Could We Use An Asteroid to Shield Astronauts On Their Way to Mars?

Radiation is a major concern for long-duration human spaceflight, such because the deliberate journeys to Mars, that are the acknowledged purpose of organizations comparable to NASA and SpaceX. Shielding is the usual method to defend astronauts from radiation throughout these flights. Nonetheless, shielding is heavy and, subsequently, costly when it’s launched off the Earth. What if, as a substitute, astronauts may hitch a trip on an enormous mass of protecting already in area that may take them on to their vacation spot? That’s the primary thought behind a paper from Victor Reshetnyk and his scholar at Taras Shevchenko Nationwide College in Kyiv. 

They checked out information collected by NASA’s Horizons service and analyzed the orbits of over 35,000 Close to Earth Objects (NEOs) for his or her trajectories to see if their paths would cross someplace between the binary pairs of Earth-Venus, Earth-Mars, or Mars-Venus. If that’s the case, then in principle, they could possibly be used as shielding from the lethal radiation astronauts must both undergo from or defend in opposition to on the journey.

Given the sheer quantity of objects they checked out, they had been certain to search out some good candidates – they usually did, with an estimated 525 making “quick” transfers of lower than 180 days. They then additional narrowed this listing right down to an affordable velocity in the course of the strategy to the planet they’d begin from – basically to ensure that a crewed spacecraft may truly catch as much as the asteroid with out burning an absurd quantity of gas.

That lowered the entire quantity of candidates right down to 120, with the next breakdown:

• Earth -> Venus: 44
• Earth -> Mars: 17
• Mars -> Earth: 13
• Mars -> Venus: 2
• Venus -> Earth: 38
• Venus -> Mars: 6

In different phrases, there have been loads of choices for hitching a trip. Granted, none of those could be exceptionally roomy – the most important is estimated to have a diameter of solely .37 km. Nonetheless, there’s nonetheless loads of room to suit a spaceship, so long as it’s not a Star Destroyer or Battleship from 40K.

Moreover, the authors discovered some asteroids that had extra distinctive trajectories. Eleven had the opportunity of doing “a number of” transfers, that means they may go from Earth to Venus after which again or vice versa, however just one would do the identical for the Venus to Mars journey. Two may even do a “double” switch, that means they may go from Earth to Venus to Mars or from Mars to Venus to Earth in lower than one yr. Something past that wasn’t doable, although – they didn’t discover any asteroids akin to an “Aldrin Cycler” that might go between the planets indefinitely on a identified orbit.

That’s to not say that asteroid doesn’t exist already – we would simply not have discovered it but. NEO Surveyor, a NASA mission designed to launch in 2028 to search out 90% of all NEOs bigger than 140m in diameter, may enhance the variety of identified NEOs by an order of magnitude.

Utilizing any of them for an enormous radiation defend for a crewed mission would take far more devoted work, although. Any such transformation is a long time away a minimum of – however the place to begin is to search out the fitting ones, and this paper contributes to that effort.

Study Extra:
A.S. Kasianchuk & V. M. Reshetnyk – The search for NEOs as potential candidates for use in space missions to Venus and Mars
UT – A New Paper Shows How To Change An Asteroid Into A Space Habitat – In Just 12 Years
UT – Rubble Pile Asteroids Might be the Best Places to Build Space Habitats
UT – NASA Makes Asteroid Defense a Priority, Moving its NEO Surveyor Mission Into the Development Phase

Lead Picture:
Illustration of the asteroid Bennu.
Credit score: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory