Nasa wants to capture a rock and bring it to the moon

[hh5]

I remember a long ago in a syfy story its about going to the asteroid belt and establishing a mining colony ... and build a star ship with the raw materials found there

 

Isn't it a pipe dream to bring it to the moon? oops rock gets caught in earths gravity ,,, wouldn't it be easier to bring it to mars ... but the moon is better because it has a lower gravity

 

lol, either way humans will litter on Mars or the moon

curiosity parachute is flapping around on the surface ... scaring the natives lol

 

 

NASA wants to lasso an asteroid so astronauts can land on it

Senator says NASA to capture asteroid, park near moon

 

NASA has unveiled an ambitious plan to send astronauts to an asteroid, and it involves a lasso.

 

Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, who was an astronaut himself, told reporters on Friday about the plan, which President Obama has set aside $100 million for, notes The Associated Press. The plan features a robotic spaceship lassoing a 500-ton, 25-foot asteroid in 2019. That would bring it close enough to the earth to allow astronauts to use an Orion capsule to approach the rock in 2021.

 

 

[Benji]

..............How interesting!!!

[JamesSavik]

 

I'm guessing this isn't the rock they are looking for.

[hh5]

whats wrong with this? 

Which one would you pay 100 million?

[hh5]

ahh will this commercial sell you the project?

 

Deep Space Industries - Mining The Universe For The Future

Edited April 13, 2013 by hh5

[hh5]

ahh bring the rock to mars that way one doesn't screw up by accidently sending a rock into the earth

or go ahead bring it to the moon and make sure if u screw up send it flying to venus?

 

gosh nasa needs to make mission self sufficient that makes its own money to offset the lack of gov't funds

 

will they mine the rock after they slam it?

How does NASA get to Mars? By capturing an asteroid

“Ultimately our goal is to go to Mars,” says Robert Lightfoot, NASA's associate administrator. “Going to an asteroid is the next real logical step to go do that.”

 

It may not be as bold as John F. Kennedy’s pledge to put a man on the moon, but President Obama is promoting his own space odyssey: To land astronauts on an asteroid by 2025. Then reach Mars in the following decade.

 

Under NASA's current plan, a robotic spaceship would travel to a small asteroid and place a bag-like structure around it as the rock hurtles and spins through space. The craft would then drag the asteroid to the moon's orbit, close enough to Earth for astronauts to fly out and visit.

 

Lightfoot says the goal is test deep-space technologies that NASA would need for a trip to the Red Planet. And, all this on an asteroid about the size of a school bus.

 

Congress may not buy into the mini-asteroid mission.

 

“It seems to me, it's not a good use of the taxpayer's dollars,” says Republican Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. “It doesn't help us get to Mars, and it doesn't really help us learn more about large asteroids that we might want to deflect. So it just doesn't serve any purpose.”

 

A Senate committee approved the asteroid-capture plan this summer, but Smith's committee stripped it from proposed NASA funding.

 

“This is an era of budget constraints,” he says. “This is a mission that experts say will cost $2.5 billion, so it may fall from its own weight.”

 

The actual price tag is a matter of debate. But whatever the bill, private companies might be willing to help NASA out -- if they get what they want. They want to park themselves on asteroids, to mine metals, hydrogen and oxygen. Space companies would use these natural resources to make rocket fuel and spare parts, which could service spaceships on their way, for instance, to Mars.

 

“It’s an oasis and a gas station in all in one,” says Rick Tumlinson, a founder of Deep Space Industries, a futuristic mining company. The company's website proclaims: “It is time to begin the harvest of space.”

 

Tumlinson says NASA could offset its asteroid-program costs by partnering with private companies.

 

“We can not only do it far cheaper,” he says. “We can also begin to create a new economy that develops new resources and new jobs and begins to inject new wealth back here into the world.”

 

Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources, another asteroid mining company, are to present their ideas at a NASA workshop later this month. Congress will vote on NASA's 2014 budget later this fall.

 

NASA Says Slamming Captured Asteroid Into the Moon “Makes Sense”

Once NASA concludes its ambitious pet asteroid experiment, researchers could dispose of the space rock by slamming it into the moon—no, it wasn’t a suggestion from Michael Bay. According to a Space.com report, propelling the asteroid into Earth’s satellite is the safest possible route, despite how incredibly dramatic it sounds. One NASA researcher, Paul Chodas, couldn’t be more casual about it. “That makes sense to me,” he said when discussing the possibility.

 

“You can be comfortable that (the asteroid) will stay in this orbit for 100 years or so,” Chodas said. “But if that’s not enough, I think that, once you’re finished with it and you have no further need of it, send it in to impact the moon.”

 

Earlier this year, NASA outlined a initiative that would attempt to retrieve an asteroid and place it in the stable orbit of Earth, where researchers can then visit it as they please to study. The plan is to send a spacecraft to capture a roughly 25-foot-wide 500-ton asteroid and drag it into a stable lunar orbit. If that doesn’t pan out, scientists could break a smaller piece off a larger space rock; NASA is open to both possibilities. The first possible visit to such a captured rock could occur in 2021.

 

In addition to studying the asteroid’s composition, researchers could mine the rock in an effort to understand our solar system’s earliest days. If anything, it could give us more insight into what’s out there in deep space—way, way outside of the solar bubble.