Comments on: A manned spaceflight to an asteroid?

By: Johan

Johan — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 10:42:51 +0000

Turbocharge Space exploration, if they start a metal industri into space into a astroid it would denfenetly spice up things, and make manned missions to other planets in ower solarsystem easyer.

But ill guess the moon aint bad either, but after all after the astroid is mined, it would definetly be suitable for living in. And makeing it self a suitable big “bus”, to other planets, if they want many people at once to move this would be a way to do it.

By: Grand Lunar

Grand Lunar — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 17:45:43 +0000

I realized one thing; the astronauts will certainly need to watch their step.
On such a small body, one could inadvertinly leap right off the surface! Oops.

By: slang

slang — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 22:27:24 +0000

One of the best arguments (apart from the simple fact that increasing knowledge is always good) that I read for this was that it would actually fit in easily in the series of testlaunches that will no doubt happen for the new hardware. According to the guy it was a relatively easy mission to build, based on an earth orbit test flight. Getting science data from a testflight, and a fantastic publicity bonus too.. perfect Can’t find it anymore so unfortunately I can’t give a link.

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 20:50:14 +0000

As to candidates with a low delta-v requirement, my best find so far is 1991 VG. Unfortunately the nice, slow close approach doesn’t happen until 20 Nov 2068. On the bright side, the astronauts could celebrate the 100th anniversary of Apollo 8 on their trip…

You can see what a plot of it looks like by going to this website:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/orbits/

and searching for 1991 VG

By: Kullat Nunu

Kullat Nunu — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 23:15:19 +0000

To me, the real question is not whether it is easy to send a man to an asteroid, but whether it is necessary. What would he (or she!) be doing there that an unmanned probe cannot, and that will justify the extra expense?

You can’t learn to life in space and to colonize the Solar System using only robots…

Otherwise, of course, robots are superior in almost every way. With the future advanced robotics and artificial intelligence you can scrub the word ‘almost’.

Why colonize space? Because otherwise our species will face a certain extinction, sooner or later. It’s that simple.

By: Ray Gray

Ray Gray — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 21:51:07 +0000

NASA has to take a manned trip to the bank before they can afford to buy so many future missions.

By: icemith

icemith — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 18:37:26 +0000

What’s the effect of actually hollowing out the insides of an Asteroid. It seems to me that all that mass raised to the surface and exported would change the orbit and, in fact, the little gravity it had.

What is the effect of the rocket powered freight vessel leaving the asteroid? And the many such trips that would be needed to effectively exhaust that source of minerals or whatever?

As a closing ceremony, would someone ‘pull the plug’, and collapse the shell to a much smaller ‘oid, or instead, even tow it back to Earth to be exhibited in a museum, or even go on a world tour?