from: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-08/chinese-scientists-hatch-plan-pull-asteroid-orbit-around-earth

A Chinese Solar Sailing Scheme to Divert the Asteroid Apophis from its Collision Course with Earth

By Clay Dillow Posted 08.19.2011 at 10:02 am 31 Comments

Diverting Near Earth Asteroids With Solar Sailing Spaceships As you can see here, this will be a piece of cake. Shengping Gong, Junfeng Li, Xiangyuan Zeng via arXiv

For all the apocalypse talk that gets tossed around by psuedo-scientists and religious blowhards, rarely do we hear mention of Apophis, the 50 million-ton asteroid that actually might come close enough to Earth to warrant an end-of-the-world scare sometime in 2029. In that year it will pass so close to us that we’ll be able figure the trajectory for its return trip in 2036. If it passes through an area of space near our home planet known as the “keyhole,” it spells doom--on its return pass in 2036 it likely would strike us. Luckily, the Chinese are already on top of this one.
Apophis’ keyhole is pretty small, just 2,000 feet wide. In space terms, that’s practically nothing. That means that the chances of Apophis passing through the keyhole at all aren’t great. But it also means that it would only take a very small nudge sometime prior to 2029 to ensure that it misses the keyhole altogether. And that’s where a handful of Chinese researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing come in.

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Tags

Technology, Clay Dillow, apophis, asteroid apophis, asteroids, solar sail spacecraft, solar sailing, Space

In a paper they describe how Apophis could be deflected using a small spacecraft powered by a solar sail into a retrograde orbit on a collision course with the asteroid. That retrograde orbit--that’s an orbit opposite that of Apophis--would give it a hell of an impact speed, something like 55 miles per second. That kind of impact, executed far enough in advance, should push Apophis out of its current orbit enough to keep it clear of that keyhole, no Bruce Willis necessary.
But it sounds easier on paper than it really is. NASA’s solar sailing technology is nascent. Japan’s is better but still in its infancy. And as Tech Review's KFC points out, we’re talking about slinging this spacecraft way out into space where it would cruise for years before reaching Apophis--akin to the old “hitting a speeding bullet with a speeding bullet” analogy. Should the solar winds shift unexpectedly, we might miss. And if we miss Apophis, there’s nothing to guarantee that Apophis will miss us.
Luckily we have some time to figure this one out. Read the paper at arXiv.

How to Send Astronauts to Asteroids? Earth Needs to Know

From: http://www.space.com/12782-asteroid-missions-astronauts-humanity-survival.html

How to Send Astronauts to Asteroids? Earth Needs to Know, Report Suggests by Leonard David, SPACE.com’s Space Insider ColumnistDate: 31 August 2011 Time: 07:00 AM ET

Artist's concept of anchoring to the surface of an asteroid. CREDIT: NASA  View full size image

Developing the capability to launch human missions to asteroids would aid humanity's ability to foil a potentially devastating asteroid strike and help spur our march to Mars, a new report finds.

What's most needed to make manned asteroid missions possible, the report further concludes, is a comprehensive survey of the Near Earth Object (NEO) population, which would greatly aid planning efforts.

The new report, entitled "Target NEO: Open Global Community NEO Workshop," is anchored in views expressed by experts who gathered at George Washington University (GWU) in Washington in February. But this latest appraisal includes extensive peer review and refined findings from a number of follow-up meetings, both in the United States and abroad. [Photos: Asteroids in Deep Space]

The key question posed by the GWU workshop: What information about NEOs is still needed to support a robust, sustainable human exploration program?

While this question prompted a variety of recommendations, a primary conclusion by the participants is the need for a space-based survey telescope to greatly expand the catalog of accessible asteroid targets for human exploration.

The space rock menace

There is a growing list of stakeholders supportive of NEO exploration, said Paul Abell, lead scientist for planetary small bodies at the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"This report is timely," Abell told SPACE.com.

Small bodies have become a magnet for multiple interest groups in the U.S. and abroad, Abell said, be they space scientists, astrobiologists, planetary defense planners or NEO specialists who eye the rocky worlds as resource nodes.

 

An artist's interpretation of NASA's asteroid-sample mission OSIRIS-REx, which will rendezvous with the near-Earth asteroid designated 1999 RQ36 in 2020. The mission is expected to launch in 2016.
CREDIT: NASA/Goddard University

View full size image

For example, NASA recently selected an asteroid sample return mission called Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-Rex. OSIRIS-Rex will be the first U.S. mission to carry samples from an asteroid back to Earth.

Japanese space officials are moving forward on their Hayabusa 2 asteroid explorer. Russia is readying its Phobos-Grunt spacecraft to explore a moon of Mars, and Canada is pressing forward on its dual-purpose microsatellite, NEOSSAT.

Then there’s the new, surprising data flooding in from NASA’s Dawn probe that’s taking a long look at Vesta, the second-largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. [5 Reasons to Care About Asteroids ]

"It shows you that, every time we go places, we’re always surprised and there’s so much to learn," Abell said. "That’s the fun part of science and exploration."

The "Target NEO" report points out that programs and planned missions to asteroids may be leveraged for mutual benefit in terms of data exchange. It also recommends coordination with the European Space Agency and other space agencies on a planetary defense demonstration mission.

Stepping stones to Mars

As for dispatching astronauts to asteroids, the report envisions that a target NEO will need to be discovered several years in advance to provide enough lead time to deliver robotic precursor missions, plan the human mission and deliver the crew to the chosen destination.

Abell also said that piloted flight to a NEO would hone techniques that could enable an exploration mission to the Red Planet.

"They provide good stepping stones out to Mars," Abell said.

Operating at an asteroid or Mars would be completely different than working at the moon, on the space shuttle or aboard the International Space Station.

Both asteroids and Mars, for example, would have much greater lags in communication times. So deep space missions would require the sharpening of true autonomy acumen, as well as a great deal of confidence in redundant hardware, deep space propulsion, life support gear and radiation shielding.

 

Size matters…as well as composition! Comparative imagery of nine asteroids. Asteroid Vesta dwarfs all other small bodies and is considered a protoplanet because it’s a large body that almost became a planet and has a diameter of approximately 330 miles (530 kilometers).
CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JAXA/ESA

View full size image

Space exploration primer

A major report finding is that human spaceflight know-how — the body of data required to support the flinging of flesh outward to a NEO, a journey that would take many months roundtrip — "is severely limited at this time." [Video: Asteroid Collision Watch]

Furthermore, behavioral health support and the psychological and sociological issues associated with a NEO-bound crew cramped up in relatively small quarters "are also significant concerns that increase the risk to the mission."

Overall, the report flags the fact that deep space missions do not afford the abort opportunities and psychological comfort provided by rapid return to our home planet — a hallmark of missions in cislunar space, particularly those carried out in low-Earth orbit.

Bottom line: Far more work is necessary to support human sojourns outside of the Earth’s protective magnetosphere. A biological bugaboo is the acute and long-term physiological effects of space radiation on the human body.

Looming space decisions

"We will soon begin writing the next chapter of our human spaceflight saga, and a near-Earth object may be humanity’s first destination beyond the Earth-moon system," said Brent Barbee, editor of the report and a flight dynamics engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "There are many decisions to be made regarding how we approach that challenge."

Barbee said that he and his colleagues hope the new workshop report will be a valuable reference that helps inform critical decision-making. And there are a number of decisions forthcoming to help focus on NEO visitation questions.

One of the most important messages in the report, Barbee told SPACE.com, is the wisdom of deploying a space-based survey telescope capable of detecting a significant portion of the undiscovered NEO population.

But while there are several capable NEO survey ideas that exist at varying degrees of maturity, the report recommends that more study of these potential concepts is necessary to objectively scrutinize them against a common set of requirements and in a way that permits direct cost comparison.

"Only a few of the currently known NEOs offer potentially feasible human mission opportunities during the 2025-2030 timeframe, and those NEOs are very small in size. A space-based survey has the capacity to escape the geometrical observing constraints which hinder ground-based surveys and thus discover many more NEOs relatively quickly, including a better set of candidate NEO destinations," Barbee said. "Those discoveries would simultaneously benefit the science, exploration, and planetary defense communities."

To read the full report, "Target NEO: Open Global Community NEO Workshop," visit:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sbag/documents/NEOfinalReport.pdf

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is a winner of this year's National Space Club Press Award and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for SPACE.com since 1999.

Secure World NEOs event

http://swfound.org/events/2011/workshop-on-international-recommendations-for-neo-threat-mitigation

Workshop on International Recommendations for NEO Threat Mitigation

When: Thursday, August 25, 2011

 

to Friday, August 26, 2011

Where: Pasadena, California

This 2-day workshop brought together representatives from space agencies and international experts to discuss several issues related to international response and cooperation to respond to a Near Earth Object (NEO) impact threat.  This included discusion of a draft Terms of Reference for a potential Mission Planning and Operations Group (MPOG) which could help space agencies coordinate and plan their activities.

This workshop is a follow-up to the previous workshops in January, 2010, in Mexico City to discuss a NEO Information, Analysis, and Warning Network (IAWN) and in October, 2010, in Darmstatd, Germany, to discuss a NEO MPOG, based on the recomendations made to UN COPUOS in 2008.

