I’ve asked Ed Grondine to put some more some flesh on these bones, but he recently sent me some notes with background on the lead up to Obama’s bold asteroid mission. One can devine his drift — but the Tusk needs more….
BTW, Ed’s “Dead Car Book Special” is still underway, I recommend his Man and Impact in the Americas.
WILL PASS THROUGH INNER SOAR SYSTEM EVERY 5.43 TO 5.46 YEARS FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES — Ed Grondine, below
HISTORY OF THE ASTEROID UNDERGROUND:
MANNED MISSION TO ASTEROIDNEAR and Hayabusa showed asteroid rendezvous possible some of them move “slow” relative to the Earth
Bob Farquhar, mission designer for NEAR Shoemaker 1999 – the late Steve Ostro identified 1999 KY26 Mars-Earth cycling asteroid,
proposed its use for manned Mars flight (E.P. Grondine, http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/ce090699.html)Wesley Huntress – L2 and DPT(?) also favored by Ed Weiler
impactor detection telescopes could be set up there instead on of the Moon
2001 Asteroid Underground set up by Astronaut Ed Lu, Piet Hut
(Michael Klesius,
http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/Million_Mile_Mission.html)DECEMBER, 2005 George Brown Jr. amendment passed by Congress 2006 – By the summer of 2006, Ed Lu, Tom Jones, and Dave Korsmeyer, an engineer at NASA’s Ames Research Center who specializes in celestial mechanics, were conferring regularly with more than a dozen colleagues around the country, asking about the capabilities of Constellation and writing papers.
Monthly meetings begin in August, 2006 Target identified: 1999 AO10, is the size of a football field. It could be reached in 2025.(Michael Klesius, http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/Million_Mile_Mission.html)
2006 – Ed Lu and Chris McKay – with Constellation launchers several centers, response to George Brown Jr amendment of December, 2005
(Leonard David, http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/061227_asteroid_orion.html2007 – Rob Landis, JSC, also mentions 1999 KY26 Rusty Schweikart, David Morrison aware
(Dawn Stover, http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-space/article/2007-10/nasas-new-target
2008 – Tom Jones, approved by lead Mars enthusiast Bob Zubrin(Michael Klesius, http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/Million_Mile_Mission.html)
February, 2008 – Planetary Society hosts conference
(Michael Klesius,
http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/Million_Mile_Mission.html)2008 – Boeing, Chicago office or via Lori Garver to Obama(?)
2009 – 2 Orion variant from Lockheed Martin (Augustine)
Orion supports telescopes at L2
(Criag Covault, http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0908/17orion/)2010 Obama sets manned landing on asteroid by 2025 as NASA’s next goal
BUT why the new Heavy Jupiter 242 with LOX/kerosene boosters?
Schwassmann Wachmann 3’s next pass on other side of solar system lat in 2011.
SW3 IMPACT THREAT – Debris stream some 6 million kilometers long,
WILL PASS THROUGH INNER SOAR SYSTEM EVERY 5.43 TO 5.46 YEARS FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES
Jupiter’s gravity will change orbit. SW3 passes through plane of our solar system (from ascending node to descending node) right at Earth’s orbit. Gravity forces appear to cause fragmentation.CLOSE INTERSECTS 2022 AND 2049 – EFFECTS UNKNOWN NOW.
58 FRAGMENTS NOW – Dr. William T. Reach of NASA’s Spitzer Science Center
64 PIECES – Andre Claydon director of observation at the Springbrook Observatory
Some fragments now lost to observation – need for better NEO telescopes.Curious – China announces March 3, 2010, after Obama and Hu meet:
LONG MARCH 8 – 3 LONG MARCH 5’s strapped together and
LONG MARCH 9 – 5 LONG MARCH 5’s strapped together
for development after 2015Speculation abounds that they are being prepared to deal with fragments of Comet Schwassmann Wachmann 3 in 2022
or asteroid Apophis in 2036. Obama set manned landing on asteroid for 2025 as NASA’s next goal in space, which makes
dealing with SW3 comet fragments in 2022 feasible.“would demonstrate once and for all that we’re smarter than the dinosaurs
and could therefore avoid what they didn’t”,
White House science adviser John Holdren said [New Scientist].