would then drag the asteroid into an orbit with the moon. Scientists would then have an opportunity to study the asteroid, but instead of going for a “moon walk” on it, facts point towards more of a “scuba-diving” experience, due to the lack of gravity.
Many scientists and space fans in general are hopeful of some new discoveries.
“What can we learn from a 500 ton space rock,” you ask? Well, for starters it would give us some much needed experience in the nature of handling asteroids. In light of the recent asteroid incident in Russia, and the knowledge that we might not have a whole lot of time once we discover we’re in for an impact with one that’s not big enough to see with a lot of planning but big enough to seriously cause some damage, it’s probably not a bad idea to train in asteroid handling. Our experience with the asteroid will bring us closer to learning how to veer a potential disaster off course.
It will be our first opportunity (outside of sci-fi) to mine an asteroid. The proposal is quite persuasive:
“Extraction of propellants, bulk shielding and life support fluids from this first captured asteroid could jump-start an entire space-based industry,”
Water and other possible propellants mined from asteroids could potentially fuel rockets for journeying spacecraft in the not too distant future.
Interacting with an asteroid will provide opportunities to train for missions to other asteroids, to Mars and it’s moons.
If all that’s not cool enough, there’s even plans for the “Neonauts” to eventually use jet-packs to get around the asteroid.
At this rate, sci-fi writers are going to have to find some new material to represent the future! I wonder if Bruce Willis has heard of the project yet. Just think: in our lifetime, it might be possible to go on a field trip to the moon and back, or better yet, to go spend a week on the grand space-cruise-ship, Carnival.
Now that I think about it, once you’re out there, the novelty might wear off pretty quick. Yeah, just give me the jetpack ;)
~CHa0s
Sources: Science on NBC News, Space.com
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