The workshop was co-organized and co-sponsored by Action Team 14, part of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS) Scientific and Technical Subcommittee, Secure World Foundation (SWF), and the Association of Space Explorers (ASE).  The supporting agency host was the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Near Earth Object Observations Program Office.

The workshop was held at the Courtyard Old Town in Pasadena, California.

The Unbelievably massive market potential of Space-Based Solar Power

Energy is a $7 Trillion annul market today...it will grow at least 3-fold over the next half centur.
But look at this chart and the launch potential...wow!

5587

From: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-5587&tab=summary

6/23/2010--Introduced.

Establishes in the legislative branch the United States Commission on Planetary Defense to: (1) review the structure, coordination, management policies, and procedures of the federal government, and as appropriate, international bodies, and nongovernmental entities, relative to the detection, characterization, mitigation, and over all response efforts to dangerous Near-Earth Objects (NEOs); (2) assess U.S. and foreign technology readiness levels required to provide effective planetary defense and make recommendations to develop required technologies, including NEO detection and characterization systems, spacecraft, nuclear devices, and laser systems; and (3) submit interim reports and a final report to the President and Congress containing such findings, conclusions, and recommendations as the Commission shall determine for corrective measures. Sets forth provisions regarding the membership, powers, and staff of the Commission.

From: http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/2010/07/26/bill-would-create-asteroid-threat-commission.htm

Bill Would Create Asteroid Threat Commission

Monday July 26, 2010

In 2009, NASA told Congress that it lacked the money needed to properly track large, Earth-approaching asteroids. A year later, Congress is at least showing some concern over the potential extinction of the human race.

Perhaps the most asteroid-aware lawmaker, U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R - CA), has introduced a bill that would create a special government commission to study the threat of major collisions of asteroids - Near Earth Objects -- with the Earth.

Rep. Rohrabacher's bill "To establish a United States Commission on Planetary Defense" (H.R. 5587), would create within the legislative branch a United States Commission on Planetary Defense. The Commission would:

• determine capabilities of United States Government entities, nongovernment organizations, foreign governments and entities, and international bodies to detect, characterize, and neutralize potentially dangerous Near Earth Objects (NEOs);
• identify and evaluate roles and responsibilities of United States Government entities to detect, characterize, and neutralize potentially dangerous NEOs;
• determine United States effectiveness in leading international efforts to detect, characterize, and neutralize potentially dangerous NEOs;
• build upon United States Government and foreign analyses, studies, and assessments, without duplicating efforts, to determine current and required NEO characterization and mitigation capabilities;
• identify and report on technology development required to provide effective planetary defense from dangerous NEOs;
• and investigate and report to the President and Congress on its findings, conclusions and recommendations for corrective measures that can be taken to provide planetary defense.

The bill also requests a maximum budget of $2 million to fund the activities of the Commission on Planetary Defense.

While concern over near earth approaching asteroids has always been substantial, it may have reached a peak on Jan. 7, 2002, when a 300-yard-wide asteroid called 2001 YB missed the Earth by a little more than twice the distance to the Moon. Perhaps the scariest thing about asteroid 2001 YB5 was that it was detected only 12 days before its "close encounter."

Slightly more than a year later, an influential group of scientists and astronauts, including Apollo 17 moon mission astronaut Harrison Schmitt, wrote a letter to Congress urging the U.S. government to begin immediate preparations to deal with the threat of near Earth-approaching objects like asteroid 2001 YB5.

"We cannot rely on statistics alone to protect us from catastrophe;" they wrote. "[S]uch a strategy is like refusing to buy fire insurance because blazes are infrequent. Our countrysimply cannot afford to wait for the first modern occurrence of a devastating NEO impact before taking steps to adequately address this threat."

Now, seven years later, Rep. Rohrabacher's Commission on Planetary Defense would be at least "one small step" in that direction.

Also See:
NASA Says Can No Longer Afford to Track Asteroids
Citizens Ask Congress to Plan for Asteroid Impact Survival
No Money, No Mars, No Moon, Spaceflight Panel Find

SBSP for Disaster Relief

Here also is an interesting idea from India on Space Solar Power for disaster relief:

http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?725954

One side of a debate team

One side of a debate team arguing against Space Solar Power.  Decent points, but there are counters to every one.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50810984/56-KO-Space-Based-Solar-Power-Case-Neg
http://www.scribd.com/doc/4797389/Solar-Power-Satellites-Negative

Here is one affirmative:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/4792913/Solar-Power-Satellites-Affirmative

"Just another Asteroid heading toward earth"
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2011/02/27/local_scientists_study_asteroids_for_clues_potential_threats/

The Earth heads for a cluster of concentrates of asteroids or a challenge of Comet?
http://articlevideorobot.net/tag/planetary-defense
Rather than playing with the extinction of our species shouldn’t someone or some Government have a plan, in case you find a large asteroid headed straight or elliptical towards us?

