Asteroid Mission Competition Announces Winner

Riding with Robots writes "The Planetary Society invited participants to compete for $50,000 in prizes by designing a mission to rendezvous with and 'tag' a potentially dangerous near-Earth asteroid. The asteroid Apophis was used as the target for the mission design because it will come closer to Earth in 2029 than the orbit of geostationary satellites. The winning mission design is called Foresight, and calls for the use of off-the-shelf parts to undercut the price of other proposals. Here's a PDF of the winning proposal."

It could be worse

[aadvancedGIR]

The asteroid could be full of highly toxic fuel.

Re:Huh?

[MassiveForces]

Good point, especially since "an Orbital Sciences Corporation Minotaur IV launch vehicle" doesn't sound like it would fit very well on the average shelf.

Great, it's done...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll let Bruce Willis know.

It could be interactive

[SgtChaireBourne]

It could be quite an interactive project, albeit not in the way intended.

Perhaps it is a typo or the authors meant to avoid confusing the PHBs with 'technical' jargon like SSH, SFTP, and HTTPS. Page 28 of the document clearly says that FTP and Telnet are used. FTP will be used for data transfer to and from the satellite and that telnet is involve in the command and control.

Looks like Lunar Lander [geody.com] needs to add an option for NEO Asteroid, so that the first one to get in doesn't use all the fuel on the first try...

Re:unlucky for some...

[CBob]

We're trying for Mid-Pacific impact on 13 April, but there's some remaining flight instability due to the off center mass concentrations of the projectile.

Re:Interesting name...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I for one, am going to bow before my new asteroid-weilding God.

Re:I have an even better way to get to the asteroi

[joaommp]

The US military seems to be getting some practice in shooting down outworld objects...

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[TheRealMindChild]

While that sounds dandy from a I-want-to-do-the-least-work-possible approach (which I am not necessarily condemning), the consequences of another "moon" may not be all that apparent up front. Tides would certainly change, possibly affecting coastlines. Whales and such would get confused. It would start raining cats and dogs. MASS HYSTERIA!

Mayan Calendar... almost

[Anonymous Coward]

So my first thought was isn't 2029 the end of the Mayan calendar....
But Google came to the rescue and the Mayan calendar actually ends on 2012... oh well.
I guess I have to find another coincedental date of importance.... Did Nostradomus predict something for 2029?

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[MMC Monster]

While that sounds dandy from a I-want-to-do-the-least-work-possible approach (which I am not necessarily condemning), the consequences of another "moon" may not be all that apparent up front. Tides would certainly change, possibly affecting coastlines. Whales and such would get confused. It would start raining cats and dogs. MASS HYSTERIA!

Okay. But is there any downside?

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[Kamokazi]

But then we'll have lots of people living in massive space colonies to mine the asteroids and then will eventually feel oppressed by the people living on Earth whose souls are weighted down by gravity and give birth to a revolting faction that will develop giant robots and use psychic pilots and start many wars where they usually try to drop these colonies and asteroids onto Earth.

That or I've been watching way too much Anime.

downside to another moon

[The Queen]

Well, at the risk of getting gross (and sacrificing karma), I have to wonder how a 'second moon' would affect menstrual cycles. Twice a month? There's your downside!