Earth appears to be in a galactic bullseye. For the second consecutive day an asteroid will whip by the planet, much closer than the one that missed us yesterday.
The 33-foot wide 2014 EC is on a path to go by Earth this afternoon around 4:30 p.m. EST missing us by about 38,000 miles. A video of the event will be streamed. In comparison the 100-foot long asteroid named 2014 DX110 skipped passed Earth at around 4 p.m. EST yesterday at a somewhat safe 217,000 miles. While there is no chance either huge chunk of rock will strike, we may soon have a layer of defense against such occurrences.
One of NASA's planned tests in the coming years is to send a robotic probe to an asteroid as it travels nearby and have that probe move the asteroid into a stable orbit around the Moon. If successful the project could prove doubly beneficial to those of us living here. First being able to move the asteroid would prove that we have the ability to protect the planet from a direct hit that could wipe out life as we know it, secondly the plan is to send astronauts out to the asteroid to study it.
The asteroid mission is part of NASA's roadmap that will again place Americans not only in space, but back to the Moon and possibly even further.
The first step toward this goal will take place this year with the inaugural test flight in September of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew vehicle . This is a spacecraft designed to take Americans back into space under their own power. Currently, we rely on Russian rockets to send our space travelers up to the International Space Station.
The test flight will send the Orion, which looks very similar to the Apollo spacecraft that took Americans to the Moon, into a 3,600 mile high orbit at the top of a Delta 4 heavy lift rocket. The ship will make two quick swings around the planet and then splash down in the Pacific Ocean. Several major components of the vessel will be checked out, including the parachute landing system and heat shield.
NASA's current plan is to return Americans to the moon by 2021.
However, recent discussion amongst the members of the U.S. House of Representatives committee on Science, Space and Technology centered on a more grandiose mission. Sending people to Earth's to Mars and Venus directly, instead of taking a side trip first to the asteroid and the Moon.
The manned mission to Mars and would be a flyby possibly taking place around 2021 when the red planet's orbit in relation to Earth would be optimal for the 600 day flight. The mission would have two astronauts leaving in November 2021, zooming passed Venus and then Mars in 2022 and returning home in 2023
This according to a plan presented by Dennis Tito, chairman of the Inspiration Mars Foundation who indicated that using improved versions of the Orion now being developed could lead to this Mars flyby being possible. The Obama Administration has penciled in such a trip for 2030. Tito was the first civilian to pay for a trip into space.
Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said the proposed Moon and asteroid missions would not ignite the level of interest in the Mars-Venus flyby, adding that public support is crucial since it is the people who will be paying the bill.
" We must rekindle within NASA the fire that blazed that trail to the Moon. The future of this nation's exploration efforts lead to Mars. The first flag to fly on another planet in our Solar System should be that of the United States," Smith said
Smith's opinion was countered from the other side of the aisle.
"I doubt that a flyby of Mars will ultimately be considered to be an appropriate first shakedown of a flight for a new crewed spacecraft, given the risk involved," said Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, the top Democrat on the panel.
The last time a human step foot on another world was in 1972 when NASA's Apollo 17 crew landed on the Moon.
