Are manned mission to asteroids possible? What are the roadblocks astronauts can face

Space agencies have successfully sent spacecrafts to asteroids a for abrief soft landing but never has an astronaut visited these space rocks.

Asteroids are a storehouse of metals that are rare on the earth. Besides studying samples from this asteroid could provide valuable clues to the origins of life and help us understand how the Earth was created. But the question here is, can humans make a manned mission to the asteroids? Can we colonize asteroids and dig out metals? Space agencies have successfully sent spacecrafts to asteroids a for abrief soft landing but never has an astronaut visited these space rocks.

Asteroids missions so far

On February 12, 2001, flight controllers successfully landed NASA's Near Earth Object (NEO) spacecraft on the asteroid known as Eros. It was the first spacecraft to successfully land on an asteroid's surface. The spacecraft took close-up pictures of the asteroid before it got to its destination, and it also measured its size.

In September 2018, the OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft successfully travelled to Bennu and collected a small sample for study. It will return the sample to Earth in 2023. The mission was launched in September 2016 from Cape Canaveral.

In November 2005, the Hayabusa probe, which was launched by Japan, twice "landed" on the asteroid Itokawa. After carefully skimming the surface of the space rock, the spacecraft carried out a sample return mission. It collected a small amount of dust as part of its mission.

Struggles that scientists face for asteroid mission

The moon is about 240,000 miles away. Reaching an asteroid would take around five million miles. A round trip to a target asteroid would typically take five to six months.

In order to reach an asteroid and stay there for a long time, NASA would need to build a massive spaceship that can house astronauts and store all the supplies they need.

During the journey, astronauts would have to spend a lot of time cooking for themselves due to the high levels of space radiation they would encounter. Unlike the astronauts on the space shuttle, those who leave Earth's orbit don't have the same protection. Moreover, space radiation can cause nausea and vomiting

In the end, even the biggest asteroids do not have gravity. As a result, objects that are in contact with the surface of the space rock can easily drift away. Astronauts wouldn't be able to walk on an asteroid.

Even then, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is hopeful that a manned mission to an asteroid could be carried out in about 50 years, provided humans reach Mars by 2038.