Yellow ribbon latest tool for space
Thursday, 06 Sep 2007 16:19
Asteroids could provide information for future missions to Mars
A cross between a belt and a baby bouncer has been developed to help astronauts remain on asteroids during future fact-findings missions.
The gravity on asteroids is not strong enough to keep astronauts on their surfaces; they would bounce off into space each time they touched its surface.
Scientists are attempting to solve this problem as missions are being planned for astronauts to land on an asteroid to provide information to shape future missions to the planet Mars.
Ian Garrick-Bethell and Christopher Carr at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology believe they have developed a way to keep the astronauts attached to the surface, the New Scientist reports.
A long spool of yellow polymer ribbon would be attached to an uncrewed space vehicle that would then wind it around the asteroid as it orbits it.
This would be repeated, resulting in a double band to attach a mechanism for the astronaut to sit in.
Mr Garrick-Bethell said a tough polymer called Vectran, which is already used for airbags on Mars probes, would be used for the ribbon.
"We want to see an asteroid mission in the near future, so we did not rely on technologies that don't exist," he told the New Scientist.