A bill to Establish a Commission for a Planetary Defense:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.+5587:

A collection of Space Solar documents:
http://pdf-world.net/pdf-2011/solar-power-satellites-pdf.pdf

Ammonia from meteorites could have aided start of life on Earth
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=ammonia-from-meteorites-could-have-2011-02-28&sc=emailfriend

SBSP for Disaster Relief

Here also is an interesting idea from India on Space Solar Power for disaster relief:

http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?725954


An article from Space News (http://spacenews.com/commentaries/110620-green-nasa.html ) saying "NASA Go Green!":
And after conducting extensive study of solar power satellites that have the potential for beaming power to Earth 24 hours a day, and after acknowledging the feasibility of the concept, why did NASA stop short of at least a demonstration system, so that commercial enterprises could take over as they have with communications satellites?

Hu Davis's group is called Solar High at http://solarhigh.org/
"The Solar High Study Group is a small team of senior engineers and policy analysts who are working to make space-based solar power a reality in the United States and around the world."

NASA NIAC funds a Space Solar Power Project

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/early_stage_innovation/niac/2011_phase1_selections.html

Earth MORE likely to get hit now! & Europe's Plans

From: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Earth_Impacts_More_Likely_in_the_Past_or_Present_999.html

Earth Impacts: More Likely in the Past or Present?by Staff WritersMunich, Germany (SPX) Aug 04, 2011

illustration only

Is the Earth more likely or less likely to be hit by an asteroid or comet now as compared to, say, 20 million years ago? Several studies have claimed to have found periodic variations, with the probability of giant impacts increasing and decreasing in a regular pattern.

Now a new analysis by Coryn Bailer-Jones from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), set to be published in the Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, shows those simple periodic patterns to be statistical artifacts. His results indicate either that the Earth is as likely to suffer a major impact now as it was in the past, or that there has been a slight increase in impact rate events over the past 250 million years.

Giant impacts by comets or asteroids have been linked to several mass extinction events on Earth, most famously to the demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Nearly 200 identifiable craters on the Earth's surface, some of them hundreds of kilometers in diameter, bear witness to these catastrophic collisions.
Understanding the way impact rates might have varied over time is not just an academic question. It is an important ingredient when scientists estimate the risk Earth currently faces from catastrophic cosmic impacts.
Since the mid-1980s, a number of authors have claimed to have identified periodic variations in the impact rate. Using crater data, notably the age estimates for the different craters, they derive a regular pattern where, every so-and-so-many million years (values vary between 13 and 50 million years), an era with fewer impacts is followed by an era with increased impact activity, and so on.

One proposed mechanism for these variations is the periodic motion of our solar system relative to the main plane of the Milky Way Galaxy.

This could lead to differences in the way that the minute gravitational influence of nearby stars tugs on the objects in the Oort cloud, a giant repository of comets that forms a shell around the outer solar system, nearly a light-year away from the Sun, leading to episodes in which more comets than usual leave the Oort cloud to make their way into the inner solar system - and, potentially, towards a collision with the Earth.

A more spectacular proposal posits the existence of an as-yet undetected companion star to the Sun, dubbed "Nemesis". Its highly elongated orbit, the reasoning goes, would periodically bring Nemesis closer to the Oort cloud, again triggering an increase in the number of comets setting course for Earth.

For MPIA's Coryn-Bailer-Jones, these results are evidence not of undiscovered cosmic phenomena, but of subtle pitfalls of traditional ("frequentist") statistical reasoning. Bailer-Jones: "There is a tendency for people to find patterns in nature that do not exist. Unfortunately, in certain situations traditional statistics plays to that particular weakness."

That is why, for his analysis, Bailer-Jones chose an alternative way of evaluating probabilities ("Bayesian statistics"), which avoids many of the pitfalls that hamper the traditional analysis of impact crater data. He found that simple periodic variations can be confidently ruled out.
Instead, there is a general trend: From about 250 million years ago to the present, the impact rate, as judged by the number of craters of different ages, increases steadily.
There are two possible explanations for this trend. Smaller craters erode more easily, and older craters have had more time to erode away. The trend could simply reflect the fact that larger, younger craters are easier for us to find than smaller, older ones.
"If we look only at craters larger than 35 km and younger than 400 million years, which are less affected by erosion and infilling, we find no such trend," Bailer-Jones explains.
On the other hand, at least part of the increasing impact rate could be real. In fact, there are analyses of impact craters on the Moon, where there are no natural geological processes leading to infilling and erosion of craters, that point towards just such a trend.
Whatever the reason for the trend, simple periodic variations such as those caused by Nemesis are laid to rest by Bailer-Jones' results. "From the crater record there is no evidence for Nemesis. What remains is the intriguing question of whether or not impacts have become ever more frequent over the past 250 million years," he concludes.

