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NASA has pressed the “Go” button for its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM).
During July, the project went through “Key Decision Point-B”, and it got the tick from management on August 15, meaning the agency is going to get busy on a “baseline mission design”.
The plan, as we [The Register] reported in March 2015, is to rendezvous with a suitable near-Earth asteroid; chip off a chunk to bring back to Earth; and nudge the asteroid into Lunar orbit.
With the bureaucracy out of the way, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory says it's going to issue a request for proposals (RFP) for the spacecraft. There will also be an approach to market for third-party payloads on the robotic flight system.
NASA's cost cap for the project has been lifted from US$1.25 billion to $1.4 billion, something the agency says is entirely due to a one-year delay in launch scheduling, with the robotic ARM now slated to fly in December 2021 (a crewed launch is also on the cards for 2026, but that part of the project is in a much earlier stage of planning).
More from NASA here.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Justin Case on Thursday August 18 2016, @11:57AM
"Never" is a long time. Global warming or not, this planet won't last forever. We'll be forced to move or die as the sun gradually expands to vaporize Earth.
We have this assumption, however, that we must live on the surface of a rock. After all, that's all we've known.
But there is enough matter and energy available right here in our home solar system that we could manufacture our own cities in space [wikipedia.org]. The fact that the resulting structure resembles a generation starship [wikipedia.org] means if we can figure out how to propel the things we can set out across the gulf in our own sweet time.
Yeah I know our closest planets aren't very habitable. The moon in particular doesn't seem much good for long term human life. But we have other options.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by shrewdsheep on Thursday August 18 2016, @12:49PM
Before earth will be grilled, there is a challenge closer in time: cessation of volcanic activity due to loss of radioactivity in around 500 Mio years which will break the carbon cycle. Carbon dioxide will be absorbed into the oceans but not re-emitted through volcanoes and life will cease to exist. This would be a Mars-on-Earth situation anyway and mankind could better prepare for that situation. OTOH the notion that mankind would exist in its present form for the coming 500 Mio years is entirely preposterous IMO. This generation or the next the latest will see the emergence of AI proper and over time this new "life form" will take over. Like humans did and many other species before that when there is utter and complete superiority. Maybe some humans will be "scanned" and transformed like some futurologists suggest or not, resistance will be futile (and unnecessary). Non-biological life will be able to explore the universe.