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Washington: Planned space adventures over the next few decades for
the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) read
like a science fiction thriller with a touch of the wild west
thrown in, with plans to journey farther and faster than anyone
from Earth has gone before.
"The idea is to continue branching ourselves out very slowly into
the solar system, pushing the limits and going deeper into space
than ever," said NASA spokesman Allard Beutel, in an interview
with RIA Novosti Thursday.
"In the long run, what we're trying to do is maintain NASA as the
world's leading space agency," he added.
The programme that has captured the public's attention is NASA's
$2.6 billion Asteroid Initiative, planned long before a meteorite
hit Russia in February, causing wide-spread damage and reminding
people around the world that asteroids pose a dangerous threat to
the planet.
NASA plans to launch a spacecraft by 2017 and capture an asteroid
by 2019 as it speeds through space using a high-tech "lasso" of
sorts, then pull it into the moon's gravitational orbit where
astronauts can visit it, study it, and return to Earth with
samples.
The target asteroid has not yet been identified, but ideally it
will be roughly 500 tonnes and 25 feet in diameter.
"This mission represents an unprecedented technological feat that
will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological
capabilities and help protect our home planet," NASA chief Charles
Bolden said in a statement.
The hope is to have astronauts walking on the asteroid as soon as
2021.
Other specific goals for the US space programme include:
. Getting American astronauts back into space on US spaceships by
2017, and not having to rely on Russia's Soyuz space capsules.
. Launching the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest ever
built, in 2018, to be positioned roughly one million miles
(1,609,344 km) from Earth
. Landing astronauts on Mars by 2030
"It's great to have international partnerships but as an American
I would like to have transportation launching from the US to and
from the ISS," said Beutel, adding that in the modern-day version
of the space race, the big goal is a bit more distant.
"The Red Planet clearly has a bullseye. Mars is the prize for
people to land astronauts on in the next couple of decades," he
said.
NASA's roadmap for the future combines a quest for scientific
knowledge with a thirst for private exploration. But plans for
commercial space flight rely on private companies like SpaceX,
Orbital Sciences, Boeing and others, a move that NASA said will
open the door to outer space.
"There are a number of companies that are looking for contracts to
take astronauts to and from the space station… and once that
begins to happen, it could become open to the general public.
There could be private space stations, private flights. Once the
technology is there, it's there for everybody," he said.
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