NASA takes people to asteroids farther than the moon

A group of astronauts including Tim Peake, a former British pilot who is currently working for the European Space Agency (ESA), is formally trained for a completely new mission: set foot on one small planet.

The US Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) plan will send people to an asteroid 3 million miles from Earth by the end of the decade. This will be the farthest mission that astronauts make.

Tim Peake will attend a preparatory training for the mission to set foot on the asteroid

Training programs will begin next month. The goal of the project is to teach 6 astronauts how to operate transport, walk, collect specimens. More importantly, scientists will have to explore the asteroid's environment as well as the skills needed to work on the surface. NASA hopes that the trip will provide an understanding of the early universe and valuable scientific information to protect the Earth when a risk of collisions with asteroids is detected.

Traveling around the Sun at 50,000 mph in zero gravity, touching safe ground on cosmic rocks will be a significant challenge.

However, 'with today's technologically advanced technology we can fully believe in the success of bringing people to the asteroid,' Tim Peake said.

Details of the new mission will be announced by NASA at a conference in Japan later this month.

However, the agency revealed that it would send an unmanned ship to the asteroid exploration in 2016 before bringing astronauts there in 2020. This is a good opportunity for scientists. Technology testing is expected to be applied to Mars exploration.

Reference: Telegraph