Another Take on NASA’s Ability to Maneuver an Asteroid

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Random House

While everyone is pretty excited about NASA’s ability to nudge a distant asteroid via its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, there is more than one way to look at this event. While many see this as a new tool to protect the Earth from approaching peril, Carl Sagan saw this it more as a double-edged sword.

In his 1994 book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, Dr. Sagan wrote:

Can we humans be trusted with civilization-threatening technologies? If the chance is almost one in a thousand that much of the human population will be killed by an impact in the next century, isn’t it more likely that asteroid deflection technology will get into the wrong hands in another century—some misanthropic sociopath like a Hitler or a Stalin eager to kill everybody, a megalomaniac lusting after “greatness” and “glory,” a victim of ethnic violence bent on revenge, someone in the grip of unusually severe testosterone poisoning, some religious fanatic hastening the Day of Judgment, or just technicians incompetent or insufficiently vigilant in handling the controls and safeguards? Such people exist. The risks seem far worse than the benefits, the cure worse than the disease.

You might also remember the stealth asteroids directed at Earth by terrorists in the fifth season of the television series The Expanse. Yes, it is science fiction, but so wasn’t the idea of landing humans on the Moon until it was a fact.

As we watch the Middle East burn again, it is not hard to imagine a battle involving sociopaths, ethnic violence victims, leaders with severe testosterone poisoning, religious fanatics, or even incompetent individuals without guardrails making more of a mess of the Earth and its surroundings.

It’s just a thought.

Space Stories: DART Did Its Diversionary Duty, A New Moon Crater, and A New Private Space Telescope

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The collision of DART with Dimorphos, as captured by the Italian Space Agency’s LICIACube. The larger asteroid above is Didymos. (ASI/NASA)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—Nautilus: “NASA’s DART Mission Offers Proof of Protection Against Asteroid Impacts“

In November 2021, NASA launched the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) aimed at finding out whether or not we could redirect the trajectory of a near-Earth object simply by crashing into it…The mission was a success, making it the first time a human-made object has altered a celestial body’s path around the sun, but it would take more time to find out the magnitude of the success. Now, two years later, NASA scientists have calculated that DART’s collision with Dimorphos shortened the orbit of both asteroids by around 33 minutes.

—SciTechDaily: “The Moon Was Hit Again: NASA Scientists Discover a Newly Formed Crater“

Researchers working with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera found one such crater by comparing detailed photographs of the same lunar locations taken at different times. By examining images captured before December 2009 and others taken after December 2012, they were able to narrow down when the impact occurred, even though no one actually observed the collision. The crater measures 22 meters in diameter, comparable to a large house. What makes it particularly striking is not its size but its brightness. The collision ejected material tens of meters from the crater rim, creating distinctive rays that spread outward in a sunburst pattern. This bright, fresh material contrasts sharply with the surrounding darker regolith, making the crater stand out like a new freckle on familiar skin.

—Daily Galaxy: “In a First, Private Investors Will Fund a Telescope Bigger Than Hubble for $500 Million“

A new private space observatory, the Lazuli Space Telescope, is on track to surpass Hubble with its larger mirror and cutting-edge technology. Funded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy, the project is already turning heads in the space community…At its core, Lazuli’s three-meter mirror will make it one of the largest space telescopes ever built, capable of observing both optical and infrared light.

Good News: Hurricane Milton Had Little Impact on NASA Facilities

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): View of the Kennedy Space Center following Hurricane Milton. (NASA)

NASA has reported that it has so far detected little damage from Hurricane Milton at the Kennedy Space Center.

Here is what NASA shared today via Twitter/X:

Kennedy is now OPEN!

The Damage Assessment and Recovery Team has completed their assessment of the center and its facilities, and determined that employees can safely return on-site to resume working.

The damage identified is manageable and in-line with the items the Ride Out Teams previously identified, including minor impacts such as ripped awning, and damage to doors and traffic lights.

It is interesting that NASA is using DART in a whole way here compared to yesterday’s story about the European Space Agency’s Hera mission. I just hope that the DART mission never leads to a DART event here on Earth.

Pic of the Week: The Launch of Hera

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Visitors at ESA’s control center in Germany watching the Hera launch. (ESA / J.Mai)

This week’s image shows a crowd in Germany watching the launch of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera mission on October 7, 2024. The launch itself took place from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida via a SpaceX Falcon 9.

Hera’s goal is to study how binary asteroid systems like Didymos form and function to learn more about to defend the Earth from approaching asteroids. You may remember Didymos from the earlier NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission.

Here is more from the ESA on the mission:

Hera’s first deep space manoeuvre will begin in late October and put the spacecraft on course for its next major milestone, a flyby of Mars in March 2025. During this flyby, Hera will use its instruments to study Deimos, the smaller and more enigmatic of Mars’s two moons. This will serve as an important test for many of the spacecraft’s instruments, ensuring they are fully operational before the spacecraft arrives at its final destination, Didymos.

Hera will perform a second deep space manoeuvre in February 2026. An ‘impulsive rendezvous’ in October 2026 will bring Hera into the vicinity of the Didymos asteroid system. The spacecraft will begin its detailed survey of the moonlet Dimorphos in 2027, which will turn the 151 m asteroid into one of the most studied objects in the Solar System.

Oops – Sorry About That, Mars

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Illustration of how DART’s impact altered the orbit of Dimorphos about Didymos. (https://dart.jhuapl.edu/)

You may remember how NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission was a great success in that it demonstrated that we can divert an asteroid, should it be necessary.

Well, that’s not the whole story. A new study has found that the redirected asteroid debris may threaten Mars in the future. How far into the future? In one case, it will be 6,000 years into the future, and the second about 15,000 years into the future.

It would be nice to think that we will have habitats if not cities on Mars at that point (and maybe even a Musk Mountain looming over one of the cities), so this could be relevant. So maybe today’s practice run will be tomorrow’s disaster. Then again, I am pretty sure that such a future society will also have the ability to deflect these asteroids, possible building on what we learned from DART.

All of this does make you think about other areas where our tampering may come back to bite us.