NASA engineers have proposed a mission to an asteroid threatening Earth. Bruce Damer (DigitalSpace)
I’m happy to report
NASA may be planning to do more about the as-yet unaddressed asteroid threat to Earth than helplessly watch giant space rocks whiz by the home planet from time to time.
The Guardian, a British newspaper, reported recently that some NASA scientists have written a report outlining a mission to asteroid 2000SG344. The object is about 130 feet (40 meters) wide. It last passed close by Earth in 2000 and will return for another try in September 2030.
2000SG344 is one of scores of asteroids, dubbed near-Earth objects (NEOs), that could someday collide with the planet. NASA’s ongoing Constellation program should make an NEO mission possible with completion of the Orion crew vehicle and the Ares I and Ares V launchers.
A lot of topics we cover here at Astronomy don’t exactly trigger your fight-or-flight response, which goes something like: “Oh! Saber-toothed tiger! Hey, adrenal glands! Squirt some of that jump-juice into my veins, will you? OK, here I go up this tree! Mmmmmm. . . safe.”
We earthlings have no tree to collectively climb if 2000SG344 or any other NEO zeroes in on us. The reality of this dawned on me while editing a few NEO-related features for the magazine. Most people, if asked to name an imminent threat to Earth, would say “climate change.” But you can see climate change coming and take steps to get out of the way — put your house on stilts in advance of sea-level rise, for example.
Not so with NEOs. Which is why sending astronauts on a mission to 2000SG344 is such a good idea, for a lot of reasons. Here are a few:
1. Obtain photos with cover potential for Astronomy magazine.
2. Provide a dress rehearsal for the planned Moon mission. We would learn a lot about the psychological rigors of long-term space flight, since the round-trip mission time would be several months. We would also find out how well Orion’s systems hold up out there.
3. Going to a 130-foot asteroid and landing on it would be inherently cool. If we’re going to spend billions on crewed space flight, we might as well have some fun, not to mention capture cool space images with cover potential.
4. NASA public-relations people could relive the glory days of the 60s, when American astronauts were truly on risky voyages of discovery. The trip to Mars might seem less daunting.
Oh, almost forgot: The proposed NEO mission would provide firsthand knowledge that could help us plan future missions to deflect a threatening NEO. For example, we could obtain samples of the asteroid, which would help engineers to design a means to deflect the asteroid away from Earth without breaking it into a large number of smaller but still dangerous NEOs. In short, it would be like the film, Armageddon, with better special effects and dialog. I’m on board for this one.