FUTURE TECH
Sending crewed expeditions to near-Earth asteroids will help us discover more about their formation and structure
A steroids can tell us a great deal about the formation of our Solar System and could be the stepping stones to the long-term colonisation of the Moon and interplanetary trips to Mars and beyond. They might well contain water and air that could be used to support deep-space crewed missions, and there’s the possibility of mining them for their precious metals. They certainly have the potential to enhance human existence, yet there are at least 1,000 dangerous asteroids that pose a risk to Earth.
Back in April 2010, then-President Barack Obama announced that NASA should send a crewed mission to an asteroid. The plan was to use a combination of the Orion spacecraft and a Deep Space Habitat (DSH) to go beyond Earth orbit. The habitat would consist of a four-person habitation module and would be suitable for 60-day missions. With an additional Multi-Purpose Logistics Module linked via a utility tunnel and docking module to the habitation module, it could operate for 500 days. These modules would be based on existing, already-proven International Space Station designs and technology. Either option would be propelled by a cryogenic propulsion stage using liquid hydrogen or liquid oxygen engines, and in future by more advanced ion engines.
The DSH would also carry a small two-person MultiMission Space Exploration Vehicle (MMSEV). This would take the astronauts from the DSH to a nearby asteroid, where they could obtain geological samples and carry out science experiments. Testing of a prototype Generation 2A MMSEV has already been conducte
