[meteorite-list] NASA Mulls Sending Astronauts to Asteroid

[Ron Baalke]

http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14805577

NASA mulls sending astronauts to asteroid
November 25, 2008

A new report by a high-level panel of experts has praised the idea of
sending NASA astronauts to visit a nearby asteroid.

According to *New Scientist*, the US National Research Council (NRC) report,
titled "Launching Science: Science Opportunities Provided by NASA's
Constellation System", was written by a committee chaired by George
Paulikas, a retired executive for the Aerospace Corporation, a think tank
based in El Segundo, California.

The report has high praise for a proposal to send astronauts to a nearby
asteroid, or near-Earth object (NEO).

"The most compelling rationale for a human NEO mission is for its value as
an intermediate step between lunar exploration and interplanetary travel, to
prove new hardware and to maintain the momentum of the human exploration
programme by showing sustained progress," the report said.

The panel judged the science return from such a mission to be less
interesting than from other proposals it considered, so did not put it in
the highest-priority category for further study on that basis.

But, it urged NASA's Exploration division, which is responsible for human
space missions, to give the idea further thought.

"It was very compelling in the sense of exploration, but that wasn't part of
the criteria we were given," panel co-chair and former shuttle astronaut
Kathryn Thornton told *New Scientist*.

The praise for the human asteroid mission comes hot on the heels of a policy
paper by the Planetary Society of Pasadena, California, US, which urged NASA
to defer Moon landings in favour of other possibilities, including a human
mission to an asteroid.