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NASA Astronauts Go Underwater to Test Tools for a Mission to an Asteroid

NASA is planning to send astronauts to an asteroid in the 2020s, and preparations are already being made.

Stan Love and Steve Bowen have between them spent more than 62 hours in the vacuum of space on nine shuttle mission spacewalks, and they’re putting that experience to use here on Earth by helping engineers determine what astronauts will need on NASA’s next step toward Deep Space. Wearing modified versions of the orange space shuttle launch and entry suits, the two went underwater on May 9, in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, a 40-feet-deep swimming pool that helps provide the lack of gravity needed for astronauts to practice for spacewalks. There a mockup of the Orion spacecraft that will carry astronauts to the asteroid, docked to a mockup of the robotic spacecraft that will be used to capture an asteroid and bring it into a stable orbit near the moon, provided the backdrop for the simulated spacewalk.

“We’re working on the techniques and tools we might use someday to explore a small asteroid that was captured from an orbit around the sun and brought back by a robotic spacecraft to orbit around the moon,” Love said. “When it’s there, we can send people there to take samples and take a look at it up close. That’s our main task; we’re looking at tools we’d use for that, how we’d take those samples.”






For instance, one of the primary goals of visiting an asteroid will be to obtain a core sample that shows its layers, intact – such a sample could provide information on the age of the solar system and how it was formed. But the tools geologist use to collect core samples or even chips of rocks aren’t a good idea in space – swinging a hammer in front of your face isn’t safe when the sheet of glass between you and it is necessary to keep you alive. Instead Love and Bowen tried out a pneumatic hammer to give them a feel for whether a battery-powered version might be useful.

And while they did so, they also evaluated a version of the spacesuit that could be worn on an asteroid. Orion astronauts already needed a launch and entry suit to protect them during the most dynamic phases of their flights. So, rather than add to the weight Orion has to carry into orbit and take up additional space inside the crew module, engineers have been working to turn the shuttle-heritage Advanced Crew Escape Suit – or ACES – into something suitable for spacewalks.

Gloves, boots from the space station spacesuit and bearings to aid in the kind of moves an astronaut would need to do on a spacewalk are giving the modified ACES new life. But they probably won’t be the last of the modifications, and working through some of the tasks the suit will need to accommodate on an asteroid helps the astronauts advise the engineers on what still needs improvement.

“We need some significant modifications to make it easy to translate,” Bowen said. “I can’t stretch my arms out quite as far as in the [space station space suit]. The work envelop is very small. So as we get through, we look at these tasks. These tasks are outstanding to help us develop what needs to be modified in the suit, as well.”

NASA is already working to identify an asteroid that could be reached by a robotic mission to capture it and bring it into a stable orbit around the moon. Once it’s there, the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket will launch a crew of astronauts to explore it and gather samples. The strategy makes good use of capabilities NASA already has, while also advancing a number of technologies needed for longer-term plans: sending humans to Mars in the 2030s.

Detectores de explosiones nucleares registran una mayor cantidad de impactos de asteroides

Gracias a una red diseñada para detectar ensayos nucleares, un grupo que está diseñando un sistema para detectar asteroides ha descubierto que la Tierra ha sufrido una cantidad mayor de impactos de lo esperado en la última década.

Durante una conferencia de prensa en el Museo del Aire de Seattle en el Día de la Tierra, el pasado 22 de abril, la Fundación B612 señalo que están compartiendo datos con el Sistema Internacional de Vigilancia, una red mundial de sensores incorporados para monitorear el cumplimiento del tratado de prohibición de pruebas nucleares.


Los sensores registraron 26 explosiones más potentes que un kilotón de TNT desde 2001, “todos los cuales se deben a impactos de asteroides”, comento Ed Lu, ex astronauta y CEO de la fundación.

“Esto demuestra que los impactos de asteroides no son raros, pero en realidad son de tres a diez veces más comunes de lo que pensábamos”, comento Lu durante la rueda de prensa, señalando también que lo único que ha impedido que hasta ahora hemos tenido suerte de que no nos hallamos enfrentado a una catástrofe por el impacto de un asteroide en una gran ciudad.

