Goddard Space Flight Center is about to get medieval on some comets
Posted 12.14.2011 at 11:10 am
17 Comments
Goddard's Comet-Hunting Crossbow
NASA/Rob Andreoli
In Kepler, NASA has an exoplanet hunter. In the Curiosity rover, the space agency has finely tuned mechanism for tracking down geological signs of past life on Mars. It even has an asteroid hunter capable of chasing down hurtling chunks of rock from millions of miles away. Now, NASA wants a comet hunter. Literally. In a lab at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland researchers have constructed a massive crossbow in which they are testing huge harpoons that they hope will one day blast through the surface of a speeding comet.
The overarching idea: to fly a spacecraft close enough to a comet that it can fire a harpoon into the comet’s surface, acquire material samples from within it, and recover the samples to the spacecraft for return to Earth. But before they can do that, researchers have to prove that their harpoon will work. That’s why in a closet-sized lab space at GSFC there sits a six-foot-tall crossbow--it’s technically a ballista, a siege weapon invented by the ancient Greeks to hurl large missiles at their foes--made from a pair of truck leaf springs and equipped with a half-inch-thick steel bowstring.
The ballista is positioned pointing downward for obvious reasons. It’s bowstring is pulled back mechanically to create up to 1,000 pounds of force, which can launch projectiles upwards of 100 feet per second. It’s here that GSFC researchers are firing various harpoon designs into 55-gallon drums of simulated comet material (usually some mix of pebbles, salt, sand, or the like) to see what sticks--and what doesn’t.
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Technology, Clay Dillow, ballistas, comets, crossbows, goddard space flight center, harpoons, nasa, SpaceBut landing on a comet and drilling core samples isn’t so easy. Unlike large asteroids, comets exert very little gravity and are basically just huge chunks of ice and dust leftover from the solar system’s formation. In order to land a spacecraft on one, NASA would likely have to somehow tether a spacecraft to the comet and pull itself onto the surface. In other words, it would need a harpoon of sorts anyhow. The idea here is to simply go ahead and make the harpoon the subsurface sampling device, circumventing the need to actually land.
To do so, GSFC researchers are trying to figure out and demonstrate the best tip designs, cross-section, ideal velocities, and explosive charges to propel the harpoon (the actual mission wouldn’t pack a crossbow, but some kind of chemical propellant to launch the harpoons). Once it has penetrated the surface, researchers need to show their harpoon can gather a sample, detach (probably leaving the tip behind), and ferry the sample back up to the spacecraft. And they will have to demonstrate the ability to do this in a variety of possible materials, because there’s no way to know what the comet’s composition will be like until the spacecraft gets there.
It’s an ambitious project, and it starts with a huge ballista sitting in a closet at Goddard.
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Harpoon away..............................!
lol
actually, simply putting the ballista on the probe should work just fine.
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why learn from your own mistakes, when you could learn from the mistakes of others?
“The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible” -Albert Ein
"And he piled upon the whale's white hump, the sum of all the rage and hate felt by his whole race. If his chest had been a cannon, he would have shot his heart upon it."
-- Moby Dick
Interesting to know how they will counteract the forces of firing the cannon/harpoon at it's target.
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In space, no one can hear a tree fall in the forest.
GMarsack,
Is your head getting balder? But, I digress.
Are you suggesting there maybe opposite opposing forces to this projectile harpoon that could send the probe in another direction, away from the comet as it launches its harpoon hard and fast into the mysterious material of the comet?
Interesting idea, but a robot drill would probably work better and have the capability of coring numerous holes. If they are close enough to shoot a harpoon and reel it in, why not just land?
They need to be careful that the line used to reel the harpoon back in does not get tangled in zero-gravity. I remember an experiment with a satellite tethered to the space shuttle with a very long line to measure current generated while orbiting the earth and passing through its magnetic field. The line got tangled.
So for a few million dollar stacks of bucks we get a crossbow?
Shooting a harpoon with a line, if the arrow fails to stick to the comet and snaps the line, the arrow will fly back at the probe, tangle line as HBillyRufus says and possible the arrow could damage the probe.
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Science sees no further than what it can sense.
Religion sees beyond the senses.
as Quasi44 said for million dollars we got a cross bow? well balista rather...really? Genius at work genius....What we should do is send up 100 probs launch a 100 of these to it and tug this bad bo back to earth and safely land it on the planet in one peice !! THEN study that bad boy!!!! NOW THAT would be worth the money!! Then I will be impressed with wasting our tax paying money....
@pits.and.mcgoo - "Interesting idea, but a robot drill would probably work better and have the capability of coring numerous holes. If they are close enough to shoot a harpoon and reel it in, why not just land?"
The comet does not have enough gravity to hold the spacecraft in place. Even a gentle landing would result in the spacecraft bouncing off the comet. The spacecraft would need to attach itself to the comet to do any coring anyway.
i wonder how big they want to make it? i hope they at least contacted modern bow makers for research information since theyre the experts here. could save million in research for nasa
Who ever enters the command to fire needs to preface that command with "From hell's heart I stab thee"
@pits.and.mcgoo I agree with trying to land on the comet and mount the probe on to gather much more data.
@Delkomatic Yes that would be worth our tax money, but bringing a whole comet down to Earth is easier said then done.
With the project in the video, they used just soft material. Scientists still to this date do not know if comets have a solid hard surface or a soft dusty surface. You would think they would need to know this?
"In a future mission, a spacecraft may land on a comet and gather samples for analysis. To design a suitable lander, researchers need to know what kind of surface it would land on. They'll also need to know which tools to send – drills for hard surfaces or scoops for something softer." According to science.nasa.gov
What about ice? Don't comets contain a lot of ice? Will that melt when the space craft returns?
They harpoon it to anchor the satellite so it can drill to it's core where they could analyze it's components. But that's just too serious so yea, Thar she blows!
I think this is such a nifty toy! I don't care if they spend a trillion dollars on it! Money is the only thing holding back the people who really want to do cool things! It is an excuse for those to NOT move forward and maintain the status quo. This is the reason the Chinese keep their space department's budgets secret from the people. They want to do cool things like us but don't know how... Lack of creativity in their educational systems but they do have the resources and they too want to be as cool as NASA!
Any who.... GOOOOO NASA!!!! You build your space harpoon crossbow and make us all proud! Skewer a Comet and bring us home some white whale!