NASA To Devise NEO Exploration Plans

Between August 10-11, the American space agency will host an important workshop in Washington DC, whose goal is to determine the necessary steps need to put humans on near-Earth objects (NEO). The idea to explore asteroids close to our planet has been proposed a long time ago, but it's only now that experts are beginning to take it seriously. The excitement that is sweeping over NASA at this point is not unlike the one that made the rounds right before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon, NASA spokespersons report.

“Between [US President John F.] Kennedy's speech at Rice and Neil Armstrong's first steps [on the Moon], there were a lot of meetings like this. We are excited to begin to bring together the range of ideas that exist for human exploration of NEOs and start to focus them on a plan forward,” tells Space Dr Laurie Leshin, the NASA Deputy Director for Science and Technology. She adds that the new workshop will also deal with establishing the necessary components of a planetary defense system, that would help protect Earth against asteroids, comets and large meteors.

Astronauts involved in the prospective mission to a NEO will undoubtedly need to keep in mind the lessons learned from the Hayabusa spacecraft. The sample-return mission, designed, built and operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), managed to reach the asteroid called 25143 Itokawa, land on it, and then take off again. Launched in 2003, it returned to Earth this June, with a sample chamber containing what may very well be grains of asteroid dust. The methods employed by the Japanese mission planners may be most efficient for sending manned missions to NEO as well.

Leshin says that these issues will be discussed at the new workshop. She reveals that leaders from government, academia, industry and the international community will join space experts in discussing some of the largest obstacles associated with NEO exploration, the challenges of launching a manned mission to one of them, as well as possible methods of surpassing these limitations. It's unlikely that the proposed NEO mission will take place anytime soon. However, NASA plans to have a crew on a space rock by the end of the decade, preferably.