Introduction to the International Asteroid Mission

A driving theme of this mission is to participate in the expansion of sustained human presence beyond Earth orbit. This mission will achieve this theme through a manned mission to mine a near-Earth asteroid, and return asteroid-derived hydrogen and oxygen for cryogenic propulsion fuel in the Earth-Moon system. In the long run, this could eliminate the high cost of launching fuel from the surface of the Earth. This fuel can be used for future space missions, including voyages to Mars, and Earth-Moon excursions. Asteroids can be used as sources of other raw-materials commonplace on Earth, but difficult or expensive to deliver to the Earth-Moon system. These include water, metals, hydrocarbons, and building materials. The International Asteroid Mission design project has four main goals: (1) define the possible uses of asteroids through a survey of existing literature to determine what materials, processes, and applications are most profitable for an asteroid mission; (2) review the current methods and instrumentation used in searches of asteroids, (3) review the current proposals for unmanned, robotic probes to asteroids in the context of an international manned mission, and (4) develop one scenario for an economically viable manned mission to extract and return asteroid resources from a near-Earth asteroid to the Earth-Moon system.