Asteroids: A New Horizon
Season 1
February 17, 2021
2Episodes
Witness how asteroids, those rocky, mysterious celestial bodies, could become a new frontier for humanity in the near future. We are at the forefront of the modern day gold rush and Asteroids hold the key for private companies to launch into deep space. This mini-series looks at the science and engineering behind the companies leading that race. Why study asteroids? Well, they are remnants of our Solar System’s remote past - they help us understand the formation of planets as well as the origin of life. Plus, impact with the Earth could have catastrophic consequences. But thirdly and most crucially they could provide us with resources like metals or water that could be used for propellant to help humans reach deep space - and they could even be used as pit-stops.
Episodes
1. Exploring the Asteroids
February 17, 2021
51 min
Part 1 explains Asteroids and our relationship with them over the decades: NASA’s Dawn mission that revealed the secrets of the Asteroid Belt, plus ESA & JAXA’s missions that actually landed to study them in the 2000’s - and most importantly, NASA’s current OSIRIS-REx mission and their 2021 Lucy launch, to Jupiter’s trojans. Finally - explore a shocking discovery from 2017: Oumuamua, the first interstellar object detected from another star system to come this close to the Earth, and learn about the properties that asteroids contain that make them essential for deep-space travel.
2. The New Frontier
February 17, 2021
52 min
Part 2 explores which are the best asteroids to mine - and how? In Space, using Zero Gravity - or on Earth? How can their metals and the liquids be used for deep space exploration, as propellant or pit stops - and are any of the metals useful on Earth? With a visit to the Colorado Center of Space Resources, we explore the engineering and technology needed to extract materials from the asteroids. We reveal the three top companies in the race - TransAstra and their autonomous spacecrafts, OffWorld and their autonomous mining robots, and Atem Engineering, who find solutions for discovery and assessment of Near-Earth Asteroids. Their goal is to extract and utilize resources in space to pave the way for human exploration - and the new space race is getting started.