"NASA is reportedly mulling over plans to lasso an asteroid and force it to orbit the moon..."
http://now.msn.com/nasa-considers-plan- … -satellite
I am very pro NASA. But if a decimal point should happen to be misplaced, and the asteroid decides to drop by Earth...
Very interesting idea. The risks are pretty negligible - they're talking about capturing a 20-foot-long asteroid, so the worst-case scenario if it were to hit the Earth is some minor property damage.
I'm curious about the whole "put it in a sack" part of the plan. That seems almost comically simplistic. Scientists have proposed all sorts of interesting ideas for steering an asteroid - from solar sails to paint bombs to gravity tractors to nuclear explosions. This is the first I've heard of putting an asteroid in a bag and taking it home.
The fact that NASA is seriously considering this is great. It's the kind of Boldly Go stuff they need to be doing.
That does sound like a worthwhile project all right. We could learn an awful lot just from the effort, let alone having an asteroid to examine.
Better, though, would be to capture a small comet and use that. Wouldn't that make a pretty bauble in our night sky? Cosmic artwork!
On the down side, just as the article points out, can you imagine what it would do to the astrologers? Poor souls would have to spend decades redoing all their "calculations".
It would never happen, the occupants of the moon would not put up with it!
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...even his own."He" gives lip service to wanting to save all life but his own.Everyday of his life, "he" dedicates his existence to the development of being able to kill more of his kind without...
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