Its planned Don Quijote mission will launch two robot spacecraft, one to tilt at a harmless passing space rock, and a second to film the collision and watch for any deviation in the asteroid's path. An asteroid mission could take us immediately into deep space, sustaining programme momentum, adding public excitement and reducing the risk of a later Mars mission.'Įurope has its own efforts to tackle asteroids.

Tom Jones, a former shuttle astronaut, said: 'After a lunar visit, we face a long interval in Earth-Moon space while we build up experience and technology for a Mars mission.

He told : 'A very natural, early extension of the exploration capabilities of this new vehicle's architecture would be a 'quick-dash' near-Earth asteroid rendezvous mission.' Last year Japan showed with its Hayabusa probe that a remote spacecraft can land on an asteroid.īut with manned missions to the moon and possibly Mars on its to-do list again, Nasa is keen to extend the reach of its astronauts.ĭan Durda, a senior research scientist in the Department of Space Studies at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado said an asteroid landing mission would be a good way test the new Constellation programme spacecraft, the Apollo-style planned replacements for the space shuttle with which Nasa hopes to return to the moon. In 2005, Nasa's Deep Impact mission tested a different technique when it placed an object into the path of a comet.ĭr Radice said robots could do the job just as well, doing away with the need for a risky and expensive manned mission. With less notice, mankind could be forced to take more drastic measures, such as setting off a massive explosion on or near the object to change its course. Mirrors, lights and even paint could change the way the object absorbed light and heat enough to shift its direction over 20 years or so. 'You could place something on the surface to eject material that would push the asteroid in the other direction.' Gianmarco Radice, an asteroid expert at Glasgow University, said the best approach would be to land a device to dig into the object. Matt Genge, a space researcher at Imperial College, London, has calculated that something with the mass, acceleration and thrust of a small car could push an asteroid weighing a billion tonnes out of the path of Earth in just 75 days. We don't know enough about asteroids right now to know the best strategy for mitigation.' 'There could be testing of various approaches. 'A human mission to a near Earth asteroid would be scientifically worthwhile,' Dr McKay said. Scientists agree the best approach, given enough warning, would be to gently nudge the object into a safer orbit. Attempting to break it up with an atomic warhead might only generate thousands of smaller objects on a similar course, which could have time to reform.

So being able to have astronauts go out there and sort of poke one with a stick would be scientifically valuable as well as demonstrate human capabilities.'Ī 1bn tonne asteroid just 1km across striking the Earth at a 45 degree angle could generate the equivalent of a 50,000 megatonne thermonuclear explosion.

'The public wants us to have mastered the problem of dealing with asteroids. to be able to send serious equipment to an asteroid. Chris McKay of the Nasa Johnson Space Centre in Houston told the website : 'There's a lot of public resonance with the notion that Nasa ought to be doing something about killer asteroids.

Doomsday asteroid 2036