NASA Small Bodies Assessment Group Debates Asteroid Redirect Mission, July 2014

NASA’s Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG) met July 29-31, 2014 in Washington, DC.   It received a number of briefings from NASA officials on the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) and other aspects of the “Evolvable Mars Campaign.”   A significant portion of the meeting was devoted to debate about ARM, particularly a presentation by MIT’s Richard Binzel, a planetary scientist who was sharply critical of the mission.   SpacePolicyOnline.com summarized the SBAG meeting in an article published on August 1 entitled “Asteroid Expert Richard Binzel:  ARM is “Emperor With No Clothes.”   (Planetary scientists use the term “small bodies” to refer to asteroids, comets, interplanetary dust, small satellitles, and Trans-Neptunian objects.)