Advertisement

Support for NASA asteroid mission means support for our future

According to Bill Nelson, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Science and Space, NASA should be getting $100 million from next year's U.S. federal budget to support their proposed asteroid-retrieval mission.

NASA's plan, which was announced earlier this year, is to find a suitable candidate asteroid, send an unmanned spacecraft out to snag it, and then tow it back into a stable orbit around the Moon. This would grant us easier (and more predictable) access to the space rock, so that we could send astronauts out to study what it's made of and how it's 'put together'. Not only would it give us a better idea of how to protect ourselves in the 'cosmic shooting gallery' that we're in the middle of, but we could also dig useful materials from the asteroid — water ice, metals, and raw building materials for 3D manufacturing.

[ Related: NASA to get $100 million for asteroid-capture mission ]

"This is part of what will be a much broader program," Nelson said in Orlando on April 5th, according to a media release on his website. "The plan combines the science of mining an asteroid, along with developing ways to deflect one, along with providing a place to develop ways we can go to Mars."

Nelson, who is the Democratic Senator from the state of Florida, was also a NASA astronaut who spent six days in orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in January of 1986. Thus, he has always been a great supporter of the space program and an opponent to the spending cuts that NASA has endured in recent years.

This $100 million, if the proposal actually does survive to be included in next year's budget, is a good start for the plan, and will at least provide the funds to find a suitable asteroid. The total mission cost is projected to be around $2.6 billion, apparently spread out over a period of about 10 years, and whereas that may seem like a hefty fee to drag a big rock back from space, the entire endeavor is definitely worth the price tag.

The feasibility study for the program, conducted by the Keck Institute for Space Sciences, sums it up pretty well:

The proposed Asteroid Capture and Return mission would impact an impressive range of NASA interests including: the establishment of an accessible, high-value target in cislunar space; near-term operational experience with astronaut crews in the vicinity of an asteroid; a new synergy between robotic and human missions in which robotic spacecraft return resources for human exploitation and use in space; the potential to jump-start an entire industry based on in situ resource utilization; expansion of international cooperation in space; and planetary defense.
It has the potential for cost effectively providing sufficient radiation shielding to protect astronauts from galactic cosmic rays and to provide the propellant necessary to transport the resulting shielded habitats. It would endow NASA and its partners with a new capability in deep space that hasn’t been seen since Apollo. Ever since the completion of the cold-war-based Apollo program there has been no over-arching geo-political rationale for the nation’s space ventures. Retrieving an asteroid for human exploration and exploitation would provide a new rationale for global achievement and inspiration. For the first time humanity would begin modification of the heavens for its benefit.

Along with the various private space missions that are being proposed these days, this is the kind of thing that we need right now — not only for our advancement, but also for the survival of our species.

[ More Geekquinox: Supermassive black hole caught playing with its food ]

Science fiction has given us a glimpse of wonders far beyond sending a robot to drag a rock back to Earth for study, and maybe that literary genre has spoiled us a bit regarding human space exploration. However, if it seems that advances in space science aren't living up to the promises our imaginations have made, it's only because we haven't been providing the necessary resources to bring those dreams into reality.

These are 'baby-steps' now, but if we get through them and keep up the momentum, they'll lead to greater strides in the future, and given how our technology has been advancing, perhaps not so far into the future as we might think. The key is to get started.

And it's not just about developing new technology. Becoming a spacefaring culture is a necessity for our long-term survival. We will have to start spreading out — to the Moon, to Mars and beyond — not only in response to our increasing population, but also to prevent us from being wiped out by some random disaster.

To quote Stephen Hawking, from his Big Think video: ""We have made remarkable progress in the last hundred years. But if we want to continue beyond the next hundred years, our future is in space."

Geek out with the latest in science and weather.
Follow @ygeekquinox on Twitter!