So, Why Send Men to an Asteroid?

“One of the things we need to work on is figuring out
what you actually do when you get to an asteroid,�
said Josh Hopkins from Lockheed Martin, who is the
....[ah hum]...Principal Investigator for Advanced
Human Exploration Missions."


Um, sorry to be a critic, but isn't it best
to start with the 'why'...before...planning
a program that could rival the costs, time
and effort of Apollo?


This asteroid program about as silly as saying....
'let's go build a gigantic castle in the middle
of the Atlantic just to see if we can, just to
spur public excitement.'

Why you might ask? Ah, we'll figure that out later.



"And, Schweickart added, the excitement factor of
such a mission would be off the charts. “Humans
going into orbit around the Sun is pretty exciting!�
said Schweickart, who piloted the lunar module during
the Apollo 9 mission in 1969."



What? Huh! Orbit the sun? Have you guys lost your minds?

I'm assuming Nasa has a rocket that can accomplish
this task? Oh wait...



"This is an essential capability in order to ultimately
get to Mars, and a relatively short mission to a near-Earth
asteroid is a logical first step in establishing a
deep space human capability.�
http://www.universetoday.com/88384/h...hould-nasa-go/



Why send men to Mars?
Why have a manned deep space capability?

Oh that's right, that's all to be figured out
....at a later date yet to be specified.


I'm ashamed that NASA can't think of a more
worthy goal than make-work that's only
designed to keep their jobs.

That's the 'why'.



Jonathan




s

Why go to an asteroid? Because as a far space test mission it makes
more sense (and is easier to sell) than simply going out to some
arbitrary spot in space and then returning without some scientific
payload.

On 7/3/2016 9:09 AM, Jonathan wrote:
Why send men to Mars?
You can have the manned/unmanned debate with someone else. The fact
remains that scientifically speaking, Mars is a damn interesting place,
and we still have far more to learn.

Why have a manned deep space capability?
To me, it goes to the very core of human nature. It is natural for us
to want to explore. Can we afford it? That's another question!


The above notwithstanding, you and I agree as to the futility,
glacial slowness and extreme expense of NASA's recent efforts. With two
companies offering truly heavy lift rockets, I don't see why a deep
space capability couldn't be designed using off-the-shelf boosters.

In article , says...

Why go to an asteroid? Because as a far space test mission it makes
more sense (and is easier to sell) than simply going out to some
arbitrary spot in space and then returning without some scientific
payload.

This. Because a manned mission to an asteroid means actual exploration
and sample return. This is something that could be done unmanned, but a
manned mission will surely return more samples and possibly better
samples (since human eyes on the scene can often spot things "robot"
eyes can't easily spot since they're in real time contact with a human
brain to do the processing).

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

On Sunday, July 3, 2016 at 12:54:31 PM UTC-4, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article , says...

Why go to an asteroid? Because as a far space test mission it makes
more sense (and is easier to sell) than simply going out to some
arbitrary spot in space and then returning without some scientific
payload.

This. Because a manned mission to an asteroid means actual exploration
and sample return. This is something that could be done unmanned, but a
manned mission will surely return more samples and possibly better
samples (since human eyes on the scene can often spot things "robot"
eyes can't easily spot since they're in real time contact with a human
brain to do the processing).

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

we should go visit that other moon in earth orbit. fairly close by. test all sorts of new tech.....

In article ,
says...

On Sunday, July 3, 2016 at 12:54:31 PM UTC-4, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article , says...

Why go to an asteroid? Because as a far space test mission it makes
more sense (and is easier to sell) than simply going out to some
arbitrary spot in space and then returning without some scientific
payload.

This. Because a manned mission to an asteroid means actual exploration
and sample return. This is something that could be done unmanned, but a
manned mission will surely return more samples and possibly better
samples (since human eyes on the scene can often spot things "robot"
eyes can't easily spot since they're in real time contact with a human
brain to do the processing).

we should go visit that other moon in earth orbit. fairly close by.
test all sorts of new tech.....

It's not a moon in earth orbit! It's an asteroid in orbit around the
sun which also happens to have some complex interaction with the
earth/moon system. In other words, it's a four body problem in orbital
mechanics. Moons can (largely) be simplified as a two body problem (the
moon and the planet it orbits).

But yes, I would think it could be a potential target for a manned
mission. Such a mission would be far more meaningful than ARM but at
the same time require a minimal amount of new hardware to be developed
(mostly a HAB module).

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

In article ,
says...

On Sunday, July 3, 2016 at 12:54:31 PM UTC-4, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article , says...

Why go to an asteroid? Because as a far space test mission it makes
more sense (and is easier to sell) than simply going out to some
arbitrary spot in space and then returning without some scientific
payload.

This. Because a manned mission to an asteroid means actual exploration
and sample return. This is something that could be done unmanned, but
a
manned mission will surely return more samples and possibly better
samples (since human eyes on the scene can often spot things "robot"
eyes can't easily spot since they're in real time contact with a human
brain to do the processing).

we should go visit that other moon in earth orbit. fairly close by.
test all sorts of new tech.....

It's not a moon in earth orbit! It's an asteroid in orbit around the
sun which also happens to have some complex interaction with the
earth/moon system. In other words, it's a four body problem in orbital
mechanics. Moons can (largely) be simplified as a two body problem (the
moon and the planet it orbits).

But yes, I would think it could be a potential target for a manned
mission. Such a mission would be far more meaningful than ARM but at
the same time require a minimal amount of new hardware to be developed
(mostly a HAB module).

