The Lunar Module did! While still on the steps, Armstrongdeployed the Modularized Equipment Stowage Assembly from the sideof the lunar module.This housed, amongst other things, the TVcamera. This meant that upward of 600 million people on earth couldtake part in this historic moment.
Space Travel and Exploration/Neil Armstrong/Apollo 11/The Moon
Who filmed neil Armstrong stepping on the moon if he was the first human to step on its surface?
There was a camera on the lunar module that did it.
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Neil Armstrong change the wold and even history by stepping in the moon because he was the first human ang the first astronaut to step and touch the moon
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The camera was on the lunar module, and it took photos of the two astronauts on the moon.
What did neil Armstrong say while stepping on the moon?
The first words uttered by a man on the moon was said by Neil Armstrong , it was That's one small step fpr man one giant leap for mankind.
Who was a person who went to the moon?
the first person is said to be neil Armstrong but it is really the person that filmed him.
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Neil Armstrong landed on the moon on July 20th, 1969.
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no Neil Armstrong didnt walk on the moon it was fake
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Neil Armstrong explored the moon on the month of 20/1969.
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Yes. Neil Armstrong was actually the first man on the moon.
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Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in the year 1969.
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Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in the year 1969.
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Neil armstrong walked on the moon in the year 1969.
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Neil Armstrong never did any experiments on the moon.
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Yes Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon.
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Neil Armstrong was filmed walking on the moon by the Apollo 11's cammra, then the recording was sent to earth. Or someone had a cam coder(not impossible, but very unlikly!)
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The first man on the Moon was the American Neil Armstrong, but it was in July of 1969, not June. The first man on the Moon was the American Neil Armstrong, but it was in July of 1969, not June. The first man on the Moon was the American Neil Armstrong, but it was in July of 1969, not June. The first man on the Moon was the American Neil Armstrong, but it was in⦠Read More
Was neil Armstrong the first person to go on the moon?
Neil Armstrong was the first man to land on the moon, but not to fly to the moon.
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Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969. He was 39 when he steped foot on the moon!
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No Neil Armstrong used the Eagle to land on the moon.
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Neil Armstrong was an astronaut, he discovered the moon. He was the first person to walk on the moon.
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Neil Armstrong wore a space suit when he landed on the moon.
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Neil Armstrong was first to fly to the moon. He won the race to the moon for America.
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Yes, Neil Armstrong was the first person to land on The Moon.
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Neil Armstrong landed on the moon on July 20, 1969
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Neil Armstrong was 32 years old when he was on the moon. Irezumi ichidai (1965 torrent download.
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On July 21, 1969 Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
Who else was on the moon with Neil Armstrong that day?
Edwin 'Buz' Aldrin walked on the moon with Neil Armstrong.
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Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, in a area called Tranqulity Base.
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Neil armstrong took a bassoon and a melodic band to the moon
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Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in the lunar module Eagle, on July 20, 1969. Neil Armstrong was the first to set foot on the moon. Neil Armstrong
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Neil Armstrong did not discover anything on the moon. He is famous for being the first man to walk on the moon.
Which Apollo did Neil Armstrong take to the moon?
The Unites States' Apollo 11 lands on the moon, and Neil Armstrong walks on the Moon
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Yes. Neil armstrong was the first man on the moon.
Who is this Neil Armstrong?
Neil Armstrong was the first man to step foot on the moon
What did Armstrong leave on the moon?Astronaut Stepping Onto Heatflow PicturesWhen Neil Armstrong reached the moon?
If you mean when did Neil Armstrong land on the moon, it is July 20,1969. Hope this helps! :)
Charles 'Pete' Conrad Jr. (June 2, 1930 â July 8, 1999) (Captain, USN), was an American NASAastronaut, aeronautical engineer, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and during the Apollo 12 mission became the third man to walk on the Moon. Conrad was selected in NASA's second astronaut class.
He set an eight-day space endurance record along with his Command Pilot Gordon Cooper on his first spaceflight, the Gemini 5 mission. Conrad also commanded the Gemini 11 mission. He became the third human to walk on the moon during the Apollo 12 mission. After Apollo, he commanded Skylab 2, the first crewed Skylab mission. On the mission, he and his crewmates repaired significant launch damage to the Skylabspace station. For this, PresidentJimmy Carter awarded him the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978.