The work described here is set to be published as C. A. L. Bailer-Jones, "Bayesian time series analysis of terrestrial impact cratering", in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

From: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27028/

Europe's Plan to Move An Asteroid

If we ever need to prevent an asteroid hitting Earth, we'll have to deflect it somehow. To practice, the European Space Agency is planning a game of asteroid billiards

If astronomers ever spot an asteroid coming our way, the world will have to decide pretty quickly what to do.

One idea is to knock it off course. But although that sounds pretty straightforward, it hides a multitude of challenges. The most obvious of these is to determine how big an impact would be necessary and how this could be delivered.

In 2002, the European Space Agency began a program called Don Quijote to find out how best to perform such a deflection.

Don Quijote involves sending two spacecraft to a near Earth asteroid; one to smash into it and the other to watch while in orbit above the impact crater. The goal is to change the asteroid's semimajor axis by more than 100 metres and to measure the change with an accuracy greater than 1 per cent.

But the question is how best to monitor what's going on in a way that is relevant to other asteroids. After all, the ultimate plan is to use the information from this mission to move some other asteroid with our name on it.

Now, Stephen Wolters at the Open University in the UK and a few friends have published a new analysis of the mission saying that measuring the change in orbit is not enough. Instead, the spacecraft needs to characterise the impact in detail, determining the density of the material near the asteroid's surface, the size of the surface grains as well as the mass and speed distribution of the impact ejecta.

Only with this information will it be possible to work out exactly how the momentum from the impactor was transferred to the asteroid.

That significantly changes the mission. In addition to an on-board radio transmitter that will allow space scientists back on Earth to work out its distance exactly, the spacecraft will need a sophisticated imaging suite capable of photographing the damage and carrying out infrared spectroscopy to determine the asteroid's mineral content.

The thermal cameras will also pick up any changes in temperature. That's important because of the small but potentially significant force from the way the asteroid emits heat.
If the asteroid emits thermal photons equally in all directions, their force cancels out. But if it emits more in some directions than others, then this force will slowly push an asteroid. That can happen if the asteroid tends to cool down at a rate that matches its speed of rotation--so that all the thermal photons emitted after the surface has been in the Sun, travel in the same direction.
This force, called the Yarkovsky effect, could make the difference between whether an impact with Earth occurs or not. So knowing its value is crucial, particularly if the impactor changes the asteroid's rate of rotation.
So that should make Don Quijote a better mission but it also makes it a more expensive one. And that raises a question mark over whether the European Space Agency will want to pay for it on its own.
But then again, why should it? There's a good argument that the international community as a whole should shoulder the burden and the cost of planetary protection.
The only question then is how badly we need Don Quijote to keep our planet safe.
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1107.4229: Measurement Requirements For A Near-Earth Asteroid Impact Mitigation Demonstration Mission

Comet Elenin

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2010_X1
A long-period comet, 3-4 km in diameter.  On 16 October 2011, the comet will pass within about 0.2338 AU(34,980,000 km; 21,730,000 mi) of the Earth^[3] at a relative velocity of 86,000 km/hr

From:

The comet doesn't offer much of a view and is quite dim to behold.
 "It will get no closer to Earth than 35 million kilometers."

The Onion: Chicken Shit Asteroid veers away at last minute

http://www.theonion.com/articles/chickenshit-asteroid-veers-away-at-last-minute,2722

TUCSON, AZ—Though initial calculations showed it to be on a direct collision course with Earth, a pansy-ass asteroid approximately the size of Rhode Island has instead altered its trajectory to avoid the planet by more than 40,000 miles, astronomers at the University of Arizona reported Monday.

Enlarge ImageThis wuss missed the Earth by a long shot.

"Guess it just didn't have the spuds to go through with it," Richard A. Kowalski of the school's Catalina Sky Survey said. "Real big surprise. Maybe you can try again when you accrete a little more mass than 6.32 x 10¹⁵ kilograms, okay? Chicken-shit."

Kowalski said that one month ago Asteroid 2009-XG2—nicknamed "Old Limp Dick"—was following a path that, even accounting for heat friction and gravitational pull from other celestial bodies, gave it a 97 percent chance of striking Earth. Further observation and calculations, however, indicated that the asteroid would instead tuck its balls between its legs and change its course by more than 22 degrees.

"This potential extinction-level event turned out to be a puss-out of cosmic proportions," Kowalski said. "Earth didn't even flinch. You know what, why don't you give it another go, little guy? Huh? You can even take a free shot at the moon to warm up."