Talk to Bigelow. I'm sure they'd be more than willing to sell something for
this. :-)



Jeff

--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

Jonathan wrote:



“One of the things we need to work on is figuring out
what you actually do when you get to an asteroid,”
said Josh Hopkins from Lockheed Martin, who is the
...[ah hum]...Principal Investigator for Advanced
Human Exploration Missions."


Um, sorry to be a critic, but isn't it best
to start with the 'why'...before...planning
a program that could rival the costs, time
and effort of Apollo?


Yeah. This is just symptomatic of what's wrong with NASA. They've
built a rocket and a capsule without a mission. The only real
missions are 'Moon' and 'asteroid'. They've decided on 'asteroid
brought back to near Moon'. Now they need to figure out what the
point is, since they've selected the mission.

Pretty much ass backwards logic.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw

In article ,
says...

Jonathan wrote:



?One of the things we need to work on is figuring out
what you actually do when you get to an asteroid,?
said Josh Hopkins from Lockheed Martin, who is the
...[ah hum]...Principal Investigator for Advanced
Human Exploration Missions."


Um, sorry to be a critic, but isn't it best
to start with the 'why'...before...planning
a program that could rival the costs, time
and effort of Apollo?


Yeah. This is just symptomatic of what's wrong with NASA. They've
built a rocket and a capsule without a mission. The only real
missions are 'Moon' and 'asteroid'. They've decided on 'asteroid
brought back to near Moon'. Now they need to figure out what the
point is, since they've selected the mission.

Pretty much ass backwards logic.

That's what you get when Congress funds SLS/Orion, but no actual
payloads or any actual missions.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

In article . com,
says...

On 2016-07-05 19:50, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Yeah. This is just symptomatic of what's wrong with NASA. They've
built a rocket and a capsule without a mission.

In itself, that isn't the problem.

Actually, that's a huge part of the problem. Ares V, and then SLS,
supporters keep saying we need a really big fracking launch vehicle to
go to Mars. The trouble is, we really don't know how to land large
payloads on Mars, like a manned vehicle! Mike Griffin put the cart
before the horse on this one. He's the one that chose to work on the
"transportation architecture" first, and picked the one with the biggest
launch vehicle possible, well before we had solid requirements for the
thing! That's dumb, dumb, dumb.

The problem is that they simply
recycled Shuttle hardware instead of doing something truly new that
could benefit other endeavours. (NASA's mission has R&D in it, doesn't it ?)

You mean like X-33? This is a failed way forward too. NASA should not
be advancing the state of the art while simultaneously using that tech
to build their own launch vehicles. This is stupid because it stifles
innovation. We're seeing innovation and cost reduction out of launch
start-ups right now like we've never seen before and *none* of it
requires any truly "new" in terms of aerospace specific technology.

Yes, new tech like 3D printing is a part of this, but that's only
tangentially being directly driven by NASA. Mostly it's coming out of
the commercial 3D printing industry and the commercial aerospace
industry (adopting the technology).

Had NASA developped new method to build SSMEs more affordably, that
might have been interesting. But they litterally used the SSMEs from the
retired shuttles. So no manufacturing improvements to make such engines
affordable.

That's to "save money". But even if they are successful at making
disposable SSMEs cheaper to manufacture than the reusable ones, that's
completely backwards in terms of the direction of the industry.
Disposable LOX/LH2 engines which operate from sea level to vacuum are
just not useful! They drive *up* the cost of a launch *system*. Case
in point is how much more expensive Delta IV (LOX/LH2 first stage) is
compared to Atlas V (LOX/kerosene first stage). ULA wants to end Delta
IV production (except Heavy) due to its high cost.

The bottom line here is that commercial launch is just plain cheaper
than NASA building and flying their own launch vehicles. We've been
launching satellites and astronauts into orbit for more than half a
century (coming up on 60 years for Sputnik in a little over a year). We
didn't need NACA to build and operate airlines 60 years after the Wright
Flyer, did we? No? Then why would we need the same for spaceflight?
Makes no freaking sense at all.

Buying everything you can commercially saves money. Commercial cargo
for ISS has proven this and commercial crew should do the same (since it
will fly with people on it far sooner and far cheaper than SLS/Orion
ever will).


A better way forward would have been for NASA to start working on actual
Mars landing tech and working with the commercial space industry in the
US to develop other enabling technologies like LEO fuel depots and
inflatable HAB structures. But, the best we can hope for now is that
SLS will be killed sooner rather than later. But with a presidential
election coming up, I'd expect the inertia of the program to carry it
forward for at least another couple years (and several billion dollars)
before the new president takes notice (which they might not since space
is such a tiny part of the overall budget).

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

Jeff Findley wrote:

In article ,
says...

Jonathan wrote:



?One of the things we need to work on is figuring out
what you actually do when you get to an asteroid,?
said Josh Hopkins from Lockheed Martin, who is the
...[ah hum]...Principal Investigator for Advanced
Human Exploration Missions."


Um, sorry to be a critic, but isn't it best
to start with the 'why'...before...planning
a program that could rival the costs, time
and effort of Apollo?


Yeah. This is just symptomatic of what's wrong with NASA. They've
built a rocket and a capsule without a mission. The only real
missions are 'Moon' and 'asteroid'. They've decided on 'asteroid
brought back to near Moon'. Now they need to figure out what the
point is, since they've selected the mission.

Pretty much ass backwards logic.


That's what you get when Congress funds SLS/Orion, but no actual
payloads or any actual missions.


Well, we got SLS because they wanted something that used big solids to
help keep ATK's ICBM motor business subsidized. In order to justify a
big solid like SLS, they tried to make it the only rocket that Orion
would fit on (which gave an Orion size and weight). Now they're
trying to come up with something useful to do with the hardware they
built.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn