Bruce Damer's talk on Asteroids and Comets: Mitigating Impact Risks & Stepping Stones to a...

Asteroids and Comets:(Near Earth Objects, or NEOs)

Mitigating Impact Risks & Stepping Stones to a Sustainable Space Program

Bruce Damer, DigitalSpaceIEET Seminar, 14 Nov, 2008

Q: Where did NEOs come from?

A: The very birth of our Solar System!

Q: Where are NEOs today?

A: Everywhere!

> 1,000,000Total by ~2020

> 300,000Tunguskaor larger

Q: Have NEOs shaped life on Earth?

A: Yes! The evolution of our biota was uniquely impacted by

NEOs.

Q: Could this happen again?

A: Yes! Take a look…(thank you Carter Emmart,

Hayden Planetarium)

Now that’s something to think about!

Risk Corridor for Apophis

Case study: Apophis, 2029-2036

2020 - Risk Corridors

Other NEOs of Concern

Q: Have we visited NEOs?

A: Yes! With robotics…

NEAR-Shoemaker (Eros)

Hayabusa (Itokawa)

Deep Impact (Tempel 1 Comet)

Q: Could humans visit NEOs?

A: Yes! Here is a way it could work…

Design for a human mission to a NEO

Popular Science, November 2007

…which was picked up by the popular media…

…and somewhat creatively misinterpreted!

Q: Can we Mitigate the threat posed by NEOs?

A: Yes! Here is a way it could work…

Hollywood: Not how it would work

Kinetic Impact

Pushes the asteroid via direct impact

Orbit Determination

Determining which NEOs are threatening

Gravity Tractor

Pulls the asteroid using mutual gravity as a tow-rope

Final_OD_Phase.wmv

B612 Foundation 2008 Research Project

Kinetic Impactor: Assisting Gravity Tractoring

DigitalSpace/B612 Visualization of GT/Kinetic Impactor

Who will issue warnings to evacuate a predicted impact point? Based on what information? How will the public react if there are conflicting predictions? What deflection technologies exist and who approves their use? Who accepts liability if an asteroid deflection doesn’t work? Who decides that it’s acceptable to temporarily increase the risk to some people in order to eliminate it for everyone? What is the biggest asteroid we can safely decide to ignore? Who pays to deflect an asteroid? What does such a mission cost? Who should deflect an incoming asteroid? Will two space agencies decide to take conflicting actions?

Critical Questions

Q: Could we use resources on NEOs to support exploration and settlement of the solar system?

A: Perhaps!

From the fanciful

Vehicle on virtual lunar terrain, excavating volume

To the seriously studied

To the imagined

#1 “Refueling Stations” for propulsion & human consumables

Lowers launch mass of vehicles Increases safety, sustainability NEOs as viable biospheres? We are all made of NEO-stuff! (apologies to C. Sagan!) Who can stake a claim? If NEOs are brought into Low Earth Orbit, who is threatened, who benefits?

Benefits from Capturing & Mining NEOs

Thank you NASA and B612 Foundation for funding this work.

DigitalSpace’s NEO Mission Simulations:http://www.digitalspace.com

NASA Near Earth Object Program:http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov

B612 Foundation:http://www.b612foundation.org

Thank you for your attention!Contact: Bruce@Damer.com

Source: www.grinningplanet.com