Monday, January 19, 2015

Is NASA's asteroid mission the agency's political downfall?

To NASA, the proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission is the next step in human spaceflight, a stepping stone that could test the necessary technologies to get to Mars and put tools within our disposal to avert cosmic catastrophe. To the political world, the mission is an unimaginative boondoggle short on vision.


The Orion capsule has been successfully tested. It’s the first craft since the Apollo era with deep space — rather than low Earth orbit — as the primary focus. The eventual goal of the Orion program is a crewed mission to Mars. But to do that, NASA wants to test the technologies necessary for making that next step.


Continue reading…






via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1Bttpaw

No comments:

Post a Comment