Low-Cost Innovation in Spaceflight - The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) Shoemaker Mission (Paperback)

On a spring day in 1996, at their research center in the Maryland countryside, representatives from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) presented Administrator Daniel S. Goldin of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with a check for $3.6 million. Two and a half years earlier, APL officials had agreed to develop a spacecraft capable of conducting an asteroid rendezvous and to do so for slightly more than $122 million. This was a remarkably low sum for a spacecraft due to conduct a planetary class mission. By contrast, the Mars Observer spacecraft launched in 1992 for an orbital rendezvous with the red planet had cost $479 million to develop, while the upcoming Cassini mission to Saturn required a spacecraft whose total cost was approaching $1.4 billion. In an Agency accustomed to cost overruns on major missions, the promise to build a planetary-class spacecraft for about $100 million seemed excessively optimistic.

General

Imprint:	Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	NASA History
Release date:	November 2013
First published:	November 2013
Authors:	Howard E McCurdy • National Aeronautics and Administration
Dimensions:	280 x 216 x 5mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Trade
Pages:	86
ISBN-13:	978-1-4936-5653-0
Categories:	Books > Earth & environment > Geography > Geographical discovery & exploration
LSN:	1-4936-5653-8
Barcode:	9781493656530

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