NASA: We're gonna rip up an ASTEROID and make it ORBIT the MOON
NASA has decided that putting a lump of rock from an asteroid into orbit around the Moon is better than trying to hook a whole asteroid. The ARM – Asteroid Redirection Mission – has settled on what the space agency called “Option B”, sending a spacecraft to a near-Earth asteroid big enough to have boulders on the surface and …
COMMENTS
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Thursday 26th March 2015 08:30 GMT Scott Broukell
Just put up a big sign
'Any asteroid found hereabouts, having collided, deemed to have been abandoned or otherwise found to be in contravention of Earth's Near Orbit Rules and Regulations, shall be clamped and the registered keeper fined. A maximum penalty of 5-years imprisonment applies.'
There, that ought to do it.
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Thursday 26th March 2015 11:24 GMT Jimmy2Cows
Re: Just put up a big sign
How about the UK gov creates an ineffectual regulator to give the other space rocks a thorough gumming each time one of them gets too close or dares to impact our atmosphere.
I propose we call it Office for Diverting Space-rocks - OFDIVS.
Sorry. I'll get my space-suit ---->
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Thursday 26th March 2015 13:50 GMT TeeCee
Simpler.
Ditch the landing engines, rotating mounts 'n such and just drive the thing into it front end first. There's sweet Fanny Adams by way of gravity involved when approaching an object that size, so the attitude control thrusters should be able to ensure that no more than a gentle bump is felt.
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Thursday 12th November 2015 02:11 GMT wdmot
Pebble
No worries, by the time they get there, the target will be a pebble...
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Thursday 26th March 2015 14:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
Slow and relatively boring
This is how NASA does things, albeit in the past on a more accelerated schedule. It's easy to forget that manned spaceflight started out with a couple of suborbital "spam in a can" hops, graduated to a few hours in orbit and finally jogged into near Earth rendezvous and docking (the first docking attempt by a 2-man Gemini crew with a spent Agena booster almost immediately degenerating into a hair-raising spin fest when an attitude control thruster got stuck). So we get a robot to go out and grab one of a few chunks of rock off and asteroid, tow it into Lunar orbit and then have a manned Orion meet up with it some time later. The only problem we have is what to do next. Because the original Apollo program was basically drowned in the bathtub of budgetary expediency (hey, we had an expensive war to fight in Vietnam, after all), we really don't have much experience with the biology, physics and politics of doing extended duration manned missions outside of low Earth orbit.
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Thursday 26th March 2015 15:09 GMT Beachrider
One of the things about getting a larger asteroid...
I always thought that NASA was trying to somehow capture the asteroid and change it into an environment of some kind. If they are getting into much smaller, that must have come off the table. Perhaps they are piecing this down to meet budgetary requirements.
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Thursday 26th March 2015 15:58 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: One of the things about getting a larger asteroid...
No. They simply wanted to get hold of a small asteroid, or boulder from a sizable asteroid, to do things like assay the composition. There's been no scaling-down, and there was no plan (that I'm aware of) to set up any kind of base on an asteroid. At the moment, that'd be simply impractical.
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Friday 27th March 2015 17:25 GMT JCitizen
I predicted this..
in a paper I wrote in high school, on meteor bombing. At the time, I cheerfully pointed out, we don't have to have radiation to have a weapon just as good as the atomic bomb - just put translinear accelerators on asteroids and position them for later on, when a quick insertion propellant can be attached to said asteroid for future targets in war.
Of course this should be outlawed internationally, and I think it already is. Perhaps this could be seen as a violation of the space based weapons platform treaty? However, I honestly think this is the beginning of the next true "gold rush" for space minerals; that could signal a huge push by space entrepreneurs wishing to exploit mineral resources for what is actually a cheaper way to mine; and if properly regulated, could be cleaner methods for earthlings! As long as we don't clutter up the orbits of our little earth moon system, it could be something on the scale of the '49ers gold rush!
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Saturday 28th March 2015 13:44 GMT greenstar
NASA = End of Life
NASA bombed the moon 2 years ago to send particles into the air to capture and analyze for moisture. The idiots didn't stop to think that the moon directs our tides, our seasons, our time structure. One nano- millimeter of orbit alteration would change life as we know it. That's why we're having summer in the middle of March in CA. Now they're going to put an impediment between earth and the moon? These people have NO COMMON SENSE. Stop funding NASA!
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Monday 30th March 2015 08:34 GMT ZippedyDooDah
Re: NASA = End of Life
"One nano-millimeter or orbit alteration would change life as we know it"
I think you might be wrong here. The moon has been in retreat from the Earth for millennia. In fact it is retreating at 3.78 centimeters (1.5 inches) per year. We only know this of course thanks to NASA leaving reflectors on the moon way back in the Apollo program.
I think you can relax. California is basically a desert anyway, You'd be much wiser to ration your water consumption properly because it could get very desperate over their very soon. Don't blame NASA!
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Tuesday 31st March 2015 15:22 GMT Dropper
Why?
"NASA has decided that putting a lump of rock from an asteroid into orbit around the Moon is better than trying to hook a whole asteroid."
Just trying to get my head around this.. someone decided that putting part of an asteroid in orbit around the moon is better than putting a whole one in orbit around the moon. Okay I get that part. It is better because maybe it's easier.
The part I don't get is why they haven't worked out that not putting an asteroid in orbit around the moon at all is an even better idea.
When you play pool you can either knock a ball down a hole, or you can get fancy and use a trick shot to knock two or three into various holes at the same time. This is like someone at NASA decided that they best way to save the planet in the advent of a planet-killing asteroid would be to get drunk and attempt a trick shot. Do they do all their recruiting from ACME, or just when they want to hire someone for the planet-saving division?