NASA Plans to Drag an Asteroid Into Lunar Orbit!

This one may be a bit controversial. NASA is planning to capture an asteroid and lock it into a lunar orbit. Dangerous? Yes. Expensive? Yes.
Weaponizing space?? Could be.

www.newscientist.com...

Interested to hear ATS's views on this.

reply to post by JayinAR


This is fascinating !! (S and F.)

I sure hope they pull it off.

It is probably better to aim for the Moon's orbit, than for Earth's orbit.
It just sounds safer to aim for something further away from Earth.

We don't want a huge asteroid slamming into the Earth if something goes wrong.

reply to post by QMask


I think the plan has its pros and cons, personally. This apparently was Obama's idea.
I don't like the sound of that.

I think the potential for disaster greatly outweighs any scientific merits.

Don't get me wrong, it sounds like a fairly cool idea, if they could pull it off without incident, but what are the guarantees?


EDIT: NVM, should have read the full article, they are talking about a rock only 7 metres wide, although that that makes it sound financially worse.

What pocket is so overflowing with money, that it can be raided for this project. With our economy in the ditch, this is going to help...how....

Des

reply to post by JayinAR

there are reports that the agency is considering a proposal to capture an asteroid and drag it into the moon's orbit.

New Scientist

Not sure that means they are "planning" to definitely go through with it.

It is a "rumour" of a "prposal" at this point.

reply to post by JayinAR


The article says this is being considered, but not a set mission as yet. It would happen in the 2020s. What would the reasons be? Because they can, actually a pretty good reason. To study the asteroid at length (can it be landed on? Probably). To develop new technology for the mission, technology which could find other uses either in space or on earth. Many more come to mind.

reply to post by woogleuk


Well, it would have Scientific Merit on down the road. Being able to capture asteroids could eventually help protect our planet.
But the biggest potential use of something like this is military, IMO.

Interesting idea, I hope it is worked out with safety utmost in mind. However, I don't think is being done for mere research and scientific endeavor. I think this being done to see if another way of mining minerals/materials in space can be done in way that doesn't require long and expensive missions to far off asteroids. Instead, simply push the asteroid closer to Earth and setup operations. But then again, maybe it is just for the "lols". Either way, I'm not sure if this is worth the investment---Obama's idea or not.

-Ghoster

reply to post by JayinAR


From the article:

the robot would catch the asteroid in a bag measuring about 10 metres by 15 metres and head back towards the moon. Altogether it would take about six to 10 years to deliver the asteroid to lunar orbit.

So, the asteroid will be captured in a big bag. Sounds great.

But it will take 6 to 10 years to deliver the asteroid to the lunar orbit.
That is very disappointing.

It will take such a long time to reach this goal.

reply to post by JayinAR


New Alcatraz in space....

Des

There is already a rock in Orbit, Its called the Moon. I just dont understand the reason for this, and why we cant just go back to the moon, if we are going to attempt to do this.

reply to post by Chamberf=6


True. They haven't designated a mission or anything, but yeah, they've planned it. At least far enough to establish the logistics of it.

reply to post by QMask


Yeah. That's dissapointing for sure.
The potential for disaster on a mission like this would be crazy. Like if the bag broke just at the proper time to deliver the rock to Moscow instead of the moon. Haha

Okay I am about to go psy-fi here...

Perhaps it is practice for catching objects in space and establishing an orbit away from earth. What better place to put an unsafe object but the moon.

Now we going to get crazy. Perhaps NASA is aware of a inbound and unresponsive object of non natural orgins. Perhaps they intend to capture it and for safety concerns establish an orbit around the moon for safe keeping

Or...

They are just wasting money, weapons, space farming, etc etc

reply to post by Destinyone


Yeah. The costs associated with this would be huge, I imagine. But who knows, maybe by then the economy will be in good shape. Still a ways down the road.

I thought nasa was closing.. why would they waste time and effort and money we don't have to do something so stupid,.. who cares about an dragging rocks around in space and sticking them around the moon, why not land on the moon and find out everything we can about it or something that actually matters..

Where the hell do they have the money to waste on this anyways, if nasa isn't building moon bases for us to go live on and colonize or prepping mars for us to live on when we kill this planet then shut it down what is the point is spending money on them it sjust a waste...

all we need is for something to go wrong and shoot a huge rock right towards earth and kills millions and be like oooppps our bad sorry earth from nasa...

Originally posted by Glassbender777
There is already a rock in Orbit, Its called the Moon. I just dont understand the reason for this, and why we cant just go back to the moon, if we are going to attempt to do this.

Really. what you say is true. Why not just go back to the moon to practice mining in space. Maybe it's to set up a close-by off moon base to gather data, on the folks already there....

This is fun....

Des

reply to post by Glassbender777


That's a good question.

That's a lot of money to drag a relatively small rock to orbit around the moon.. I mean aren't there many other space missions that would be more beneficial than studying a 7m in diameter rock? That isn't an asteroid.. it's a meteorite..