This could take place before the Moon-landings: http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationspace...ecbccdrcrd.html

It's a great idea, and worthy of pursuing.

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Forum Guidlines

That has to be the most ungainly, unbalanced, ugly, fragile-looking spacecraft combo I've ever seen in my life.

I LOVE it! When do we go?!?!?!

Actually, depending on the time frame, it doesn't necessarily make sense to alter the LSAM design for this mission (as has been done in the illustration that accompanies the story). You don't really need the same kind of landing gear, etc., to anchor to an asteroid as you would to land on the Moon, so unless you already have LSAMs built and available, it doesn't really make sense to use that design when you are in a position to design a mission module more appropriate to the mission.

Since the crew will have to live in the CEV and the mission module for the entire flight, the asteroid version of the Orion configuration will need to carry more consumables and less propellants than a lunar version. A lot of this will come in the form of food and water -- items that are bulky and (especially in the case of food) not all that easy to just plop into a tank welded onto the outside of an existing descent stage design.

What makes more sense for a mission of this type is an asteroid mission module that likely would resemble an ISS lab module more than it would look like an LSAM. The only landing equipment you need is a flat bus that actually contacts the surface and piton-like grapnels to keep the whole stack attached -- you don't need a specialized descent stage with its own separable propulsion system. You don't need a separable ascent stage at all, the mission module can come back with you as easily as not (since you have almost zero gravity well to climb back out of after your surface explorations are finished).

So, instead of being a several-month mission cramped into the cabins of the CEV and LSAM, you'd be better off dusting off an ISS hab module design, fitting it out with any specialized gear (like grapnels, etc.) for "landing" operations, and using it instead of an LSAM. You're going to need such a hab module for a flight to Mars in any event, might as well get started gaining experience for such a module by designing it to be used on an asteroid recon.

Remember the rationale behind the Constellation architecture -- the CEV (i.e., the Orion capsule) is a common ferry that, with modest changes, can be used for a variety of missions. In each mission, it serves mostly as a transport from the Earth to LEO and then back from LEO or a deep-space trajectory to Earth. The specific mission defines the type(s) of mission modules that the Orion will operate with. For a lunar mission, you use an LSAM. For a Mars mission, you have a much larger complex of mission modules that support transit activities, Mars orbit activities, and of course Mars surface activities. For an asteroid mission, you'd just naturally have a different type and design of mission module, one suited properly to the mission at hand.

-the other Doug

I like Doug's module idea. But I have a different take on actual exploration of the asteroid. Just keep the craft in orbit and send the astronauts out in jet packs -- or attached to some kind of jet pack bus. Gravity is so minimal that no landing craft is necessary IMHO.

Sounds like a good time to rethink TransHab....*

Apollo on steroids or not, I can't imagine 3 months trapped in the CEV. Something like the Apollo Venus flyby would perhaps be fitting:

Click to view attachment

I hope I don't trigger any moderator flame war threshold if I say that this is finally a manned mission that I could get really excited about. It feels like we are "going somewhere."

*Or else just wait to buy one from Bigelow?

I assume you mean in orbit of the sun, paralleling the asteroid's orbit, and
not in orbit of the asteroid.

It seems the astronaut excursions would be most similar to spacewalks.
Would they be done using an umbilical? If so, without landing the craft,
the umbilical would be very long. But trying to land an astronaut without
an umbilical may be unacceptably dangerous. Remember the attempt
to land the Minerva mini-lander on the asteroid Itokawa ... it missed!

If Minerva was sentient and had maneuverable thrusters, I suspect it would have been as easy as hitting a barn door.

Definitely agree that the astronauts for this would need some sort of habitat module, or they'd be wearing rubber chickens on their heads before they got home. Question, though: Are any of the ISS module designs suitable for any of the current EELVs (thinking Atlas V or Delta IV Heavy here), or the Ares evolutes? We can't forget that we'll be losing Shuttle lift capability well before this mission becomes possible.

Don't forget Falcon 9 in these what-if scenarios. SpaceX are anticipating 12,000 kg to GTO. Delta IV Heavy is supposed to be 13,000 kg max to GTO.

That said, I have no idea what the mass of those modules is.

Not to mention fairing diameters, loads, vibes, etc. Hopefully somebody's thinking about all this. ISS hardware's pretty evolved by now, and it would be smart to re-use the designs if feasible.