Enlarge ImageScientists in this observatory used a high-powered telescope to track the asteroid's path right to the point of its monumental puss-out.

After a brief pause Kowalski added, "That's what I thought."

Many astronomers who have spent their careers monitoring asteroids have echoed Kowalski's conclusions. David L. Rabinowitz of the NASA-funded Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking program claimed that, despite the overwhelming data to the contrary, no one in the astronomy community had any doubt that the asteroid was talking out of its ass.

"Everybody knew that asteroid was a poseur," Rabinowitz said. "If it didn't have the balls to come within 100,000 miles of Pluto 15 years ago, how's it even gonna consider messing with Earth? What, did it think it was going to be another 1908 Tunguska Event? Don't make me laugh."

Rabinowitz also estimated that even if the asteroid had managed to remove its giant tampon and hit Earth, it most likely would have landed harmlessly in the ocean or the Sahara Desert.

"This asteroid's an even bigger pussy than 6489 Golevka, if you can believe that," he said.

Though astronomers across the world agreed that the asteroid probably still sucks on its mama's titties, a number of scientists have come out with different theories as to why it tore ass out of the solar system at 47,000 miles per hour.

"Have you seen Earth? It would have housed that asteroid so bad," University of Chicago astronomer Lucas Donovan said. "If it even tried making impact, you would have heard exactly two sounds: us hitting the asteroid and the asteroid hitting space. Little piece of shit got off lucky, if you ask me."

Plans to launch a probe to measure the composition of the asteroid were scrapped after NASA scientists concluded it was made up of 0.5 percent basaltic crust, 0.5 percent carbonaceous chondrite, and 99 percent bullshit.

"Goddamn chicken-shit planetoid ain't even worth it," acting NASA administrator Christopher Scolese said.

There is currently no strategy in place to prepare for a possible return of the asteroid, as NASA physicists have theorized it will likely throw itself into the sun from the utter shame of being such a weak-ass little bitch./

DRAFT: A proposed system of prizes to launch Space Solar Power

New paper, just a DRAFT!!!!  Helpful comments and corrections welcome.   Abstract:

A system of prizes to develop space solar power (SSP) is proposed.  If successful, a one or two
billion dollar investment could kick-start a vigorous SSP industry, which in turn could provide
humanity with essentially unlimited quantities of clean electrical energy.  If unsuccessful, the money
is returned to its source.  The prize is structured to subsidize the construction of nine SSP satellites
by at least three different entrants using different designs.  The prize is aimed at developing small
SSP systems delivering a few tens of megawatts to utilities on the ground.  Under some reasonable
assumptions, the prize money is sufficient to make one or perhaps two of the satellites profitable and
provide a significant subsidy to the other seven.  Once small SSP systems have been successfully
developed, producing large systems that can make a real difference to global energy production will
be much easier. While $2 billion is a great deal of money, should this effort be successful, it is
reasonable to hope that Earth’s energy and greenhouse gas problems could be solved.


For the full paper see http://space.alglobus.net/papers/SSPprizes2011.pdf

SpaceWork's First Revenue Satellite

 SpaceWorks Commercial posted online a recent Space Solar Power (SSP) economic analysis it presented at the 28th International Symposium on Space Technology and Science (ISTS) in Japan. The analysis focused on what SpaceWorks refers to as the SSP First Revenue Satellite (FRS), an operational demonstrator in the MW class for SSP. 

Reference:

Charania, A., DePasquale, D., Olds, J. R., "Operational Demonstration of Space Solar Power (SSP): Economic Analysis of a First Revenue Satellite (FRS)," ISTS2011-q-01, 28th International Symposium on Space Technology and Science (ISTS), Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, June 5-12, 2011.

Paper:

http://www.sei.aero/eng/papers/uploads/archive/ISTS2011-q-01.pdf

Presentation:

http://www.sei.aero/eng/papers/uploads/archive/ISTS2011-q-01_present.pdf

New Link:

http://www.sei.aero/com/news/newsindex.php?id=26


Abstract:
Niche markets (military installations, developing nation remote power, etc.) may be potential markets where Space Solar Power (SSP) satellites may be economically viable, given certain government support and Earth-to-Orbit launch cost assumptions. An operational demonstrator could be one approach for those markets. This paper examines such a concept, referred to by the authors as the SSP First Revenue Satellite (FRS). The FRS would be a mid-power (1-20 MW of delivered power) space-to-ground demonstrator of SSP. The purpose would be two-fold, prove the end-to-end technical capability and then demonstrate operations over multiple years. The FRS system would be turned over to commercial operators for public/private service. This is deemed to be a more feasible and useful mid-scale demonstration of SSP. This would be a hybrid public-private system consisting of low number of satellite systems. A notional SSP architecture is taken as a case study for this examination. Economic analysis is performed to look at the output prices such a venture would charge based upon various financing options. The objective of this analysis is to determine whether the FRS can be a commercially viable pathway for a SSP demonstrator.

