NASA Asteroid Redirect Mission gets a price tag

[DocM]

Price tag: $1.25 billion, not counting the cost of an SLS launcher and a manned Orion spacecraft.

Mission: prove you can capture an asteroid, bring it back into lunar orbit, then do a manned 20 day sample collection and return.

My take: Why? In 2003-2010 JAXA did this with the Hayabusa probe and far fewer theatrics. Just make it faster and get more diverse samples.

http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/40005lightfoot-pins-125-billion-estimate-on-asteroid-mission%E2%80%99s-robotic-capture

Lightfoot Pins $1.25 Billion Estimate on Asteroid Missions Robotic Capture

WASHINGTON The first half of NASAs Asteroid Redirect Mission, finding a small asteroid and hauling it back to a lunar storage orbit with a new robotic spacecraft, should cost about $1.25 billion, according to a top NASA official.

Thats what were shooting for, NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot, the agencys top-ranked civil servant, said during a March 26 Asteroid Initiative Opportunities Forum here. NASA used the forum to brief industry about a March 21 solicitation that would spread $6 million among 20 to 25 companies to study key aspects of the proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission, most of which center around the new robotic spacecraft needed to carry it out.

Proposals are due May 5, with awards for the six-month, fixed-price contracts expected July 1. The key deliverable is paper: a report due to NASA by December. The competition is open to U.S. industry, but participation by NASA field centers is barred.

After his prepared remarks, Lightfoot told reporters that some of the $1.25 billion needed for what the agency is now calling the Asteroid Redirect Vehicle would be new spending. He declined to say exactly how much or when the agency would seek this money in a formal budget request but he did say the estimate does not include the price of a launch.

NASA developed its Asteroid Redirect Mission from a concept created at the Keck Institute for Space Studies at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. Keck pegged mission costs at about $2.5 billion, and NASA is now very confident that were going to come in at roughly half of what the Keck study said, Lightfoot said in his presentation at the March 26 forum.

Part of the reason, Lightfoot said is that the Asteroid Redirect Mission utilizes technology and hardware NASA is already working on, most notably the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket and Orion deep-space crew capsule NASA is spending about $3 billion a year to build at Congress direction.

Capturing an asteroid is the first step in NASAs plan to eventually use SLS to launch a crewed Orion on a 20-day mission to rendezvous with an asteroid and collect samples.

The price of the crewed Orion-SLS launch was not part of Lightfoots estimate. Those government-designed vehicles, which are still under construction, are set to fly their first crewed mission in 2021 following an uncrewed demonstration in 2017. A crewed visit to the asteroid would notionally launch by 2025 the date by which U.S. President Barack Obama has challenged NASA to send astronauts to one of the solar systems many orbiting space rocks.

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[ctebah]

If the US slashed its stupendous defense budget and applied it to NASA.  Think of the possibilities....

[Praetor]

why capturing an asteroid? i can only imagine several ways for this to go bad...

[DocM]

If they did the CongressCritters still wouldn't spend it on NASA. It would go to unnecessary handouts, corporate welfare, bailouts etc. At least the military somehow manages to create both skilled and unskilled jobs and fund basic and advanced research that trickles down to productive uses; comms, GPS, medical procedures, medicines, medical imagery, optics, sensors, improved radars and avionics, materials science etc. etc.

[theyarecomingforyou]

At least the military somehow manages to create both skilled and unskilled jobs and fund basic and advanced research that trickles down to productive uses; comms, GPS, medical procedures, medicines, medical imagery, optics, sensors, improved radars and avionics, materials science etc. etc.

And all at the bargain price of half a trillion dollars a year.  :|

 

The research provided by military spending really is just a "trickle". The US spends more on the military each year than NASA spent in fifty years (including the moon landings). For that money the US could implement a decent universal healthcare system, quadruple funding for NASA, eliminate university tuition fees and still have money to burn.

[link6155]

why capturing an asteroid? i can only imagine several ways for this to go bad...

Well, if an asteroid big enough to wipe out mankind was to ever head straight for Earth (which it has in the passed), we would be able to redirect it so that it would miss collision.

[DocM]

And 40% of that military budget goes towards past committments - retirements, health benefits etc.

While DARPA gets about $3 billion that's not in the black it's not the only military research arm. The ARL (Army), AFRL (Air Force) and NRL (Navy) get a chunk, plus other labs. A whole alphabet soup of research offices.

Also, the US military budget is going down, with a sharp reduction starting in FY2015.

