Space
NASA Asteroid Mission Will Serve as Precursor for Future Deep Space Endeavors
Thomas Carannante
First Posted: Apr 22, 2014 06:12 PM EDT
NASA recently announced they would be conducting a mission to visit a nearby asteroid to collect samples from its surface by 2018. Some politicians in Congress want NASA to bypass this mission and go directly to Mars or visit the moon.
The space agency's administrator Charles Bolden told those dissenting members of Congress to "get over it." He believes that the asteroid mission will be essential in setting the stage for the Mars missions in the 2030s because it will serve as a proving ground. Asteroids are like minor planets within the solar system, so such a mission would be a prequel to the Mars missions.
The asteroid-capture mission is expected to be achieved by 2025, in which NASA is currently accepting proposals until May 5 for concepts studies in variety of fields, including asteroid capture systems, rendezvous sensors, commercial spacecraft adaption, and partnership opportunities for secondary payloads and crewed missions. NASA's Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) will conduct the first U.S. mission to visit an asteroid, expected to launch in 2016 and return to Earth in 2023. The probe will collect pieces from its surface.
House Republicans want to disregard the redirect mission and instead begin setting up bases on the moon and Mars. But Bolden does not want to do that because they can provide answers. Another issue is that the money isn't there for a near-future Mars visit. Bolden said that it's even going to take hard work just to get enough money by 2030. The NASA 2015 budget is estimated to be $17.5 billion, which would be down from this year's $17.65 billion. The costs for multiple Mars missions would be comparable to the Apollo missions of their time.
"Reality is the budget," Bolden said, according to NBC News, "and we are not going to get 4 percent of the federal budget to go to Mars or any other place."
Not only that, but the technology is still being developed for astronauts to sustain themselves on Mars, and unless that is done in the near future, a Mars mission would be pointless. Nonetheless, the progress on these missions is exceptional and we should be witnessing history very soon..
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First Posted: Apr 22, 2014 06:12 PM EDT
NASA recently announced they would be conducting a mission to visit a nearby asteroid to collect samples from its surface by 2018. Some politicians in Congress want NASA to bypass this mission and go directly to Mars or visit the moon.
The space agency's administrator Charles Bolden told those dissenting members of Congress to "get over it." He believes that the asteroid mission will be essential in setting the stage for the Mars missions in the 2030s because it will serve as a proving ground. Asteroids are like minor planets within the solar system, so such a mission would be a prequel to the Mars missions.
The asteroid-capture mission is expected to be achieved by 2025, in which NASA is currently accepting proposals until May 5 for concepts studies in variety of fields, including asteroid capture systems, rendezvous sensors, commercial spacecraft adaption, and partnership opportunities for secondary payloads and crewed missions. NASA's Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) will conduct the first U.S. mission to visit an asteroid, expected to launch in 2016 and return to Earth in 2023. The probe will collect pieces from its surface.
House Republicans want to disregard the redirect mission and instead begin setting up bases on the moon and Mars. But Bolden does not want to do that because they can provide answers. Another issue is that the money isn't there for a near-future Mars visit. Bolden said that it's even going to take hard work just to get enough money by 2030. The NASA 2015 budget is estimated to be $17.5 billion, which would be down from this year's $17.65 billion. The costs for multiple Mars missions would be comparable to the Apollo missions of their time.
"Reality is the budget," Bolden said, according to NBC News, "and we are not going to get 4 percent of the federal budget to go to Mars or any other place."
Not only that, but the technology is still being developed for astronauts to sustain themselves on Mars, and unless that is done in the near future, a Mars mission would be pointless. Nonetheless, the progress on these missions is exceptional and we should be witnessing history very soon..
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone