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New human spaceflight mission Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=96&ncid=753&e=10&u=/space/20030409/sc_space/nasa_needs_new_vision_for_human_spaceflight__asteroid_protection__experts_sayhttp://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=96&ncid=753&e=10&u=/space/20030409/sc_space/nasa_needs_new_vision_for_human_spaceflight__asteroid_protection__experts_say
Yahoo! News Wed, Apr 09, 2003
Science - Space.com
NASA Needs New Vision for Human Spaceflight, Asteroid Protection, Experts Say
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By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer, SPACE.com
A group of 30 scientists has formally urged NASA (news - web sites) to use the International Space Station (news - web sites) (ISS) as part of an expanded program of human and robotic missions to learn more about asteroids and how to deflect one that might one day threaten Earth.
The suggested effort would lead to human missions to asteroids, a stepping stone for a crewed trip to Mars.
In a letter to NASA, asteroid experts and other researchers inside and outside the space agency suggest it seek to emerge from the Shuttle Columbia tragedy with a fresh vision for integrating human and robotic space exploration. That vision should incorporate the space station in an effort to investigate asteroid compositions and to understand how innovative propulsion systems might be used to visit them or even to nudge an incoming asteroid off course. Learning how to destroy an asteroid might also be a goal.
The letter was signed by two former astronauts and 28 astronomers and scientists at universities and space industry companies, as well as institutions closely tied to or largely funded by NASA.
The space station could be used to test in microgravity conditions machinery that would be used to examine an asteroid, said former astronaut Thomas Jones, who is also a planetary scientist and a consultant for space exploration efforts beyond the space station. Eventually, material brought back from an asteroid might be examined aboard the station, again taking advantage of microgravity.
Robots, then humans
"If you're going to send people to follow up your robots … then the ISS is an essential stepping stone," Jones, one of the signatories, said in a telephone interview.
Asteroid experts around the world have in recent years prodded their governments to spend more on asteroid search programs, deflection schemes and basic research of comets and asteroids. NASA outspends all other agencies and countries in this undertaking, investing about $3.5 million each year in the search. Basic study of asteroid composition is not accounted for separately but includes robotic missions to asteroids, ground-based observations and theoretical studies.
Almost nothing is spent on investigating how to deflect or properly pulverize a threatening space rock. Before scientists can figure out how to do this, more information is needed about the diversity of relatively nearby objects and the contents of their deep interiors.
The letter suggests that various forms of nuclear propulsion -- stated development goals in the agency's 2004 budget -- could be useful in the effort to travel to space rocks.
"A cogent new goal is needed for human space flight and significant investments and experimentation are required to develop in-flight power and propulsion systems for future solar system exploration," the letter states. "In addition, a new program needs to be started at NASA to create an adequate scientific basis for a future mitigation system and, simultaneously, to learn how to apply future collision mitigation technologies."
Mitigation is a catchall term applied to the possible destruction or deflection of space rocks as well as possible evacuation plans that would be needed in the event an impact were deemed inevitable and imminent.
The letter was dated April 4 and sent to NASA Space Architect Gary Martin at the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C. Martin is seen as an official who has a view of the overall scope of missions and programs needed to tackle the perceived problem.
Among the signatories are Donald Yeomans, an asteroid expert at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Apollo 9 astronaut Russell Schweickart and the University of Maryland's Michael A'Hearn, who leads NASA's Deep Impact Mission to slam into a comet in 2005. The letter was drafted primarily by Michael Belton, president of Belton Space Exploration Initiatives in Tucson, AZ.
The researchers recommend the following new goal for NASA:
Show how humans and robots can work together on small objects in near-Earth interplanetary space to:
1) accomplish new fundamental science on planetary objects;
2) aspire to previously unimaginable technical achievements on objects in interplanetary space; and,
3) protect the Earth from the future possibility of a catastrophic collision with a hazardous object from space.
"Since these activities would allow human spaceflight to cross the threshold into interplanetary space, they could also be thought of as a precursor activity to provide the essential technical and medical experience for that more distant, but even more challenging, goal -- a human exploratory mission to Mars," the letter states.
Post-Columbia concerns
The scientists seek to avoid a divisive debate about the utility of the space station as a science outpost as politicians, the public and NASA officials sort out the role of human spaceflight in the post-Columbia era.
"As space scientists, we believe [the divisiveness] can be avoided by adding a new, exciting, and affordable goal for human spaceflight and the use of the space station," they wrote.
The letter was an outgrowth of a new roadmap for attaining "Scientific Requirements for Mitigation of Hazardous Comets and Asteroids," which was developed at a workshop of international researchers directed by NASA's Office of Space Science.
Jones, the former astronaut, said the feeling behind the letter is that the effort to learn how to mitigate potentially threatening asteroids "is being underserved and underfunded given the potential seriousness of that problem."
No asteroid is known to be on a collision course with Earth. But experts agree that an impact, which might level a city or even cause widespread regional damage, is inevitable unless thwarted by technological intervention. Such an impact could occur this year or not for thousands of years. Researchers would likely have months or years of warning, but possibly not enough time to mount the research effort being proposed in the letter.
Meanwhile, a NASA-led search program designed to find large asteroids in the vicinity of Earth -- those that could cause global devastation -- has discovered more than half of the estimated 1,100 such rocks larger than 1 kilometer (0.62 miles). Smaller asteroids, of which there could be hundreds of thousands that might pose local or regional dangers, are not yet part of any coordinated search effort.
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