Capturing a tiny asteroid and nudging it into the Earth-Moon system for study by spacewalking astronauts is at the outer edge of U.S. capabilities right now, and will pull NASA's deep-space exploration technologies along even if it does not catch a space rock.
The idea has drawn a mixed reaction on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in the U.S. space establishment. But NASA managers consider it a unifying goal to bring focus to the various deep-space exploration development activities underway. In general, that work is going very well, considering NASA's mismatch of programs and money to pay for them.
The agency reports good progress on the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion crew capsule that is central to its deep-space goals, including the asteroid mission. So far, NASA-oversight committees on Capitol Hill appear ready to keep money flowing to those two programs.
Meanwhile, astronomers already are looking for threatening near-Earth asteroids only a little larger than the one that would be captured, and International Space Station planners are preparing the life-science and engineering research necessary to keep an Orion crew alive on the 22-day asteroid mission. The long-duration solar-electric propulsion (SEP) technology necessary to reach and “redirect” the asteroid is on the horizon, and the capture mission could advance it enough to propel human crews down the invisible “gravity rivers” they are likely to follow deeper into the Solar System.
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