[statm1]

And all at the bargain price of half a trillion dollars a year.  :|

 

The research provided by military spending really is just a "trickle". The US spends more on the military each year than NASA spent in fifty years (including the moon landings). For that money the US could implement a decent universal healthcare system, quadruple funding for NASA, eliminate university tuition fees and still have money to burn.

Yes, lets get rid of the entire defense budget and throw millions of people who rely on that budget for their living on their ass.. Great decision!

[Praetor]

Well, if an asteroid big enough to wipe out mankind was to ever head straight for Earth (which it has in the passed), we would be able to redirect it so that it would miss collision.

 

Dude, just send Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck into there, it's a win - win situation.

[theyarecomingforyou]

Yes, lets get rid of the entire defense budget and throw millions of people who rely on that budget for their living on their ass.. Great decision!

Reducing US military spending by two-thirds would free up nearly half a trillion dollars per year, while still leaving the US with the highest military spending on the planet. That money would make a BIG difference to an organisation like NASA for innovative projects like this.

[GotBored]

I think its more likely the private corporations will advance space exploration rather than government funding.

 

There are already private companies working on projects such as the space elevator, commercial space flight and space/asteroid mining.

 

Platinum for example costs $44k a kg and they have spotted asteroids half a km wide which they believe are rich in rare metals like Platinum and if true these asteroids could be worth north of the 100s of billions dollar range.

 

Google itself has invested in one of these asteroid mining companies.

 

Why doesnt NASA just get private funding? Sounds like this asteroid catching project is exactly the same thing private companies want to do to mine them of rich metals.

 

edit: I just spent the last 30mins reading into the subject and the space mining projects seem very ambitious, they want 3D printers at the end of the mining equipment and processing equipment so once they get the materials the 3D printer will build a spacecraft so the mined materials would actually fly itself down to earth where the company will melt it down and resell it.. Sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie but its something they are trying to have within the next few years.

[Praetor]

I think its more likely the private corporations will advance space exploration rather than government funding.

 

There are already private companies working on projects such as the space elevator, commercial space flight and space/asteroid mining.

 

Platinum for example costs $44k a kg and they have spotted asteroids half a km wide which they believe are rich in rare metals like Platinum and if true these asteroids could be worth north of the 100s of billions dollars range.

 

Google itself has invested in one of these asteroid mining companies.

 

Why doesnt NASA just get private funding? Sounds like this asteroid catching project is exactly the same thing private companies want to do to mine them of rich metals.

 

edit: I just spent the last 30mins reading into the subject and the space mining projects seem very ambitious, they want 3D printers at the end of the mining equipment and processing equipment so once they get the materials the 3D printer will build a spacecraft so the mined materials would actually fly itself down to earth where the company will melt it down and resell it.. Sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie but its something they are hoping to have within the next 5yrs..

 

actually if those asteroids got mined then the metals won't be so rare, won't they? so the value of rare metals like gold it would decrease.

[GotBored]

actually if those asteroids got mined then the metals won't be so rare, won't they? so the value of rare metals like gold it would decrease.

 

They will probably drop in value, but iron ore, oil, natural gas and coal aren't rare materials and the mining companies make billions out of a single deposit of gas, oil, ore and coal.

I worked on a BP project which overall cost nearly $2 billion for a platform to drill for oil so whatever they expect to make from that deposit of oil must be huge. That is with the current value of oil being around $2 per kg. Platinum costs 22,000x times that for a kg, gold costs 20,000x that per kg. So whatever the drop in value is from flooding the market with it I still believe they will make huge profits out of it.

[DocM]

actually if those asteroids got mined then the metals won't be so rare, won't they? so the value of rare metals like gold it would decrease.

Most space-mined materials, everything from methane, CO2, and water to metals, rare earths, carbon and silicates, can be used directly, processed into propellants, or turned into powders for the 3D printing; in-space structures, habitats, rocket engines & thrusters, circuitry, polymers, composites, spacecraft & satellites etc. etc. etc. Medical implants and even tissue grafts too.

This stuff currently costs ~$20,000-70,000/kg to launch, which is hellatiously expensive.

The testbed 3D printers for space are in development or preparing to launch NOW. NASA flies a polymer 3D printer to the ISS soon, and ESA is well along on a 3D metal printer. Much larger and powerful industrial 3D printers are on the short list.

SpaceX is already printing rocket engines and other propulsion parts, NASA os also working on it and Rocketdyne & Dynetics are working on upgradingg the Saturn V's massive F-1 engine, as the F-1B, with some parts being printed.

The list of planned or in late development 3D printed space applications is almost exhausting to read.

This train has left the station.