I want to learn about asteroids. I agree that bagging one may not be a practical defense against a collision. But to design that defense, it’s really important to know how strong it is. I expect one to be more like a snowdrift or a loose pile of gravel than a boulder. I want men to experiment over a long period of time.

With ARM, astronauts will be able to visit an asteroid on missions lasting weeks rather than years. They will be able to abort missions if there are problems. They can build infrastructure on one mission and use it on subsequent missions. They can plan a mission using things they learned on another mission a month earlier.

If there’s platinum in an asteriod, is it spread evenly throughout, or is it concentrated? If you centrifuge material from an asteroid, do the valuable parts separate out? Astronauts can try things that it will be hard to design robots to do.

After we have studied a few asteroids close at hand, we will be in a much better position to plan a mission to visit an asteroid in its native orbit.

Fair enough, although that wasn’t a quote from me. Nonetheless, I do think it is a little different. As transportation, SLS or Falcon should not be considered goals themselves, but means to a goal. I was referring to the end goal, i.e., asteroid or lunar surface. (For the record, I am fine with either, and would prefer the latter if we could afford it.) However, you are correct, I believe the COTS model is the best means to attain almost any goal, and the SLS project the worst. Both these opinions are based partially on my archaeological view of what has worked best in achieving similar goals in human history and demonstrated performance in the past few years. (SLS type development hasn’t worked to achieve a goal since 1969 in spite of no end of trying, while SpaceX is achieving their near-term goals with far less money.) As such, I would like to see SLS cancelled and the money applied to CCtCap, projects like NASA’s newly announced attempt to commercialize comsats at Mars, and applying a COTS-like model to deep space propulsion stages, and eventually human deep space spacecraft.

— Donald

Pot calling kettle…. “For the record, these guys are all major league detractors of NASA and SLS, as am I. We are also major fans of SpaceX.”

“Go ahead, pick a different project. Someone like you will immediately be tearing it apart.”

Those “someone”‘s are usually manned Mars or manned Moon enthusiasts. They consistently can not see what is learned by ISS.

“That, in a nutshell, is a significant part of the reason we’re accomplishing nothing in human spaceflight, and not likely to except through seemingly tangental projects like COTS.”

In my view, we had a problem with launch costs. The reason they came about was ATK’s lobbying effort back in 1970, and continuing since then.

I believe that the lack of development of liquid engines can be laid at their doorstep, but proving it definitively will require access to records not currently available.

This situation in engine development led to an opening for both Musk and Bezos, which both of them took.

The technological edge now is flyback. Musk has taken his approach, I think Bezos should sell his engine work, or partner with someone now.

It’s also possible that the orbital mechanics could be worked out to allow Orion to retrieve 2 samples in 1 mission (e.g.: a lunar sample and a comet sample).

P.S. I have a friend who has had a stroke and he does square dancing. I’m don’t know what your capacity is, but he finds the requirements to translate verbal instructions into understanding and physical action is helping him to recover some those skills.

— Donald

— Donald

“The Earth is not a closed system”

Yes. We’re tied to a star, our Sun, and our planet’s weather is affected by our orbit around it and by variations in its nuclear reaction. The planet we live on is sometimes bathed by radiation escaping from that nuclear reaction.

Also,our planet and the others around our star formed out of matter ejected when that reaction first started. That matter accreted to form the bodies of the solar system we live in, and that accretion process is still going on.

In the immediate future, there are major resources far closer than the asteroids that are not being used.
We my expect people to fight for control of those resources unless laws regarding their use are established.

All of us, including legislators, have a limited amount of time. Asteroid property rights could be decided on after those more immediate issues are dealt with.

OSIRIS-Rex is a New Frontiers NASA Planetary Science mission, so it’s about $1B plus launch. It’s supposed to return a tiny but scientifically useful asteroid sample to Earth, and also do a survey of the asteroid (itself maybe a Discovery-class science mission). Do another with a different target asteroid, but while it’s doing whatever it’s doing in its early missions, have Orion retrieve the sample instead of returning the sample directly to Earth. In other words replace the OSIRIS-Rex return capsule with Orion.

The recent Planetary Science Decadal Survey recommended 2 sample return missions among the next 5 New Frontiers competitors: Comet Surface Sample Return and Lunar South Pole-Aitken Sample Return. Modify either (or both) of these so Orion retrieves the sample instead of returning it to Earth.

You might also have Orion deploy a solar wind sample collector similar to the Genesis mission collector (which was somewhat compromised during reentry), and retrieve it on a later mission.

From Jeff’s twitter account today:

Muirhead: still have goal on cost of less than $1.25B for ARM (excluding launch, operations, and crewed mission). #sbag11

Conventional wisdom and the KISS study had the robotic part of the mission as being well over $2B. NASA was saying $1B, but now it’s $1.25B plus launch plus operations. It’s starting to add up. The New Frontiers mission line is $1B plus launch, so any of the New Frontiers missions I mentioned should be significantly cheaper than the (possibly optimistic) robotic mission budget estimate NASA is considering. However, the New Frontiers mission line already has a budget, so no budget miracle is needed … just fund New Frontiers.

Even if you count the $1B plus launch cost against the New Frontiers class mission, you’re still ahead $250M plus operations compared to the mission NASA is considering. Use that $250M plus change to improve asteroid searches for science, planetary defense, and HSF purposes (to native NEO orbit, not ARM). Maybe fund the $50M instrument NASA was considering hitching on a comsat, maybe improve ground-based searches. Send a few Planetary Resources and/or Deep Space Industries robotic precursor scout missions to some NEOs. Fund the modernized version of the Genesis collector to give Orion some more make work. Boost funding for an advanced SEP technology demonstration mission (there should already be a wedge for that) without the burden of linking it to the operational asteroid retrieval mission. $250M+ could go a long way towards advancing the ARM mission goals (planetary science, giving Orion something to do, planetary defense, advancing HSF, technology demonstration, commercial space).