Astronomers prepare for an asteroid fly-by on November 8, using the Earth as the spacecraft
Astronomers prepare for an asteroid fly-by on November 8, using the Earth as the spacecraft.
Large enough to cause regional devastation if it were to hit the Earth, 2005 YU55 is the closest pass by an asteroid this big since 1976, and there won’t be another until 2028. The near miss provides an unparallelled opportunity for radar, optical and infrared observations of a mysterious charcoal-black world similar to the type of asteroid that astronauts may one day set foot on.
Radar bonanza “It’s a bit like a spacecraft fly-by with the Earth being the spacecraft,” says astronomer Don Yeomans at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. “It’s going to be an extraordinary target for radar.”
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Astronomers prepare for an asteroid fly-by on November 8, using the Earth as the spacecraft.
Large enough to cause regional devastation if it were to hit the Earth, 2005 YU55 is the closest pass by an asteroid this big since 1976, and there won’t be another until 2028. The near miss provides an unparallelled opportunity for radar, optical and infrared observations of a mysterious charcoal-black world similar to the type of asteroid that astronauts may one day set foot on.
Radar bonanza “It’s a bit like a spacecraft fly-by with the Earth being the spacecraft,” says astronomer Don Yeomans at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. “It’s going to be an extraordinary target for radar.”
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The excerpt mentions a manned expedition to an asteroid, which the full article blandly projects as taking place in the 2020s. Does anybody even CARE about going to an asteroid? Paul Spudis recently did a three-part piece for AIR & SPACE that pretty well demolished the rationale for an asteroid mission. Weeks of travel time, a day or two there before having to head back home, little likelihood of finding anything new or important that robot probes wouldn’t have long since discovered. This is unicorns and rainbows stuff, promising the space community something down the road (long after this administration would have to start paying for it) in exchange for killing a return to the Moon any time soon, which is probably the main near-term space mission that would make any kind of sense. But there was Lori Garver the other week brightly chirping about how in the sweet bye and bye there would be an international mission led by the US to an asteroid, and that’s supposed to set the space buffs’ propellor beanies spinning in anticipation…
Have to agree – at least a manned Lunar or Mars mission could be justified on the grounds that at some point, we may want a permananet base there for various reasons, but there’s never going to be a “pemanent base” on any asteroid! So there’s absolutely nothing to be gained by humans going there that we couldn’t get with an unmanned probe. It would just be a waste of whatever precious & dwindling funds are available to do something more practical & meaningful in manned spaceflight…