After he retired from NASA in 1973, he became a vice president of American Television and Communications Company. He went on to work for McDonnell Douglas, as a vice president. During his tenure, he served as vice president of marketing, senior vice president of marketing, staff vice president of international business development, and vice president of project development.
Conrad died on July 8, 1999, from internal injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.
Early life and education[edit]
Pete Conrad was born on June 2, 1930, in Philadelphia,[2] the third child and the first son of Charles Conrad Sr. (1892â1969) and Frances De Rappelage Conrad (nee Vinson; 1899â1981), a well-to-do real estate and banking family. His mother wanted to name her newborn son 'Peter', but Charles insisted that his first son bear his name. In a compromise between two strong-willed people, the name on his birth certificate read 'Charles Conrad, Jr.', but to his mother and virtually all who knew him, he was 'Peter'. When he was 21, his fiancée's father called him 'Pete' and thereafter, Conrad adopted it. For the rest of his life, to virtually everyone, he was 'Pete'.[3]:17, 74
The Great Depression wiped out the Conrad family's fortune, just as it had those of so many others. In 1942, the family lost their manor home in Philadelphia, and then moved into a small carriage house, paid for by Frances's brother, Egerton Vinson. Eventually, Charles Sr., broken down by financial failures, left his family.[3]:43
Conrad was considered a bright, intelligent boy, but he continually struggled with his schoolwork. He suffered from dyslexia, a condition little understood at the time. Conrad attended the Haverford School, a private academy in Haverford, Pennsylvania, that previous generations of Conrads had attended. Even after his family's financial downturn, his uncle Egerton supported his continued schooling at Haverford. However, Pete's dyslexia continued to frustrate his academic efforts. After he failed most of his 11th grade exams, Haverford expelled him from school.[3]:35, 43
Conrad's mother refused to believe that her son was unintelligent, and she set about finding him a suitable school. She found Darrow School in New Lebanon, New York. There, Conrad learned how to apply a systems approach to learning, and thus found a way to work around his dyslexia. Despite having to repeat the 11th grade, Conrad so excelled at Darrow that after his graduation in 1949, he not only was admitted to Princeton University, but he was also awarded a full Navy ROTC scholarship.[3]:64â67 While at Darrow, although he was only 5'6' and weighed 135 pounds, Conrad started as the center on his football team and became the team captain. 'He was a very tough boy, and we won our share of games,' said the school's assistant headmaster.[4]
Starting when he was 15 years old, Conrad worked during the summertime at the Paoli Airfield near Paoli, Pennsylvania, bartering lawn mowing, sweeping, and other odd jobs for airplane flights and occasional instructional time. He learned more about the mechanics and workings of aircraft and aircraft engines, and then he graduated to minor maintenance work. When he was 16, he drove almost 100 miles (160 km) to help a flight instructor whose airplane had been forced to make an emergency landing. Conrad repaired the plane single-handedly. Thereafter, the instructor gave Conrad the flight lessons that he needed to earn his pilot's certificate even before he graduated from high school.[3]:54â59
Conrad continued flying while he was in college, not only keeping his pilot's certificate, but also earning an instrument flight rating. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Princeton in 1953, and received automatic commission as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy as a Naval ROTC graduate.[5]
Aviation career in the U.S. Navy[edit]
Conrad preparing for water egress training in the Gemini Static Article 5 spacecraft
Following his commission in 1953, Conrad was sent to Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, for flight training. He was also trained at the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas. He was designated a Naval Aviator in September 1954[5] and became a fighter pilot. He excelled in Navy flight school, and he served for several years as an aircraft carrier-based fighter pilot in the navy. Conrad also served as a flight instructor in Navy flight schools along the Gulf of Mexico.[6]
Next, Conrad applied for and he was accepted by the United States Naval Test Pilot School at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Patuxent, Maryland. His classmates were future fellow astronauts Wally Schirra and Jim Lovell. He graduated in 1958, as part of Class 20, and was assigned as a Project Test Pilot.[3]:83,146 Conrad became a captain in the U.S. Navy on December 11, 1969.[5]
During this period, Conrad was invited to take part in the selection process for the first group of astronauts for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (the 'Mercury Seven'). Conrad, like his fellow candidates, underwent several days of what they considered to be invasive, demeaning, and unnecessary medical and psychological testing at the Lovelace Clinic in New Mexico. Unlike his fellow candidates, Conrad rebelled against the regimen. During a Rorschach inkblot test, he told the psychiatrist that one blot card revealed a sexual encounter complete with lurid detail. When shown a blank card, he turned it around, pushed it back and replied, 'It's upside down'.[7]
Then when he was asked to deliver a stool sample to the onsite lab, he placed it in a gift box and tied a red ribbon around it. Eventually, he decided that he had had enough. After dropping his full enema bag on the desk of the clinic's commanding officer, he walked out.[3]:113â119 His initial application to NASA was denied with the notation not suitable for long-duration flight.[8]
After his NASA episode, Conrad returned to the Navy as a fighter pilot, serving in the Pacific Fleet's second operational F-4 Phantom II squadron, VF-96, on board USS Ranger.[1] Thereafter, when NASA announced its search for a second group of astronauts, Mercury veteran Alan Shepard, who knew Conrad from their time as naval aviators and test pilots, approached Conrad and persuaded him to reapply.[9] This time, Conrad found the medical tests less invasive, and in June 1962 he was selected to join NASA.[4]
He logged more than 6,500 hours flying time, with more than 5,000 hours in jet aircraft.[10]
NASA career[edit]Project Gemini[edit]
Conrad (right) with his Gemini 11 crewmate Dick Gordon, following their flight
Conrad joined NASA as part of the second group of astronauts, known as the New Nine, on September 17, 1962.[11] Regarded as one of the best pilots in the group, he was among the first of his group to be assigned a Gemini mission. As pilot of Gemini 5 he, along with his commander Gordon Cooper, set a new space endurance record of eight days. The duration of the Gemini 5 flight was actually 7 days 22 hours and 55 minutes, surpassing the then-current Russian record of five days. Eight days was the time required for the first crewed lunar landing missions. Conrad facetiously referred to the Gemini 5 capsule as a flying garbage can.[12]
Conrad tested many spacecraft systems essential to the Apollo program. He was also one of the smallest of the astronauts, 5 feet 6½ inches (1.69 meters) tall,[13] so he found the confinement of the Gemini capsule less onerous than his Commander Gordon Cooper, who played American football, did. He was then named Commander of the Gemini 8 backup crew, and later Commander of Gemini 11 with pilot Richard Gordon. Gemini 11 docked with an Agena target vehicle immediately after achieving orbit. Such a maneuver was an engineering and flight test similar to what the Apollo Command Module (CM) and Lunar Module (LM) would later be required to do. Also, the Gemini 11 flight holds the distinction of being the highest-apogee earth orbit ever, reaching an apogee of 1,369 kilometres (851 mi).[14]
Apollo program[edit]
Conrad during his Apollo 12 EVA training
Conrad descends the Lunar Module ladder, moments before becoming the third human to walk on the Moon
Pete Conrad's quote while descending the LEM ladder
Conrad was assigned in December 1966 to command the backup crew for the first Earth orbital test flight of the complete Apollo spacecraft, including the Lunar Module (LM) into low Earth orbit. Delays in the LM's development pushed this mission to December 1968 as Apollo 8. But when one more delay occurred in readying the first LM for crewed flight, NASA approved and scheduled a lunar orbit mission without the LM as Apollo 8, pushing Conrad's backup mission to Apollo 9 in March 1969. Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton's practice was to assign a backup crew as the prime crew on the third following mission. If the swap of 8 and 9 had not occurred, Conrad might have commanded Apollo 11, the first mission to land on the Moon.[15]
On November 14, 1969, Apollo 12 was launched with Conrad as Commander, Dick Gordon as Command Module Pilot, and Alan Bean as Lunar Module Pilot. The launch was the most harrowing of the Apollo program, as a series of lightning strikes just after liftoff temporarily knocked out power and guidance in the Command Module. Five days later, after stepping onto the lunar surface, Conrad joked about his own small stature by remarking:
Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me.
ââPete Conrad[16]
He later revealed that he said this in order to win a bet he had made with the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci for $500 to prove that NASA did not script astronaut comments (Fallaci was convinced that Armstrong's 'One small step for man' speech had been written for him and were not his own words).[17] (In actuality, Conrad's 'long one' and Armstrong's 'small step' refer to two different actions: going from the ladder down to the landing pad, then stepping horizontally off the pad onto the lunar surface. Conrad's words for stepping onto the Moon were 'Oooh, is that soft and queasy.')[16]
One of the photos that he took during the mission with his own image visible on the helmet visor of Al Bean was later listed on Popular Science's photo gallery of the best astronaut selfies.[18]
Skylab[edit]
Paul J. Weitz, (left) Charles Conrad Jr. (middle); and Joseph P. Kerwin (right); America's first space station crew would spend 28 days in space
Conrad's last mission was as Commander of Skylab 2, the first crew to board the Skylabspace station. The station had been damaged on its uncrewed launch, when its micrometeoroid shield tore away, taking one of two main solar panels with it and jamming the other one so that it could not deploy. Conrad and his crew repaired the damage on two spacewalks. Conrad managed to pull free the stuck solar panel by sheer brute force, an action of which he was particularly proud. The astronauts also erected a 'parasol' solar shield to protect the station from intense solar heating, a function which the lost micrometeoroid shield was supposed to perform. Without the shield, Skylab and its contents would have become unusable.[19] President Jimmy Carter honored Conrad for this in 1978 by awarding him the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.[20]
During his training for Skylab 2, Conrad had to bail out from NASA T-38 N957NA on May 10, 1972. He was returning to Houston from a visit to ILC Industries in Delaware. On approach to Ellington AFB he was advised that the weather had deteriorated below minimums so he diverted to Hobby. During the night, instrument flight rules (IFR) descent, he suffered a generator failure at 800 feet and broke off the approach. He elected to divert to an airfield with better weather. Unfortunately he ran out of fuel as he reached Bergstrom AFB and was forced to eject at 3,700 feet. He landed about 100 yards from the base operations building and his airplane impacted in an open field about two miles away.
Post-NASA career[edit]
Conrad undergoes dental exam by Skylab 2 Science Pilot, Dr. Joseph P. Kerwin, M.D.
Conrad retired from NASA and the Navy in 1973, and went to work for American Television and Communications Company. He started as the vice president of operations and chief operating officer. Conrad was in charge of the operation of existing systems and the national development of new cable television systems.[1]
In 1976, he accepted a position with McDonnell Douglas as a vice president and consultant. In 1978, he became vice president of marketing and was responsible for the commercial and military sales of Douglas Aircraft Company. After an engine fell off a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, causing it to crash with the loss of all passengers and crew in 1979, Conrad spearheaded McDonnell Douglas's ultimately unsuccessful efforts to allay the fears of the public and policymakers, and save the plane's reputation. In 1980, he was promoted to senior vice president of marketing. From 1982 to 1984, Conrad served as the senior vice president of marketing and product support. He was appointed staff vice president of international business development in 1984. During the 1990s he consulted for the Delta Clipper experimental single-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle. He became vice president of project development in 1993.[1]
On February 14, 1996, Conrad was part of the crew on a record-breaking around-the-world flight in a Learjet owned by cable TV pioneer, Bill Daniels. The flight lasted 49 hours, 26 minutes and 8 seconds.[21] Today the jet is on permanent static display at Denver International Airport's Terminal C.[3]
A month before he died, Conrad appeared on ABC News Nightline and said, 'I think the Space Shuttle is worth one billion dollars a launch. I think that it is worth two billion dollars for what it does. I think the Shuttle is worth it for the work it does.' In the last interview he gave before his death, Conrad sat down for PBS's Nova series and discussed where he felt the future direction of space travel should go. He considered returning to the Moon 'a waste of taxpayer money', but recommended missions to Mars and asteroids.[22]
In 2006, NASA posthumously awarded him the Ambassador of Exploration Award for his work for the agency and science.[23]
Personal life[edit]
âConrad's personal motto.[4]
While at Princeton, Conrad met Jane DuBose, a student at Bryn Mawr, whose family owned a 1,600-acre (650 ha) ranch near Uvalde, Texas. Her father, Winn DuBose, was the first person to call Conrad 'Pete' rather than 'Peter', the name he had used since birth. Upon his graduation from Princeton and acceptance of his navy commission, Conrad and Jane were married on June 16, 1953. They had four sons: Peter, born in 1954; Thomas, born in 1957; Andrew, born in 1959; and the youngest, Christopher, born in 1960.[3]
Given the demands of his career in the navy and NASA, Pete and Jane spent a great deal of time apart, and Pete saw less of his boys growing up than he would have liked. Even after he retired from NASA and the Navy, he kept himself busy. In 1988, Pete and Jane divorced.[1] Both Pete and Jane remarried.[24][25]
In 1989, Conrad's youngest son, Christopher, was stricken with a malignant lymphoma. He died in April 1990, at the age of 29.[3]:230â1
Conrad met Nancy Crane, a Denver divorcee, through mutual friends. Conrad and Crane married in 1990.[26]
Conrad was a Cub Scout.[27] His recreational interests included golf, water skiing and auto racing, such as Formula Vee.[28]
Death[edit]
Conrad died on July 8, 1999, from internal injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. While traveling with his wife and friends from his Huntington Beach home to Monterey, California, his motorcycle crashed on a turn. Conrad later died in a hospital in Ojai.[29] He was wearing a helmet at the time and was operating within the speed limit.[4] He was buried with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery, with many Apollo-era astronauts in attendance.[30]
The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, has a grove of trees that have been planted to honor the memory of the astronauts who have died. After Conrad's death, NASA planted a tree in his honor. During the dedication ceremony, his Apollo 12 crewmate Alan Bean, used his speech to lighten the somber occasion by injecting a little levity, pretending to 'channel' Conrad's instructions from the hereafter. Bean said, Conrad wanted NASA to light his tree every Christmas season with colored lights instead of the white used for everyone else, in keeping with his motto 'when you can't be good, be colorful'. NASA has honored this 'request', and every Christmas since then, all of the trees in the grove have been lit with white lights, except Conrad's tree, which has been lit with red lights.[3]:xiii[31]
Awards and honors[edit]
Conrad, Dick Gordon, and Alan Bean pose with their Apollo 12 Saturn V Moon rocket in the background.
He is inducted into several Aviation and Astronaut Halls of Fame. He was one of ten Gemini astronauts inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1982.[33] Conrad was presented an HonoraryMaster of Arts degree from Princeton in 1966; an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Lincoln-Wesleyan University in 1970, and an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from Kings College, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 1971.[1]
The three Skylab astronaut crews were awarded the 1973 Robert J. Collier Trophy 'For proving beyond question the value of man in future explorations of space and the production of data of benefit to all the people on Earth.'[34][35]Gerald Carr accepted the 1975 Dr. Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy from President Ford, awarded to the Skylab astronauts.[36]
Conrad was a fellow of the American Astronautical Society; New York Academy of Sciences; American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the Society of Experimental Test Pilots.[10]
In television and film[edit]
Conrad appeared as a spokesman for American Express
'And someday, I may even use it on the Moon.' â Conrad, in footage of an American Express television commercial.[30][4]
Conrad played himself in the 1991 television movie Plymouth, about a fictional lunar base;[37] and in the 1975 made-for-TV movie, Stowaway to the Moon.[38]
In the 1995 film Apollo 13, Conrad was played by David Andrews.[39] In the 1998 HBOminiseriesFrom the Earth to the Moon, he was played by Peter Scolari (in episode 1, 'Can We Do This?') and by Paul McCrane (in episode 7, 'That's All There Is').[40] In the 2018 film First Man, Conrad was played by Ethan Embry.
See also[edit]References[edit]
Bibliography[edit]
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pete_Conrad&oldid=903989324'
GOLDEN, Colo. â NASA's Constellation Program â including thedeployment of the Orion crew vehicle replacing the space shuttle â will firstbe assigned to International Space Station flights, then propel humans andcargo to the Moon. Expeditionary missions to Mars and beyond will follow.
But there's ongoing discussion of mounting a piloted missionto an asteroid â a voyage by astronauts to a near-Earth object,termed NEO for short. These proponents feel certain of the scientific payofffrom reaching, first-hand, an asteroid â perhaps even becoming able to exploitthese chunks of celestial flotsam to further humankind's plunge into thecosmos.
Space technologists argue that a NEO trip could be avaluable shakeout of people, equipment, and procedures prior to hurlingastronauts beyond the Moon to the distant dunes of Mars.
For others, NEOs are viewed as downright dangerous, in termsof a head-on collision between Earth and a space rock. It's best to get to knowthese incoming beasts ahead of time.
NASA's NEOphytes
Internal looks by a small group of NASA'NEOphytes' have projected that a human trek to one of thosemini-worlds may involve two or three astronauts on a 90 to 120-day spaceflight,including a week or two week stay at the appointed asteroid.
Dispatching astronauts to a NEO is a sensible idea, saidHarrison Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut, geologist and current chair of the NASAAdvisory Council (NAC).
In fact, the Exploration and Space Operations subcommitteesof the NAC were briefed July 18 by NEO study team members from the NASA Johnson Space Center, although there has been no Council action on the topic.
Schmitt told SPACE.com: 'I think examination of a NEOmission and the development of the stand-by monitoring systems, plans,protocols and procedures for the diversion of a potentially Earth-impactingasteroid would be very prudent activity for the U.S. to undertake.'
Additionally, Schmitt said that a NEO mission would be apotentially important demonstration of the versatility and capability of theConstellation systems and a 'gap-filler' before any Mars landingmission.
'So far, the arguments for asteroid science andresources are interesting, but not well-developed or potentially ashistorically or politically persuasive as a demonstration of long-term Earthdefense,' Schmitt said.
Extended flight
At this point in time, NASA has not issued any formalrequirements to augment the Orionspacecraft to handle a piloted NEO mission, explained John Stevens,Director of Business Development for the human spaceflight line of work atLockheed Martin Space Systems, near Denver, Colorado.
However, the company â builder of the crew-carrying Orionspacecraft â internally funded two years worth of studies to flesh outtechnologies to support a diversity of destinations, Stevens said. For sojournsto a near-Earth asteroid, he said, future block upgrades to Orion arenecessary.
'It's not that difficult from an architecture point ofview to fly by an asteroid and then come back,' Stevens said. But pullingoff a rendezvous and docking with such an object, then rocketing back to Earth,requires more propulsion oomph, he noted, along with the need for larger livingquarters for transiting crews, as well as recycling hardware to handle oxygenand water needs.
Also, any roundtrip â Earth-to-NEO-to Earth â is an extendedflight, way beyond that required for Moon travel. So that brings up crewpsychological-sociological issues. 'It's a concern?but we don't know howmuch of a concern,' Stevens advised.
Stevens said that the near-Earth object human mission can beviewed as an intermediate step between a Moon mission and a Mars mission.'In terms of complexity and the length of time that you have to stayout?it does represent a good stepping stone between the kinds of missions youdo at the Moon and the kinds of missions that you next bite off?which is theMars mission,' he said.
Visualize this space
DigitalSpace, a privately held company based in Santa Cruz, California, has just released a design simulation of a notional crewedmission to an as-yet identified asteroid.
'This visualization is DigitalSpace's design conceptfor the mission, produced as an independent effort for the benefit of aninternal NASA feasibility study completed in 2007,' said Bruce Damer, founderof the company that provides leading edge Internet content and tools forcommunication, collaboration, and visualization.
The NASA study was performed to show that such a mission ispossible with the new Constellation architecture, Damer said. DigitalSpacereceived input from numerous experts inside and outside NASA to produce the NEOmission visualization.
'It is important to note that this is not a NASAconcept, nor has NASA given it any kind of technical blessing?it is a designcreated by the DigitalSpace team to stimulate discussion in the spacecommunity,' Damer emphasized.
Indeed, many in the space community see any pilgrimage to anasteroid â by either robots or astronauts â as having multiple benefits.
