Animation released that shows how Nasa intends to CAPTURE an asteroid as potential Mars expedition looks increasingly likely

Obama wants Nasa to begin search for a suitable asteroid

Animation looks simple enough - capture it like a fish in a net



Nasa working on heavy-lift rocket and deep-space capsule for the mission

The programme is expected to cost less than the estimated £1.7 million



The idea of capturing an asteroid may seem unbelievable to most.

Yet following U.S President Barack Obama's instructions to Nasa that he wants to snare an asteroid and then launch it into the moon/earth orbit, the space agency has released a video of how it could be done.

This is all part of the development of a potential manned mission to Mars.



Scroll down for video

An asteroid is scouted out...

Then the giant space vacuum will snare the its victim...

...and then the asteroid gets wrapped up just like you do with a rubbish bag

...Before it is moved on towards the earth's atmosphere

The president wants scientists to find a small asteroid that could be shifted into an orbit near the moon and used by astronauts as a stepping stone for an eventual mission to Mars, agency officials confirmed.



The project, which envisions that astronauts could visit such an asteroid as early as 2021, is included in President Obama's £11.5 billion spending plan for the U.S. space agency for the 2014 tax year.

HOW WOULD IT WORK?

NASA would find an asteroid which is between 23 and 33 feet wide.

They would then tow or push it towards Earth so that it ends up in a stable orbit near the moon.

In 2021 astronauts would then use an Orion capsule - a manned spacecraft - to land on the asteroid and bring back soil and rock samples for analysis.

This asteroid would also, probably in the 2030s, be used as a stop-off point for astronauts on their way to Mars.

It is intended as an expansion of existing initiatives to find asteroids that may be on a collision course with Earth, and as part of preparations for a human expedition to Mars in the 2030s.

‘This mission allows us to better develop our technology and systems to explore farther than we've ever been before - to an asteroid and to Mars - places that humanity has dreamed about … but has had no hope of ever attaining,’ NASA administrator Charles Bolden said.



‘We're on the threshold of being able to tell my kids and my grandkids that we're almost there.’

In 2010, Mr Obama proposed that NASA follow the International Space Station programme with a human mission to an asteroid by 2025.



The agency has been developing a heavy-lift rocket and deep-space capsule capable of carrying astronauts beyond the station's 250 mile high orbit.



The system would be capable of traveling to the moon, asteroids and eventually to Mars, the long-term goal of the U.S. human space programme.

VIDEO How hard can it be? NASA's video shows how it plans to 'snare' asteroid

The president wants scientists to finding a small asteroid that could be shifted into an orbit near the moon and used by astronauts as a stepping stone for an eventual mission to Mars

‘I think the asteroid-retrieval mission lays out a place for us to go,’ Kennedy Space Centre director Bob Cabana said.



‘It does everything that needs to be done as far as developing the technologies and the skills that we need for exploration beyond planet Earth.’



Mr Obama's 2014 spending plan proposes £68 million to start work on the new mission, which entails finding a 23 to 33 foot wide asteroid and robotically towing or pushing it toward Earth so it ends up in a stable orbit near the moon.



Astronauts aboard an Orion capsule would then blast off, land on the asteroid and bring back soil and rock samples for analysis.



‘The plan combines the science of mining an asteroid, along with developing ways to deflect one, along with providing a place to develop ways we can go to Mars,’ said U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat.

Barack Obama wants NASA to start work on a potential mission to Mars (image shows a concept for the mission)

The project, which envisions that astronauts could visit such an asteroid as early as 2021, is included in President Obama's £11.5 billion spending plan for the U.S. space agency for the 2014 tax year

NASA has not yet estimated the total cost of the mission, but expects it to be less than the £1.7 billion estimated last year by the California Institute of Technology's Keck Institute for Space Studies.



‘We do not think at this point that it will be that expensive,’ NASA Chief Financial Officer Elizabeth Robinson said.



The Keck-led ‘Asteroid Retrieval Feasibility Study’ proposed relocating a 500-ton asteroid closer to Earth to give astronauts a ‘unique, meaningful and affordable’ destination in the next decade, meeting Mr Obama's deadline.



Ms Robinson said Keck's cost estimate did not take into account projects already under way at NASA and proposed retrieving a type of asteroid that orbits farther away which would require a longer and more expensive mission.



NASA also would look to partner with fledging space mining companies, such as start-ups Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, as well as agencies interested in planetary defence.



It is intended as an expansion of existing initiatives to find asteroids that may be on a collision course with Earth, and as part of preparations for a human expedition to Mars in the 2030s

‘Obviously we're looking all sorts of interests in this asteroid mission in terms of the kinds of scientific and industrial uses that could be spawned from it,’ Ms Robinson added.



Interest in potentially threatening asteroids sky-rocketed after a small asteroid exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia on February 15, shattering windows and damaging buildings.



About 1,500 people were injured by flying glass and debris.



The same day another larger asteroid passed about 17,200 miles from Earth - closer than the television and communication satellites that ring the planet.



The incidents had created an imperative ‘to develop techniques and technology that will help deter or to keep an asteroid or other type of body from impacting Earth,’ Mr Bolden said.



‘One of the serendipitous results from this [asteroid-retrieval] flight we hope will be the demonstration of a capability to move an asteroid, to deflect it ever so slightly.’



Mr Obama is also requesting £535 million to support efforts to develop commercial space taxis in hopes of breaking Russia's monopoly on crew transportation to the space station by 2017.

