Why is NASA sending out the Dawn spacecraft to study a steroid?

Answer 1

Steroids are associated with a number of health problems. For example, their sustained use to ameliorate certain conditions (such as severe allergies, or arthritis) can lead to bone loss. Athletes who use steroids for bulk up on muscle may experience psychiatric disorders, and a number of cases of domestic violence and even murder have been reported in the press as associated with steroid abuse ('roid rage).

What was not known until very recently is that steroids are actually small beings that inhabit the region between Mars and Jupiter. NASA, acting under orders from the President and Congress, has taken a keen interest in studying the Steroid people. It is now known that steroid beings can insert themselves into the human brain and cause behavioral havoc.

The purpose of NASA's mission is to study the Steroids in their native environment and to determine whether we can negotiate with them, or, failing that, exterminate them. For a first mission it was decided to find an isolated Steroid so that he could not gang up on the satellite probe with his friends.

So this is why Nasa is sending the Dawn spacecraft to study a Steroid. It is thought that the Steroids are most likely extremely hostile and that once we know enough about where they live that we will have to subject them to annihilation, that is, "ethnic cleansing." This is why the spacecraft is callede "Dawn," after the detergent.

Hope that helps,

GN

Answer 2

Steroids do not normally require space probes to be studied in detail. They generally have three fused six-membered carbon rings fused with a five membered ring. Examples are cholesterol, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and cortisone. There are actually many thousands of steroids possible, some are saturated, some are unsaturated. They are found in plants and animals, probably in bacteria too and so appear to be characteristic of living systems. Since there seem to be no living systems in nearby space, sending a space probe appears to be an exercise in futility.

Answer 3

The Dawn mission is to study asteroids, not a steroid.
Asteroids are the small rocky bodies left over after the formation of the solar system.
Dawn will explore asteroid Vesta in 2011 and the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015.
These two largest members of the asteroid belt have been witness to much of our solar system's history.
Dawn will measure elemental and mineral composition, shape, surface topography, and tectonic history, and will also seek water-bearing minerals, as well measure the celestial bodies' masses and gravity fields.

This will tell us a lot about the material of the early solar system, and how it changed over time.

Answer 4

Why not?
It creates employment , boosts the economy and is far less
morally unsound than murdering Iraqi children.