IIRC, the Shuttle can lift 50,000 lbs to LEO (22,680 Kg).

I just have to add the totally unconstructive comment that every time I look at the title of this topic, I think it says "Manned Onion mission to an asteroid..."

--Emily

...well, I'm sure that Orion will get at least one article in there over the next few years, so you're forgiven!

The very thought of a manned Onion mission is gastrically & olofactorally disturbing, though; half the payload would have to consist of antacids & the other half of gas-mask filters. Plus one hell of a heat-resistant coating...we don't want it to be "bloomin'" on reentry...

The ISS modules are developed, but one thing that is missing in their current incarnation is a power source, since ISS modules all get their power from the shared solar arrays. I assume you'd be able to bolt on some large-ish solar panels to the design.

It would be interesting to see what the solution is for an astronaut keeping him/herself on the surface when the gravity is so low. Do you have a jetpack that applies a small "down" thrust all the time? How do you keep the thrust vector pointed toward the asteroid center when the astronaut is bending over or moving about? If the asteroid has as much void space and is as loosely packed as Itokawa, I think it would be risky to rely on spikes or pitons to tie yourself down.

I'd bet that the astronauts would remain tethered to the vehicle itself rather than the asteroid; obviously, this is the safe way to go. Might actually be smarter to move the CEV/module combo to several locations of interest on the rock rather than to allow the astronauts to roam the surface independently; seems too easy to accidentally kick yourself into the void, because easy rescue doesn't appear to be an option...

Oh dear. I can just imagine: "Astronauts accidentally destroyed Asteroid 963714288 today. While attempting to drill a spike into the asteroid's crust, it split into two large pieces and several smaller ones. The astronauts escaped injury, but the Minor Planet Center is holding an emergency meeting to discuss whether to give each of the pieces a new number."

"And in a further development, the IAU has announced that each astronaut will now be officially classified a planet, because they have very effectively cleared their area..."

Depending on the forthcoming US election results the idea may get major boost.....

Going somwhat off topic; I recently had a discussion here about plans to land an unmanned observatory on the moon, I wonder, would it make any more sense to land said observatory on an earth crossing asteroid? Especially as earth to asteroicd missions may take place anyway as rehearsals for dealing with one on a collision course? And, whilst I've got this buzzing about my brain, what science could be done during a manned mission to a NEO?

EDIT: I should make it very clear I'm not trying to start a manned vs unmanned debate, I'm curious as to what science could be done in the specific case of a manned mission, I'm mentioning the unmanned lunar observatory only because theres a good chance it's designers plan to service it, by a manned lunar presence, and the thought crossed my mind that a visit by an orion module could do the same thing for an asteroid based observatory.

Most asteroid rotation periods are in the neighborhood of just a few hours; it would be awkward to have to slough your telescope around at 60° per hour to track an object... Now, the moon rotates about two orders of magnitude more slowly...

I'd not considered that asteroids have their own rotation, thanks rogelio.

(Crazy thought) Emplace a thruster on the asteroid’s surface to slow and eventually stop its rotation prior to building your observatory. Might not take that long if the asteroid was small enough, and you had a nuclear reactor chugging away for ten years.

That makes sense, although I not sure I see it happening. What I was wondering was since we may well do orion missions to asteroids anyway, what experiments could be piggybacked easily on a manned mission, and what experiments would it make sense to send?

I'd like to see a calculation of the forces involved.

But even if you could make an asteroid "stationary", how long would it last? Wouldn't it just become very susceptible to even low-speed impacts, and start tumbling chaotically -- too slow, maybe, to be noticeable on a large scale, but enough to complicate your observatory work?

The most obvious science to do on the asteroid would be geology. For instance, if you put people on Eros, they could sample the basic regolith material, and the bright markings in larger craters, and the material of the ponds... including trying to understand the processes which have created the ponds. Then there would be internal observations usig seismic profiling or radar - is the object monolithic, a fractured monolith, or a rubble pile?

Maybe it's just my background, but geology seems the most obvious thing to do. Astronomy doesn't seem to be a good reason to go to an asteroid.

Phil

Just build the observatory out in deep space - you'll have a more stable (and easier to stabilize) platform than if you haul all the materials to an asteroid and build the observatory there.