Totally Pathetic Indo-US joint Civil Space Statement

Are you kidding? The political leaders of both nations have put a priority on space cooperation, and this pathetic, weak, anemic statement is the best their respective civil space agencies can come up with?

- Oooo, I'm soooo excited about potential cooperation in sharing data, and "possibilities" of joint experiements, and "willinness to discuss".
- I'm sure children in both continents are jumping up and down, unable to contain their excitement at a potential future career in data sharing and GNSS compatibility

The U.S. – India Joint Space Working Group on Civil Space Cooperation met in July 2011 in Bangalore. Building on the successful Chandrayan-1 lunar mission, NASA and ISRO reviewed potential areas for future cooperation in earth observation, space exploration, space sciences and satellite navigation. Both sides agreed for early finalization three new implementing arrangements for sharing satellite data on oceans and global weather patterns. Recognising the research opportunities available on the International Space Station, both sides agreed to explore the possibilities of joint experiments. NASA reiterated its willingness to discuss potential cooperation with ISRO on human spaceflight activities. The two sides also agreed to expand upon previous work in the area of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) with the goal of promoting compatibility and interoperability between the U.S. Global Positioning System, India’s Navigation systems, and those of other countries.

Compare this pathetic, anemic failure to the ambitious vision of Dr. Rajagopalan in an earlier post, or the exciting initiative posted by the NSS-Kalam initiative.

Are we really funding people to fly halfway around the world to discuss discussing potential cooperation, with no goals, no deadlines, no resourcing, no vision?

This is the best that can be offered up when the two nations are having a strategic dialog?

US-India Strategic Dialogue: "Sky's No Limit" for Space

From: http://www.orfonline.org/cms/sites/orfonline/modules/analysis/AnalysisDetail.html?cmaid=24899&mmacmaid=24900

US-India Strategic Dialogue: "Sky's No Limit" for Space
Dr. Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan
18 July 2011

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be arriving in Delhi on Monday (July 18) for the second U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue. This strategic dialogue is crucial because there is an increasing concern that the U.S.-India partnership is beginning to lose its way. In Washington, there is significant disappointment on a number of issues including India’s nuclear liabilities bill, which for all practical purposes prevents the US nuclear industry from participating in India’s civilian nuclear sector; and the Indian decision to reject two American competitors from the Indian Air Force’s lucrative Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) deal. In Delhi, on the other hand, there is unhappiness at what is seen as American pressure for greater defence cooperation. These issues suggest that all is not well with US-India relations.

With the nuclear deal over, New Delhi and Washington need another big idea to power the relationship over the next several years. Without such a political initiative at the highest levels, U.S.-India relations threaten once again to wallow in bureaucratic inertia. Space cooperation has the potential for being that next big idea.

Nearly two years back, Karl F. Inderfurth, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Statefor South Asia Affairs, and C. Raja Mohan, prominent Indian foreign policy analyst, proposed in the pages of the Financial Times, London that space cooperation be kept at the heart of U.S.-India relations.

But though space cooperation has been an important item in the agenda between the two countries with almost all important bilateral documents proposing such cooperation, there has been little tangible movement on the issue. With the removal of most U.S. high-technology sanctions on Indian agencies, particularly on the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), there are few obstacles to serious cooperation in this area.

Nevertheless, bland sentiments about cooperation are unlikely to bear fruit without tangible proposals. To begin with, the two governments should consider establishing a US-India 21st Century Commercial Space Initiative or a Space Knowledge Initiative, along the lines of the US-India Agricultural Knowledge Initiative and the US-India Clean Energy Initiative.

Space cooperation between the two countries has even greater potential. Space cooperation is likely to be much more visible than either energy or agriculture cooperation. And unlike the US-India nuclear deal, space cooperation is likely to garner domestic support in both countries and is likely to be less controversial internationally.

India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry, Anand Sharma, recently highlighted the successful US-India partnership in the area of clean energy. The initiative was also a successful model of public-private sector partnership, with the two governments investing $25 million each and the private sector investing $50 million.

There are a number of areas of space cooperation that Washington and Delhi can explore. While space exploration purely for the sake of science might be important, it is likely to be more sustainable when linked to building a strategic industry. US and India should focus building the underlying knowledge and skill base which can address many areas: space access, in-space maneuver, space logistics, space infrastructure, on-orbit servicing, developing new markets such as space tourism, on-orbit construction and manufacture, terrestrial resource mapping, space resource and energy utilization, space traffic management and active debris mitigation, among others.

