On September 8, 2016, NASA's planetary mission OSIRIS-REx, an acronym for "Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer, took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It returned to Earth yesterday in the Utah desert after a little over seven years.
In those seven years the spacecraft traveled over 4 billion miles or 6.2 billion kilometers to reach an asteroid named Bennu which at that point was some 200 million miles from us. On Oct. 20, 2020, it unfurled its robotic arm, briefly touched down on the asteroid and collected dust and pebbles. The asteroid sample weighing about 250 grams was packed in a capsule for its return journey. That sample is now safely home with NASA scientists for a months-long, if not a years-long investigation, into its composition and through it look for answers to some profound questions, including about the origin on life.
The sample represents over 4 billion plus years of history about our solar system. It is pristine and untouched by human hands.
Whichever way you look at this, it is an astonishing mission by NASA. Imagine the variables since the mission was first proposed in 2004 and twice rejected for various reasons. Imagine the confluence of technologies and human intelligence that went into mounting it and executing it first to takeoff, then to swing around Earth, then to reach Bennu, then to observe the asteroid closely for over a year to look for a safe spot to rendezvous, then to rapidly drill its surface for a sample, then to take off at 1000 kilometers an hour to thrust away from the asteroid and then on to a journey back home and then finally calculate its return precisely so that it lands safely. If your mind does not boggle at the splendid feat, get it examined.
But after all that OSIRIS has no rest. It has already been renamed as OSIRIS-APEX (OSIRIS-APophis EXplorer) to explore Apophis, an asteroid roughly 1,200 feet (roughly 370 meters) in diameter that will come within 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) of Earth in 2029. The spacecraft was here after traveling a total of 6.2 billion miles only to drop off this sample before embarking on another sample collection duty. We should be grateful to machines.
To think that such brilliant scientists have to share this planet with thousands of politicians across the world indulging in assholery and bigotry and skullduggery on a daily basis.
Take a moment from your lives and read a bit about such missions.