NEA orbit types. Credit: Brent Barbee/NASA/GSFC
Mission to an NEO: a typical orbital profile. Credit: Brent Barbee/NASA/GSFC
Posted on 02/11/2015 2:12:18 PM PST by BenLurkin
This information comes from NHATS, which stands for the Near Earth Object Human Spaceflight Accessible Targets Study. Yes, it’s an acronym containing acronyms. NHATS is an automated system based out of Greenbelt, Maryland which monitors and periodically updates its list of potential target candidates for accessibility. The NHATS system data is readily accessible to the public online, and as of February 11th 2015, 1346 NHATS compliant asteroids are known.
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Relative delta-V and return velocity is crucial. Apollo astronauts were subject to a blistering 11 kilometre per second reentry velocity on their return from the Moon, and future asteroid missions would be subject to the same style of trajectory on return to Earth from a solar orbit.
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Brent Barbee at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center designed the automated NHATS system. It pulls data from a source that many comet and asteroid hunters are familiar with: JPL’s Small Bodies Database. The NHATS system then makes trajectory calculations and patches in conical solutions for possible spacecraft trajectories and actually gives potential launch window dates for future missions. Seriously, its fun to play with… you can even tailor and filter these by target dates versus maximum velocity constraints and the length of stays.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
Mission to an NEO: a typical orbital profile. Credit: Brent Barbee/NASA/GSFC
Not sure it is a very wise choice to be fiddling with near earth asteroids...unless it is with the intent to drop one on Mecca or Washington D.C.
Brings new meaning to being caught between a rock and a hard space. Out of curiosity do they call the asteroids we’ll encounter that don’t have orbits like the four mentioned the “Oh sh*t!” type?
You have to wonder what Earth encounters at various points during the solar system’s orbit around the galactic center.
If I understand correctly this is looking at asteroids with similar velocities as earth when they’re close?
just ask the Jupiter Mining Company. ask for Dave Lister
I take it you haven’t heard the theory our sun is one of a binary pair.
If we’re a binary we’re still moving in the same direction around the galaxy.
There's a start-up company that wants to mine the asteroids. They are teeming with silver, gold, platinum, and other precious metals.
The earth’s crust is some 15% iron and many asteroids are believed to be 70% or more Iron and other metals.
Sure we’ve got plenty of iron on earth but for serious space travel even within our own solar system we need to mine the metals and produce the ships in space.
We may also be orbiting each other.
I was just thinking that if we could bring the asteroids down to Earth, we could start expanding our land area. Use them to fill up the oceans and make more land. We could build skyscrapers on top of them, like we do in Manhattan.
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