India-U.S. space cooperation also has a potential for being much more broad-based than other areas such as nuclear or defense cooperation. Space cooperation can generate stakeholders across a wide-spectrum, from the national space agencies on both sides (NASA and ISRO), education and science and technology departments to universities as well as private commercial enterprises in both countries. In fact, space cooperation has the potential to go far beyond entities like ISRO and catalyse new strategic industries in space.

The two countries can elevate three strategic objectives through the space cooperation initiative: first, it provides an exciting investment area of space in the Indo-U.S. strategic partnership for Indian and American leaders to work on, which addresses STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), jobs and high-tech cooperation in space. Second, it can catapult space-industrialisation and commercial space from the edge of the Indian and American national space paradigm to its forefront. Third, garner further resources for our own STEM in developing a future strategic industry.

Such an initiative could generate active participation and cooperation from public and private entities such as ANTRIX Corporation (India’s commercial wing of ISRO), the Chamber of Indian Industries (CII), Indo-U.S. S&T Fund, FICCI, USIBC, educational institutions such as IIT, IIM, IISc and on the U.S. side, FAA/SAT universities, USRA, NIRA, NASA/OCT Commercial, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Space Enterprise Institute among others.

U.S.-India partnership has never been short of promise, but realising the potential needs grand vision. Much of the progress over the last decade has been the result of precisely such a vision in the form of the nuclear deal. The need now is for another grand vision that would ensure that the progress made so far is not jeopardised.

I thank Lt. Col. Peter Garretson of the US Air Force for collaborating and formulating many of the ideas in this analysis.

(Dr. Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation. She was at the National Security Council Secretariat, Government of India, from 2003 to 2007)

To Command the Stars

An excellent essay. Someone in Air Force Space Command who "gets it"
http://www.schriever.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-070906-081.pdf

Luna Ring and Solarbird

Read: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/lunar-energy-soulution-japans-crisis/story?id=14051246

Shimizu Corp Lunar Solar Ring

Go Green NASA!

An article from Space News (http://spacenews.com/commentaries/110620-green-nasa.html ) saying "NASA Go Green!":

And after conducting extensive study of solar power satellites that have the potential for beaming power to Earth 24 hours a day, and after acknowledging the feasibility of the concept, why did NASA stop short of at least a demonstration system, so that commercial enterprises could take over as they have with communications satellites?

Here also is an interesting idea from India on Space Solar Power for disaster relief:

http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?725954

There is a new pro-SBSP group: Solar High at http://solarhigh.org/
"The Solar High Study Group is a small team of senior engineers and policy analysts who are working to make space-based solar power a reality in the United States and around the world."

Fairly Substantial SBSP discussion on "To the Point"

Listen to discussion on Space Solar Power (in depth starting at 34:29):
http://www.kcrw.com/news/programs/tp/tp110708does_the_last_shuttl

NASA Ames bought a 1.2 MW, 110 GHz gyrotron for testing beamed energy propulsion

Remarks Keith Henson on the significance of the purchase:
"But if you have 9000 m/s exhaust velocity, which can be done with hydrogen heated with microwaves or lasers, then the mass ratio is a little less than 3.  So vehicle and payload can be 36% of takeoff mass.  If half vehicle and half payload, that's 18% each.  So a 300 ton vehicle with a dry mass of 54 tons could put 54 tons in LEO...The falling cost of microwave power and laser power makes these options possible.

Planetary Defense Conference

Bruce Betts reports from the Planetary Defense Conference in Romania

Day1: http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00003026/

75% of one-kilometer-diameter asteroids have been discovered and 85% of those larger than a kilometer, a total of 914 objects as of May 1, 2011. About 25% of Apophis-size (about 300 meter) asteroids have been found, and smaller percentages of smaller-sized ones. 

Day2: http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00003028/

IR astronomy and was used in part to find NEOs -- and it sure was successful. From a non-optimized orbit, NEO-WISE, as they called the NEO part of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, discovered 132 near Earth asteroids.

Anders Sandberg on Mitigating Asteroid Risk

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/sandberg20110513

A Space-Based Near-Earth Object Survey Telescope in Support of Human Exploration, Solar System Science, and Planetary Defense

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110011348_2011011214.pdf

Find out more here:

http://www.pdc2011.org/

Another Step Closer to Terra-forming Mars

From: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=mro-co2-ice&sc=emailfriend
Radar soundings from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have identified huge dry ice deposits under the Red Planet's surface totaling roughly 10,000 cubic kilometers. ..More importantly to planetary scientists, that dry ice—solid carbon dioxide—is enough to change the climate of Mars. If all that CO2 were released as gas, as it may well have been in the past, it would nearly double the mass of the Martian atmosphere, increasing pressures across the planet and making Mars more hospitable to patches of liquidwater.