Many asteroids, such as Itokawa, may be made of loosely packed rubble that would be relatively easy to burrow into (Image: JAXA)
Posted on 10/23/2006 11:43:10 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Building shielding on Earth to launch with the spacecraft would add a lot of extra weight to the vehicle and would increase the cost of the mission as a result. Other ideas, like a lightweight plasma bubble that could be generated in space are being explored, but have disadvantages of their own (see Plasma bubble could protect astronauts on Mars trip)... A small population of asteroids pass by both the Earth and Mars in their orbits. So the idea is that a spacecraft containing Mars-bound astronauts could rendezvous with one of these objects as it goes by the Earth and travel with it until it nears the Red Planet.
In one version of the idea, the astronauts would actually dig a hole in the asteroid, put the spacecraft inside and cover it over with material from the asteroid. Within this protective burrow, the spacecraft would be shielded from cosmic rays during the six- to 10- month journey to Mars.
In a second version, the spacecraft would not contact the space rock. Instead, it would hover nearby, and astronauts or robots would visit it on spacewalks. "You'd have the astronaut actually go to the asteroid and begin to extract material," Della-Giustina told New Scientist. The material collected could then be brought back and put into a hollow shell surrounding the spacecraft. The shell of rocky debris would make a radiation shield, she says. The plan has some potential hurdles, but nothing that seems to rule it out, says Daniel Durda of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, US.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientistspace.com ...
Many asteroids, such as Itokawa, may be made of loosely packed rubble that would be relatively easy to burrow into (Image: JAXA)
Uhhh... don't asteroids often collide with other asteroids?
related topic, similar idea:
Roadmap To Mars [Buzz Aldrin]
Popular Mechanics | December 2005 | Buzz Aldrin, with David Noland, illus by Jeremy Cook, Buzz portrait by Michael Kelley
Posted on 12/21/2005 11:15:57 AM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1544699/posts
The astronaut training will be conducted at Coney Island.
As long as they have 'hyper-space' training, I guess it's OK...
No...well maybe a long, long time ago or in the movies.
Actually I thing using asteroids this way will become fairly common.
It seems far fetched on it's face but after a little thought it starts to sound more feasable than building large spacecraft on earth and launching them or building them in orbit.
Not unless every few thousands or ten thousand years is "often".
In (serious) answer to the question, asteroids collide or bump together all the time, but the time between collisions of any single asteroid is pretty long. So, yes and no. :')
Someone (perhaps Asimov, but he probably wasn't the origin of the idea) suggested using comets to explore the outer solar system. The idea was to stick a probe on the comet and hitchhike out. There are too many problems with the idea of course, not least, that hanging on for the ride may be too much, and the damage to the instruments and communications may be fatal.
BRING BACK ORION! Launch ships the size of aircraft carriers that have six-foot solid-steel plating -- DIRECTLY FROM THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH, WITH A CREW OF HUNDREDS! SEIZE CISLUNAR SPACE! Deny it to other nations. Screw democrats. Screw enviromentalists.
Travel in an asteroid would be excellent, because it would be very well protected, and be easy to expand the habitat. Of course, getting all the orbits to match is like figuring out (in advance) the pattern laid down by a Spirograph. :')
[singing] "hi ho, hi ho, it's off the Mars we go..." [whistling]
I'm not too sure that would work. :') The trick of course is to A) find an asteroid which just happens to be headed in the right direction and will arrive at the right time; B) to be in a position to fire such a harpoon; and C) to survive what would have to be major and sudden acceleration, not to mention sudden catastrophic deceleration when the craft pancakes into the butt end of the asteroid. ;')
Don't forget to bring your towel.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