Tooling up for NEOs
Learning about NEOs offers much in both scientific andpractical terms. That's the perspective offered by Clark Chapman, a planetaryscientist at the Southwest Research Institute's (SwRI) Department of SpaceStudies in neighboring Boulder, Colorado.
The reasons are many, Chapman said: Because there are manyof them, because they are made of materials both common and exotic comparedwith materials available near the Earth's surface, and because they havenegligible gravity?they are an obvious source of raw materials for future humanexploration of outer space.
Tooling up for NEOs is already being tackled by specialistsat Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation, also in Boulder. They havebeen looking into a small, low-cost landing probe design that couldcharacterize both the surface and interior of small solar system objects, suchas an asteroid.
The device is about the size of a basketball and weighs justa few pounds, said Dennis Ebbets, Senior Business Development Manager for BallAerospace's Space Science division. He and staff consultant, Richard Reinert,along with Rich Dissly, Ball's Deputy Director for Solar System AdvancedSystems, suggest that several of the probes could be hauled to a target objectand deployed individually.
Once released, these non-propulsive surface probes wouldfreefall onto an asteroid's surface and begin transmitting results from theirrespective locales. The probes are outfitted with deployable panels to ensureself-righting to begin their errands.
Each self-energized probe might employ tiny imagers,accelerometers, x-ray spectrometers, sample collection and analysis gear âperhaps even utilize small explosive charges to create seismic waves that helpgauge an asteroid's internal structure.
While asteroid surface probes could be deployed from anautomated spacecraft, they are also a 'perfect candidate' to be totedonboard a human expedition to a near-Earth object, Ebbets told SPACE.com.
Ebbets said asteroids deserve attention to help figure outwhat they are, where they come from, why they are different, and why there arefamilies of these objects that are the same.
Additionally, 'there's a non-zero chance of being hitby one of these things,' Ebbets noted. He said he was a big fan ofdropping a transponder onto an asteroid that's been branded as a potentialtroublemaker.
'Putting a transponder on it would be an excellentthing to do,' Ebbets added. 'You can get a very, very accurateorbit?predict years into the future whether it's on a collision course with usor not.'
Long-delayed expectations
Along with the need to come to grips with scalawag asteroidsthat could harm Earth, SwRI's Chapman senses other NEO exploration outcomes.
?'Though I am a space scientist strongly orientedtoward the cost-effective robotic exploration of the solar system, I also grewup on science-fictional accounts of human expansion into the cosmos, and Iendorse that more expensive ? but ultimately inevitable ? direction for humanexploration,' Chapman said.?
Chapman said that it makes sense to him that NEOs could beused as 'way-stations' to Mars. 'Human visits to NEOs can gopart-way toward understanding the challenges of going to Mars, yet not invokethe most serious challenges,' he said.
Regarding concerns in some quarters that efforts to sendhumans to NEOs may be a distraction from the main, early focus of sendinghumans to the Moon, Chapman said: 'In the current environment where the?Vision' dominates NASA and the budget tends to restrict what we might do underthe umbrella of the ?Vision' to the narrowest aspect of the ?Vision'?the focusmust be on the Moon.'
More than the Moon
But Chapman continued by noting that the dreams of peopleworldwide who want to expand their long-delayed expectations of going intointerplanetary space, NASA â assisted by the budgetary processes in theCongress â must find a way to do more than just return to the Moon.?
'I happen to believe that scientific exploration of theMoon?could be extremely significant. And the Moon is much more easily exploredand developed than Mars, which must remain a longer term challenge. But NEOsoffer a special, practical, and inspiring challenge that we should keep on thetable,' Chapman explained to SPACE.com.
In the context of the hazard ofdestructive impacts by NEOs on the Earth, Chapman said that'everything we can learn about the physical nature of NEOs canincrementally enhance our chances of dealing effectively with one, should onebe discovered that seriously affects us.' He explained that roboticexploration of such a NEO would be essentially as good as human exploration ofthat threatening object.
'But the generic exploration of NEOs â even if solelyin the goal of getting to Mars ? can have side benefits not only forunderstanding the range of issues we might have in dealing with a threateningNEO, but also in learning how we might mine the resources of NEOs for futureuse in human exploration of the solar system,' Chapman concluded.
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