S8 Ep149: 1/4. The Genesis of the Asteroid Hunter Mission and Early Rejections — Dante Lauretta — Lauretta, hired by mentor Mike Drake at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL), initiated the astero

1/4. The Genesis of the Asteroid Hunter Mission and Early Rejections — Dante Lauretta — Lauretta, hired by mentor Mike Drake at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL), initiated the asteroid sample return mission concept in 2004 following a pivotal meeting with Lockheed Martin's Steve Price. The team submitted its initial proposal to NASA in July 2004, which received the agency's lowest competitive ranking, designated Category 4. A subsequent refined mission proposal targeting asteroid 1999 RQ36 was formally rejected in December 2007 due to prohibitively high estimated costs relative to the NASA planetary science program budget allocation. 1930