3D Printing Could Aid Deep-Space Exploration

Technological advances are bringing down the cost of space research and exploration, with 3D printing poised to provide a transformative leap, NASA chief Charles Bolden says.

During a tour of the space agency's Ames Research Center here Friday (May 24), Bolden lauded the scientific potential of PhoneSats, tiny and inexpensive spacecraft based on off-the-shelf smartphones and he singled out 3D printing as a promising key enabler of humanity's push out into the solar system.

"As NASA ventures further into space, whether redirecting an asteroid or sending humans to Mars, we'll need transformative technology to reduce cargo weight and volume," Bolden said.

"In the future, perhaps astronauts will be able to print the tools or components they need while in space."

NASA Bolden gives updates on Asteroid Lasso mission

Surrounded by engineers, NASA chief Charles Bolden inspected a prototype spacecraft engine that could power an audacious mission to lasso an asteroid and tow it closer to Earth for astronauts to explore.

Bolden checked on the progress Thursday a month after the Obama administration unveiled its 2014 budget that proposes $105 million to jumpstart the mission, which may eventually cost more than $2.6 billion.

Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and Glenn Research Center in Ohio are developing a thruster that relies on ion propulsion instead of conventional chemical fuel.

Once relegated to science fiction, ion propulsion — which fires beams of electrically charged atoms to propel a spacecraft — is preferred for deep space cruising because it's more fuel-efficient. Engine testing is expected to ramp up next year.

During Thursday's visit to the JPL campus, nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains northeast of Los Angeles, Bolden viewed an engineering model of the engine and peered through a porthole of a vacuum chamber housing the prototype.

NASA is under White House orders to fly humans to an asteroid as a stepping stone to Mars. Instead of sending astronauts all the way to an asteroid, as originally planned, the space agency came up with a quicker, cheaper idea: Haul the asteroid close to the moon and visit it there.

The space agency would launch an ion-powered unmanned spacecraft to snare a yet-to-be-selected small asteroid in 2019 and park it in the moon's neighborhood. Then a spacewalking team would hop on an Orion space capsule that's currently under development and explore the rock in 2021.

Besides preparing astronauts for an eventual trip to Mars, NASA said the asteroid-capture mission is designed to test technologies to deflect threatening space boulders on a collision course with Earth.

Scientists have said the redirected asteroid would pose no threat to Earth. If it inadvertently plunged through the atmosphere, it would burn up, they said.

NASA Asteroid Mission: It's all NASA can afford - NASA Chief Bolden

A NASA plan to send astronauts to an asteroid was met with skepticism Wednesday when NASA Chief Charlie Bolden presented the idea to top space officials in Congress.

The asteroid mission, unveiled a few weeks ago, would send a NASA probe to capture a small asteroid and drag it to a point near the moon so astronauts riding a new rocket and capsule could visit it, possibly as soon as 2021.

"The goal is (to) remain the world's leader in exploration," Bolden said. But members of the U.S. House science committee took issue with the project's cost and feasibility - and questioned why the agency wasn't planning a return to the moon en route to an eventual mission to Mars.

The NASA chief delivered a blunt reply: It's all NASA can afford. "I need money to go to the moon," Bolden said.

As part of its 2014 budget proposal, the White House wants NASA to spend $105 million next year to begin planning the asteroid mission, which could cost upward of $2.6 billion.

Broadly, the administration envisions sending a probe as soon as 2017 to capture a 25-foot, 500-ton asteroid and tug it near the moon - possibly to a spot about 277,000 miles from Earth that would use competing gravitational forces to allow it to "sit" there.

Astronauts flying NASA's new Orion capsule and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket then would visit it to take samples and possibly set foot on its surface.

In addition to scientific benefits, Bolden said an asteroid trip would serve as a steppingstone for an eventual Mars mission while also teaching NASA engineers how to divert an asteroid in case one ever threatened Earth. He called it "an unprecedented technological challenge."