Orion Hardware Reviewed For Human Asteroid Flight

By Leonard David

Senior Space Writer

posted: 27 December 2006
06:43 am ET

Progress is being made on defining a human mission to an asteroid. Experts at several NASA centers are sketching out a prospective piloted stopover at an asteroid—a trek that could return samples from a targeted space rock as well as honing astronaut proficiency and test needed equipment for other space destinations.

At the heart of such a mission is drawing upon the technology of NASA’s Constellation initiative—the overarching program that is gearing up to extend human presence at the Moon, on Mars and beyond. One key ingredient is the Orion spacecraft—a post-Space Shuttle vehicle now under design to thrust crews further than low Earth orbit.

Meanwhile, NASA is wrapping up a report required by the U.S. Congress on how best to search for, catalog and even deal with the hazard of Earth-bruising rocks from space. That space agency report is to be turned over to Congress by year’s end.

Full article here:

http://space.com/businesstechnology/061227_asteroid_orion.html

To quote:

NASA attraction to asteroids comes from the top.

Space agency head, Mike Griffin, told an audience recently at NASA’s Langley Research Center that “our species hasn’t been around long enough to have experienced a cataclysmic extinction event. But they will occur again, whether we are ready for them or not.”

So, in the end, Griffin said, “human expansion into our solar system is fundamentally about the survival of the species, about ensuring better odds for our survival through the promulgation of our species.”

“But one assumption that I know will be justified is that the Moon, the near-Earth asteroids, and the rest of the solar system contain the resources that will take mankind to the next level of civilization and prosperity. I don’t know when it will occur or who will do it, but it will happen. I hope that it will be soon, and that we will be the agents of this great endeavor,” Griffin explained.

This should make the IAA happy:

http://iaaweb.org/iaa/Studies/nextsteps.pdf