La Fundación B612 se ha asociado con Ball Aerospace para construir un telescopio espacial para observar los asteroides desde una órbita similar a la Venus. Está previsto que el Sentinel Infrared Space Telescope Mission sea lanzado a mediados 2018 y tiene un coste estimado de unos 400 millones de dólares.

“El objetivo de la misión Sentinel B612 es encontrar y rastrear asteroides décadas antes de que golpeen la Tierra, lo que nos permitiría desviarlos fácilmente”, agrego Lu.

Aunque hay posibilidades de que la NASA participe en la financiación de este proyecto, de momento está llevándose a cabo únicamente con donaciones privadas, la más llamativa de estas contribuciones la realizo la banda de rock indie Broken Bells, que anunció que donaría un dólar por cada entrada vendida en su próxima gira que llevaran a cabo en los EE.UU.

La fundación también ha visto como otros antiguos astronautas muestran su apoyo a este proyecto, Bill Anders, del Apollo 8, y Tom Jones se unieron a Lu durante el Día de la Tierra.



Fuente: http://espacioprofundo.es/2014/04/06/detectores-de-explosiones-nucleares-registran-una-mayor-cantidad-de-impactos-de-asteroides/

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NASA's Chandra Observatory Delivers New Insight Into Formation of Star Clusters May 7, 2014

Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and infrared telescopes, astronomers have made an important advance in the understanding of how clusters of stars come into being.



The data show early notions of how star clusters are formed cannot be correct. The simplest idea is stars form into clusters when a giant cloud of gas and dust condenses. The center of the cloud pulls in material from its surroundings until it becomes dense enough to trigger star formation. This process occurs in the center of the cloud first, implying that the stars in the middle of the cluster form first and, therefore, are the oldest.












However, the latest data from Chandra suggest something else is happening. Researchers studied two clusters where sun-like stars currently are forming – NGC 2024, located in the center of the Flame Nebula, and the Orion Nebula Cluster. From this study, they discovered the stars on the outskirts of the clusters actually are the oldest.


"Our findings are counterintuitive," said Konstantin Getman of Penn State University, who led the study. "It means we need to think harder and come up with more ideas of how stars like our sun are formed."


Getman and his colleagues developed a new two-step approach that led to this discovery. First, they used Chandra data on the brightness of the stars in X-rays to determine their masses. Then they determined how bright these stars were in infrared light using ground-based telescopes and data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. By combining this information with theoretical models, the ages of the stars throughout the two clusters were estimated.


The results were contrary to what the basic model predicted. At the center of NGC 2024, the stars were about 200,000 years old, while those on the outskirts were about 1.5 million years in age. In the Orion Nebula, star ages ranged from 1.2 million years in the middle of the cluster to almost 2 million years near the edges.


"A key conclusion from our study is we can reject the basic model where clusters form from the inside out," said co-author Eric Feigelson, also of Penn State. "So we need to consider more complex models that are now emerging from star formation studies."


Explanations for the new findings can be grouped into three broad notions. The first is star formation continues to occur in the inner regions because the gas in the inner regions of a star-forming cloud is denser -- contains more material from which to build stars -- than the more diffuse outer regions. Over time, if the density falls below a threshold where it can no longer collapse to form stars, star formation will cease in the outer regions, whereas stars will continue to form in the inner regions, leading to a concentration of younger stars there.


Another idea is old stars have had more time to drift away from the center of the cluster, or be kicked outward by interactions with other stars. One final notion is the observations could be explained if young stars are formed in massive filaments of gas that fall toward the center of the cluster.


Previous studies of the Orion Nebula Cluster revealed hints of this reversed age spread, but these earlier efforts were based on limited or biased star samples. This latest research provides the first evidence of such age differences in the Flame Nebula.


"The next steps will be to see if we find this same age range in other young clusters," said Penn State graduate student Michael Kuhn, who also worked on the study.


These results will be published in two separate papers in The Astrophysical Journal and are available online. They are part of the MYStIX (Massive Young Star-Forming Complex Study in Infrared and X-ray) project led by Penn State astronomers.


NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., controls Chandra's science and flight operations.