BS: US flies to asteroid, scoops, returns?

Pfc. Sandoval, Ashley Wells, Sheldon S., Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit

It doesn't look real or capable of a billion+ mile flight. That's because it isn't. It's an artist's rendition because NASA won't release a non-CGI photo of the real thing, if there is a real thing.

We'll name it after Osiris then invent an acronym.

We call BS on "OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) is a NASA (NAZIesque "Never A Straight Answer" organization) asteroid-study and sample-return mission.

We are supposed to believe that it just completed a miraculous primary mission of visiting an asteroid hurtling through the vacuum of empty space and collecting ground samples from 101955 Bennu, a carbonaceous near-Earth asteroid [12]?

The [coffee grounds worth of] material, allegedly returned on Sept. 24, 2023 [13], is expected to enable scientists on Earth to learn more about the formation and evolution of the Solar System, its initial stages of planet formation, and the source of organic compounds that led to the formation of life on Earth [14], because many different extraterrestrials could surely not have been involved in coming to this rock and setting things in motion or checking back in from time to time, mining gold and rare earth minerals, taking wives, leaving DNA, and whisking off to other projects in the galaxy.

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  Buddhism's Genesis account (the Agganna Sutta or "Discourse on Origins") suggests life began on Earth an incredibly long time ago, not naturally originating out of an organic broth in a soupy sea of carbon elements and amino acids necessary for life as we know it, by virtue of radiant space beings landing here, liking the sensual experience of things, and degrading -- devolving by devolution -- over the aeons (kalpas). It says nothing of "life" itself originating here. It's everywhere in the ten thousand directions of the universe (portion of the bubble like multiverse), inconceivably old, cyclical, expanding and contracting, chaotic and organized, not beginning but continuing. Those beings who alighted on this plane, because earth is described as a plane of concentric circle divided by insurmountable heights with different types of being currently inhabiting it, each group under their own sun and moon, with their own customs, appearances, lifespans, cultures, and habits, meeting by rulers who possess a special treasure that makes meeting possible -- a vimana or space vehicle capable of traveling from one world to another -- and, rightly speaking, it should be possible to call all of these beings "human," as they are all humanoids, and "earthlings," as they are all on the plane. Moreover, there are other planes below where other advanced beings abide. Just as there is all this life here that we are not generally aware of, as shown on some maps but not the official ones, there is life all over the solar system and elsewhere.

Burnt marshmallow that fell in the sand or Asteroid Bennu spinning in open space?

.

What does our Secret Space Program do, Semjase?

Afterward, its mission was extended to conduct proximity operations and in-depth study of asteroid 99942 Apophis as OSIRIS-APEX (Apophis Explorer) [15]. Oh, brother, allegedly extends.

OSIRIS-REx was launched on Sept. 8, 2016 -- though we never heard anything about that -- flew past Earth on Sept. 22, 2017 -- completely under our radar as media watchers -- and allegedly rendezvoused with Bennu on Dec. 3, 2018 [16].

It spent the next two years analyzing the surface to find a suitable site from which to extract a sample. Oh, brother! The media reported that it swooped in, extending an arm, scrapping off some random surface material from its pristine fingerprint of the early universe, like a sterile crime scene. The Big Bang sneezed dust, it landed on Bennu, rested there for billions upon billions of years, and we are the first to get our hands on it. Incredible. Unbelievable. BS.

On Oct. 20, 2020, OSIRIS-REx touched down on Bennu and successfully collected a sample [17, 18,19, 20]. OSIRIS-REx departed Bennu on May 10, 2021 [21, 22] and returned its sample to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023 [23], subsequently starting its new mission to study 99942 Apophis.

Sure, it did. Why not? There's a picture of it all burned up, sitting in the desert, except for that bright yellow spot. Why not?

The spacecraft [like a gnat in space, tinsel and fragile] will arrive at Apophis in April 2029, around when the asteroid is expected to encounter Earth.

Bennu was chosen as the target of study because it is a "time capsule" from the birth of the Solar System [24]. Oy vey 🙄, here we go.

Bennu has a very dark surface and is classified as a B-type asteroid, a sub-type of the carbonaceous C-type asteroids. Such asteroids are considered primitive, having undergone little geological change from their time of formation.

In particular, Bennu was selected because of the availability of pristine carbonaceous material, a key element in organic molecules necessary for life as well as representative of matter from before the formation of Earth. Organic molecules, such as amino acids, have previously been found in meteorite and comet samples, indicating that some ingredients necessary for life can be naturally synthesized in outer space [1].

There ya have it. What more is there to say? We must have a secret space program to do such missions, if they're done at all, because we do not have the technology in our open budget programs. If only NASA were a truthful and transparent organization.

The alleged billion-dollar price tag

The cost of the OSIRIS-REx mission is approximately US$800 million [25], PLUS the cost of the Atlas V launch vehicle, which is about another US$183.5 million [26]. And what with the OSIRIS-APEX extended mission costs, that's an additional US$200 million [15].

It is the third planetary science mission selected in the New Frontiers program, after Juno and New Horizons. The principal investigator is Dante Lauretta from the University of Arizona.

OSIRIS-REx was the first United States spacecraft to return samples from an asteroid; the earlier, similar Japanese probe Hayabusa returned samples from 25143 Itokawa in 2010, and Hayabusa2 allegedly returned from 162173 Ryugu in Dec. 2020. Oh, those pesky Japanese nontheistic Buddhists and atheistic scientists are ahead of us and have better engineers, STEM graduates, and math nerds? There's a surprise. More

OSIRIS-REx capsule NASA/Keegan Barber - This image or video was catalogued by NASA Headquarters of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under Photo ID: NHQ202309240002. The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is seen shortly after touching down in the desert, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023, at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Photo Credit: (NASA/Keegan Barber)