NASA Funds 'Interworld Slingshot' Concept to Map Solar System Resources

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In-situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) is going to be a critical technical component of any human expansion out into the solar system.

Our first challenge with utilizing those resources, though, is finding them.

We know how, at least in theory - send a probe to an asteroid, or a particular part of the Moon, and take a sample, maybe analyze that sample with some spectrographs, or send it back to Earth to be poked and prodded.

The problem with this methodology is simple - it’s expensive.

Sending dedicated probes to every near-Earth asteroid, or every potentially interesting site near a lunar base is prohibitively expensive.

So a new NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) grant explores a different opportunity - using a single, relatively small spacecraft to visit multiple ISRU locations, and figure out their composition from tens of kilometers away.