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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

painting of an astronaut on an asteroid

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, January 30, 2012 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Rob Landis

"The Asteroid Option"

ABSTRACT -- Asteroids are the bits of solar system jetsam and flotsam that never formed into a large planet.  They are the raw ingredients that hold the clues to the early history of the solar system when the planets first formed.  The impetus for asteroid exploration is scientific, political, and pragmatic. The notion of sending human explorers to asteroids is not new.  Piloted missions to these primitive bodies were first discussed in the 1960s, pairing Saturn V rockets with enhanced Apollo spacecraft to explore what were then called "Earth-approaching asteroids."  Two decades ago, NASA's Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) also briefly examined the possibility of visiting these small celestial bodies.  Most recently, in 2009, the U.S. Human Space Flight Review Committee (the second Augustine Commission) suggested that near-Earth objects (NEOs) represent a target-rich environment for exploration via the "Flexible Path" option. On 15 April 2010, the President announced the goal of sending American astronauts on the first mission to an asteroid no later than 2025.

However, prior to seriously considering human missions to NEOs, it has become clear that we currently lack a robust catalog of human-accessible targets.  The majority of the NEOs identified by a study team across several NASA centers as "human-accessible" are probably too small and have orbits that are too uncertain to consider mounting piloted expeditions to these small worlds.  The first step in developing such a catalog is to complete space-based survey.  The resulting catalog of candidate NEOs would then be transformed into a matrix of opportunities for robotic and human missions for the next several decades.

SPEAKER -- Rob Landis has an eclectic set of science and mission operations leadership and hands-on experience ranging from space-based observatories (the Hubble Space Telescope and the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer); to deep space missions (Cassini-Huygens, the Mars Exploration Rovers - Spirit and Opportunity) and manned spaceflight (International Space Station and shuttle).  He has lived abroad for extensive periods leading and coordinating ISS mission operations in Russia and Germany.

As NASA's program to take astronaut-explorers back to the Moon began to take shape several years ago, Rob initiated the NASA feasibility study of utilizing lunar hardware and infrastructure to mount piloted missions to near-Earth objects (NEOs).  

Rob holds a B.S. in astrophysics from Michigan State University and an M.S. in space studies from the University of North Dakota. He is currently stationed at the Wallops Flight Facility of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where he serves as technical manager of the Advanced Projects Office.


Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov