NASA has officially launched its Deep Impact spacecraft that will attempt to smash into a relatively tiny asteroid called Bennu.
To get us started, one of the coolest things about the U.S. space agency is the fact that even though they’ve launched hundreds of missions over the years, the manned space program has been around for about 60 years and had many more missions after that. Some other great things to know about NASA are their initial mission to the moon as well as NASA’s ongoing probes to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. But what’s very cool about all of this is that NASA has an annual budget that can sometimes be as much as $18 billion, which the agency uses to do cool things like sending satellites to our closest planet, the moon, and places we still haven’t reached.
This budget is used for building, repairing, and launching missions in all different areas of exploration and science. The most recent budget was approved by the US Congress and recently it was signed into law by President Trump. The mission that will be sent on this particular NASA space voyage is called the Deep Impact mission.
One of the risks and benefits that was mentioned in an interview with NASA when the budget was being discussed is that the spacecraft could create a crater. This means that if the asteroid misses the spacecraft and the crater is created and it is huge, it could have a huge impact on the budget.
Now that we have the details, what are your thoughts on the budget? To be very honest, NASA’s many missions are mostly great to look at or to admire for sure, but it’s exciting to think about exactly what’s at stake. Check out the video above and let us know what you think in the comments below.