IT IS WIDELY ACCEPTED THAT NEAR-EARTH OBJECTS (NEOS) REPRESENT A GLOBAL HAZARD FOR HUMAN CIVILIZATION. AS OF THIS WRITING 16 158 NEOS HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED OF WHICH OVER 1 786 ARE CLASSIFIED AS POTENTIALLY HAZARDOUS ASTEROIDS (PHAS). WHILE WE HAVE A GOOD UNDERSTANDING OF THEIR NUMBERS SIZE DISTRIBUTION AND DYNAMICAL BEHAVIORS (E.G. BOTTKE 2002 MAINZER ET AL. 2011 COTTO-FIGUEROA ET AL. 2015 STATLER ET AL. 2013) OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THEIR BASIC MECHANICAL PROPERTIES IS POOR. THIS KNOWLEDGE BEGINS MOST EFFICIENTLY WITH A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE FUNDAMENTAL MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF THE METEORITES IN OUR COLLECTIONS. METEORITES WHICH DERIVE FROM NEOS PROVIDE A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY TO STUDY THE FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICAL AND MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF ASTEROIDAL MATERIALS. BUT TO DATE FEW DIRECT STUDIES OF PHYSICAL PROPERTIES HAVE BEEN CONDUCTED ON THESE MATERIALS IN CONTRAST TO EXTENSIVE CHEMICAL AND ISOTOPIC ANALYSES. ONLY A FEW MEASUREMENTS OF SOUND SPEED ELASTIC CONSTANTS AND DYNAMIC FRACTURE PROPERTIES HAVE BEEN OBTAINED (IBRAHIM&HILDEBRAND 2012 KIMBERLEY&RAMESH 2011 FLYNN&DURDA 2004) AND GENERALLY WITHOUT ATTENTION TO THE IMPORTANCE OF SCALE. IT IS IMPERATIVE TO UNDERSTAND THE PHYSICAL AND SCALE DEPENDENT PROPERTIES IN ORDER TO GAIN INSIGHT INTO FRACTURE AND IMPACT DYNAMICS. PREVIOUS RESULTS OF ASTEROID DISRUPTION STUDIES THAT ARE STILL WIDELY USED (BENZ&ASPHAUG 1999) INCLUDE THE EQUATION OF STATE FOR BASALT AND A SIMPLE GRADY-KIPP 1980 DYNAMIC FRACTURE MODEL DERIVED FROM IMPACT EXPERIMENTS. ALTHOUGH THAT MODEL IS RATE AND SCALE DEPENDENT THE PARAMETERS FOR EXTRAPOLATION TO LARGE SCALES ARE UNKNOWN FOR METEORITES. MEASURING THE STRENGTHS OF ASTEROIDAL MATERIALS AND UNDERSTANDING OF HOW IT WILL SCALE WITH SIZE IS IMPORTANT FOR DEVELOPING MITIGATION STRATEGIES FOR POTENTIAL EARTH IMPACTORS AND FOR UNDERSTANDING PROPERTIES OF IN SITU MATERIALS ON ASTEROIDS DURING HUMAN AND ROBOTIC EXPLORATION.
$626,249FY2020National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA
University Of Puerto Rico, San Juan PR