The Plymouth Rock project could be a stepping stone to Mars
Posted 11.24.2009 at 3:17 pm
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Orion, Coupled For Asteroid Mission
Lockheed Martin is studying the feasibility of a manned mission to an asteroid employing two Orion spacecraft connected at the nose.
Lockheed Martin
Cue the Aerosmith soundtrack; a plan to send a manned space mission to land on an asteroid is gaining traction within both NASA and the aerospace industry as experts look to bridge the feasibility gap between lunar missions and an eventual rendezvous with Mars. Of course, no party is ruling out the possibility of an Armageddon-esque trip to a Near Earth Object (NEO) on a harmful trajectory, should the need arise in the future.
While neither NASA or the White House has signed off on -- or even offered funding to study -- such a mission, briefing charts put together by Lockheed Martin, maker of the space agency's next-gen passenger spacecraft, detail how a mission might work. It's not as far-fetched, or far away, as one might think, with a mission to an NEO possible in a 2020-2025 time frame.
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Technology, Clay Dillow, armageddon, asteroids, aviation, mars mission, near earth objects, SpaceOnce there, scientists could gather compositions samples of the rock and set up other scientific equipment that could be left behind on the NEO. That information would be extremely valuable to science, not to mention give scientists the upper hand should a worrisome rock ever come hurtling directly toward earth.
Right now it's only an idea on a briefing board, but both NASA and aerospace industry wonks feel like the mission is not only feasible, but could offer invaluable experience as a stepping stone between current low earth orbit excursions and forays deeper into space.
Did we mention there will be jetpacks?
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This is what I've been wanting to hear about!
It may not be a planet or a far away moon, but that's a start.
Drag some (small) asteroid iceballs into orbit around earth. Add a few a metal ones. Crash some on the moon.
There's your all resources needed for functional space bases/colonization.
A nuke powered (Hyperion?) Vasimir engined asteroid capture tug is the way to go with this.
There are few things in this world that I love as much as I love jetpacks.
Wake me up when they step out of the "building momentum" phase.
living in this day and age is like being the middle child/stepson.
Sure we have pretty high technology, but the really cool laser blasting hyperspace travel asteroid mining heal you with sound waves in water stuff is still JUST beyond our life times.
lnwolf41 Can we say rocket pack? A jet pack use surrounding air to work, space as no useable air hence rockets.
it's ironic we can keep 100 men alive for 6 months under the ocean, and yet the best we can do is 2 men in a capsuel to go in neo; not even the moon.
Doors opening for asteroid mining maybe?
@lnwolf41 I have been wondering if you could use a turbine to exhilarate low velocity gas to increase isp for very small thrusters in a vacuum. Think turbo pump in reverse. If such a device worked it could be coincided a jet.
The interest in asteroids (especially from Lockheed Martin and other private industries) is not only based on the danger for asteroid-Earth encounters.
Asteroids (and generally near earth space objects) are a great source of silicone, carbon, iron, nickel and other priceless for our future raw sources.
This need for asteroids harvesting will become more obvious in the near future when we deplet our own raw material sources. Then we will look into the space for these, we will start drilling asteroids!